Ep. 241 | Joshua Shores | MARSOC Raider, Marine Infantry, Fire Fighter

So we can ahead and kick it off. You ready to go, Let's go, all right, Joshua sure, Yeah, Well Joshua.

Or josh josh is fine, all right, josh Sure Joshua on my author page.

But you know, Joshua makes you some more distinguished.

It does well. If you want to do the extra syllables, then take it.

Take it well. I appreciate you coming on the show man. Tracy Offfitt put us in contact together. He was my old start major at First Angle Co. He's been on the show multiple times. Old school guests probably want to see him back again. It's been a long time since he's been on, so he'll have to come on. But you know, he's a good connection to have.

Yeah, he's awesome. I saw him a couple of weeks ago when I was out in Camp Pendleton and we grabbed dinner with another guy that I starved with. It was awesome. It was just great to see him. I learned a lot more about the deployment and stuff from his perspective.

You know then, so school, Yeah, because you were probably a junior marine right.

Oh, as a boot it was my first deployment. It was I just picked up well, I picked up Blant's corporal, you know, and so, and he had just picked up first sergeant. Yeah, so we're you know, so.

He was moving into that world. I will say this, this is a really cool story about Tracy, and then we'll move on. When I first started the podcast, I think it was when it was audio only. I did one of my episodes. I'm pretty sure it was audio only. I did my episode and I was like, hey, I'm going to be moving. And that's when I moved from Oceanside down here to San Diego. I was like, hey, I'm going to be moving. So there may be like a week or two where there's no episode. And he heard that I released it. He heard it and was like, hey, man, I heard on the podcast you're moving. Do you need a truck? You want to borrow my truck? And I'm like, dude, you know who does that? You know? He just called me out of the blue.

Like, hey, bro, he's amazing. That's him in a nutshell. Yeah, he was always looking out for his marines.

Yeah, he's good people man. But yeah, I appreciate, like I said, I appreciate him putting us in contact. Let's get into your story though, So what year did you end up joining then, and why did you go into the infantry?

Yeah, I joined in Well, so I did the delayed entry program in two thousand and three because I was still too young. I think I turned seventeen, and then that's when I joined the debt and so I can't remember how long you had to wait to go, So I had to wait until that timeframe. But I knew I was gonna be a marine, you know, ever since I was a young kid, and my family has a history of military service. My dad is a marine, and so it was just kind of a natural like progression for my life. But I joined as soon as I could.

My parents had a sign for me. I actually planned my high school like credits to graduate early, so I had enough credits in January that I graduated high school and then went to boot camp in February of four.

So that's just right into it, man, right into it.

Yeah, and the war was going on at that point, so I, you know, naive me, I was like, well, if I'm gonna be infantry, because that's all I wanted to do, if I wanted to do anything else, I was enjoying like the Army Air Force. But but yeah, I was just like, if I'm going to do this, then I need to do it as soon as I can.

I'm gonna miss the war. It was my fear as a naive, as a naive eighteen year old.

That was everybody's fear, dude. In two thousand and six, I was like, I'm going to miss the war, you know, and then it ended up taking me three years to be able to deploy, and it was like two thousand and nine, I'm like, I'm gonna end up missing the war.

Yea, Luckily it went on forever.

Yeah, he kept going, yeah, yeah, that's crazy though it is looking back, would you recommend most people do that join at seventeen and a half essentially eighteen, and then go right into the military, or do you think you'd be smarter to live a couple of years and then.

Go, Well, it depends on what you want to do, right if you're in my opinion, And like, this kind of goes into another avenue, but it covers it, so I'll kind of touch on it. And my wife. My wife's been with me since September eleventh, two thousand and one. We started dating on September eleventh. You know, it was like such a short anniversary.

But you know, well, I was.

Just like, it's such a shitty day. I remember Congress was singing God Bless America on the TV as I'm like on MS send Messenger and I'm asking her to date me. And I was like, well, she says, yes, then something good can come out of this day. And so anyway, we've been together for a long time. She's seen all the stuff that I've been through and she's been through it with me. But you know, she's like, what would you say to our kids if they wanted to join? And I said, be an officer. So going back to your question, you know, I think, you know, having not been an officer myself and seeing a lot of my my officer friends now after being removed from it and the connections they've had and just some of

the experiences that they've had, if they're not wanting to stay in for a long period of time, I'd consider the officer route. So go to college, go to ROTC, get into an ROTC program as early as you can, and start that route. But if you if you know you're gonna be a en listened marine, like I did, you know, just go in Why why wait? I guess high school in my opinion, and it was. It was an experience, but I knew I wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and so I just went right at it. And I don't regret that, because, you know, I got a little bit of a head start time wise on life outside of the Marine Corps. You know, had I wanted to stay in, I would have been a very young marine throughout it.

But that would have been even beneficial for me in that way.

So, yeah, you would have retired when you were thirty eight.

Yeah that's crazy.

Yeah, a nice old man thirty eight.

I know. That's hilarious too because I remember some of the old the old men in our platoon from Ramadi, you know, they were twenty four, twenty five, you know.

Yeah, it was weird being in the Marine Corps long enough where people started calling me old. I'm like, dude, I'm twenty seven, Like what are you talking about? They're like, all right, old guy, and I'm like, what the fuck?

How long did you serve?

Twelve years?

Okay, yeah that's a good run.

Yeah, yeah, it wasn't bad. You know, it started off rocky, but it wasn't too bad something. So something that I the reason I ask you about if you would come in later is I wanted to come in right out of high school as well. I was a senior when September eleventh happened and I got arrested. I got in trouble and like that, got kicked down the road and ended up taking me a few years to actually be able to join. And but in that period I got to kind of like live. I got to go, I lived on my own, I had an apartment, I paid bills, I had a job, you know, and I did those kind of things. And I think that honestly made me a little bit more prepared to transition out because I had that life experience beforehand. Because like in your case,

you go straight from your parents' house in high school, straight to boot camp and then straight to the fleet, and then you do four years. You may be in charge at some point towards the end of that, but all the way up until that point, someone's telling you what to do all the time, where to go, where to be. And I think a lot of times in that case, guys are so used to that there's someone there, there's the food's gonna be there. This is where we're going, this is where the ride's coming from. It's always prepared.

You don't worry about electricity bills or anything like that in the barracks. I think some of those guys have a hard time when they get out because this is now the first time they've ever been asked to kind of take care of themselves, you know what I'm saying, in a different way than they did in the Marine.

Corps totally, And I hadn't really given much thought to that because my experience was different from that, being that I got married in two thousand and five, so about a year and a half into my enlistment, I got married and we lived off base. So that helped us because my wife moved out and we lived in San Clemente, and so I had to pay bills, I had to do, you know, put food on the table for both of us.

I had basically it. The thing I appreciated about it is that being married so young, my wife and I were just in it together, and it made the Marine Corps seem more like a job than it was necessarily like my entire life. It was nice to get a break off base. Going back to my own apartment and living that kind of normal life now in between all my deployments and everything. My wife would move home to live with her parents. But it was it was nice kind of having that that practice to be to be a normal human being outside of the military, you know, before I got out. But you know, I could definitely see how someone would have kind of a shock, a culture shock, on top of getting out of the Marine Corps,

which is its own beast, to now have to to have all the responsibilities you know that you don't really think about and you take for granted while you're serving.

Yeah, who do you call to get your electricity turn on your apartment? Yeah? You know, how do you do Yeah? Like mail? He used to do mail. Call like they just bring you the mail, you know. Now Yeah, it's I think I think that is uh. I don't think people will take that into account enough. I think we should give in like in service, Uh, troops should have more responsibility. I think like when you go to the barracks, I think you should rent your barracks room and it should just be like an apartment. Like you're gonna go, You're gonna do a walk through, You're gonna sign for it.

I think you should pay for your portion of elitricity. You know, you're getting all the the government's gonna cover it, but you gotta pay for it, you know what I'm saying. And like, do those.

It's like your uniforms, right, we all we all got them in boot camp. And then you realize that you're in boot camp. It's like, wait, I have to pay for these. I thought they gave them to us.

You know, wait, I only got a thousand dollars for three months of work.

Yeah. Well, but I will say this like having had no well I had. I've worked like four jobs in high school and they were like pizza delivery and all these random things. But you know, my dad had like a metal shop, so I had, you know, different irons in the fire back then. But when I got to the military, that was some of the most stable and the most income I ever had, So I had nothing really to base it off of. For me, it was like ooh, fun money until I got my apartment and then how to do that stuff? You know. So for from your perspective on it, having had lived life outside of the Marine Corps and then came back into it, you know, I think I could totally see that. You know, it's only a thousand bucks, But for me, it's like

I get a thousand bucks.

Yeah, I will say, once you start getting the normal pay, I mean, there's always a lot of talk about how troops are underpaid and you know this and that, and in some cases I agree, I think combat pay should be higher. But I will say that like when you look at the salary, you're looking at the base pay, and you're going, you're just negating the fact that like a junior marine doesn't have to pay for anything. His food is covered, his rent is covered, you know, like all of that. The only really the only bills that he will probably have is his cell phone and then maybe a car payment if he decides to get a car.

Some guys don't get a car, you know. And if that's if you're getting six hundred dollars a week or whatever, which doesn't sound a lot to someone working a normal job out in the real world. Uh, but you don't have any bills, you know what I'm saying, Like it's yep, people don't take that into account. Again, I think, obviously we could always pay the troops higher, and I always think that combat pay should be much more. I think what was it, like two hundred and fifty bucks or something.

It wasn't enough. Yeah, as you reflect on it, being like out and working in the professional world, it's like, holy shit, we didn't get paid anything, you know to go out and get blown up.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a low paying, high excitement job kind of. Yeah, it's not too bad. And then, like you mentioned before, if someone decides to be an officer, officers make so much more money. You know, from the I think a junior lieutenant makes as much as a gunnery sergeant.

So yeah, I haven't even compared that.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it was when I was in because I looked it up. I was like, damn, a lieutenant, like a new lieutenant makes just the same amount as a gunny. And I'm like, damn. Well, you know, and then you know, you move up to like major and then higher you're starting to make some really good money there. But yep, what did your you said you got married a year and a half into the Marine Corps.

I imagine your command had some ideas about that, since you were still pretty young.

I you know, I don't I was trying to think about that because I remember some of my junior marines when I was in at Marsok, we got back for a quick in between deployment kind of things like a week, and I was like, don't you know, jokingly like don't do anything fucking stupid, don't get married, don't do anything like that. And one of my younger marines comes up to me, like, as we're about to go to Afghanistan, he said, hey, I got married. And I was like, you're fucking kidding me, right, And it was almost like a punitive and where when I was where I was gonna get married, I think everyone knew. I mean they all knew my wife from before. You know, knew I had had a girlfriend that was a longtime girlfriend. And

it was something that we talked about with my command, you know, my staff Sergeant U. Santiago, we called them poppy. You know, we had talked it through and you know there's those warnings of like, hey, don't do anything stupid. But I think they just appreciated that I gave them a heads up beforehand. You know.

Yeah, I would say if I was a team chief or if I was in the command, I can't they technically can't stop you, you know, but they can give you some words of wisdom. And I've definitely talked to plenty of junior guys, and I'm just like, hey, man, the reality is, the odds aren't with you. When you're nineteen and you're talking about getting married, It's like, bro, the odds are not with you. You need to know that upfront. Make smart decisions. I can't stop you, but think about what you're doing, because this is like a real thing, you know. And then yeah, you know, the odds are not with them. So there's a lot of guys that make a bad decision.

She's the right one, right, They're always you know, she's not gonna leave me. And I remember, I remember, like I never had worries about it from my end, necessarily because I was the piece of shit, not my wife, and and yeah, I was a man. It could have been so much. You know. At one point we were dating and I started dating a married I started dating a married woman and we like broke it off. My wife and I she wasn't my wife at the time, but girlfriend, fiance, you know whatever. It was. So I wasn't I wasn't a great dude up you know, I had all these fucks that went out the window right before I went to Ramadi, and that's that was kind of mentality that I had, which I you know, I can't change it, so I won't say necessarily like, oh

do I regret it. I mean, I can't. I can't change the past. But it just is what it is. And I'm grateful that my wife stayed, you know with me or wanted to marry me. And then midway through my Ramadi deployment, I told her like, we're not I expected I was gonna die, you know, and I was just like, I'm not going to get married to you.

She didn't take that very well either, understandably.

Yeah, I mean, and she was.

Planning the wedding at that point.

You know, oh man, Yeah, that's probably not the message she wants to get. It's like the reverse fucking you know, dear John Letter.

It was to it because I you know, we had a government at the government center. When we would would do we did four days, but rolling four days at the government center in Ramadi, and so I set it up to call my fiance at the time, and right before we went to the government center where we had no phones, no way to contact anyone. And I called her and I was like, I don't want to get married anymore. I'm gonna die here, thanks by. And I hung up and went to the government center, and all my peers, you know, all my Northern Marines are like, what the fuck were you thinking?

That's crazy? I'm thinking there right now, what were you thinking?

Yeah? I know, I was. I wasn't man, I was like I had accepted my death at that point. I was just like, fuck it. Why why even like waste time do you have?

I mean, you get such a different mentality when you're overseas, not just on something like that, I am. I can't imagine. You know, when when you're facing death all the time, your mentality changes obviously, but just being on a deployment in any capacity, you start thinking different. You know, you start thinking like, I don't know, people start buying stuff online, people start making all these crazy plans, yeah, you know, and I'm like, oh, I want to get back, I'm want to be doing this, and then all of that goes out the window when they get back, you know, all the like I got super jacked undeployment. I'm gonna keep this up, you know.

Yeah, exactly.

Pizza.

Yeah, I was just saying, like, then there's fucking in and out and pizza like good luck, and then alcohol as much as you can as much as you can buy, you know.

Yeah, so when you're on deployment, you're not thinking, right, So I can see where that would come from, where you'd say some stuff that you didn't really mean. But that's pretty fucking hardcore.

It was man And and like I said, my my friends you know, that were serving with me were like, what the fuck are you thinking? They they talked to me and said, you need to call your fiance and get it back on. So I called her when I got back, explained my mentality because at that point we had lost a lot of guys and a lot of people were getting injured and and I you know, so she understood. My parents were there to kind of help talk her into my crazy mindset at the time. So it worked out, you know, But.

But you got one man hanging around.

She's very It's funny because when people read some of the people that know me very well and know us have seen us like throughout life because we start dating when we were fifteen, you know, and you know, they've read my book and they're like, they come back with some feedback and they say, your wife is a saint.

Yeah sounds like it, all right, Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. Another way to phrase that is you're a piece of shit? Why did you come home?

Man? Again? Though, like that deployment stuff, it gets pretty hardcore, you know, it's pretty serious. So it's like, what are you going to do? I don't know, you can't explain that mentality to people that haven't been in a situation where it's pretty hardcore. And even me, I've never even been in something like probably you facing Ramadi, you know, So it's like that it's hard for people to really understand. How.

I made a video. I made a clip and I put it out where I was talking about how people kind of forget about what this is and the at the end of the day, I'm out here trying to kill a guy and he's out here trying to kill me. That's it, you know. And when you get down to that fact that this is for real and there's literally someone hunting me and I'm hunting them, that kind of changes a lot of you know, and and not just thinking about it, but you're in it, you know what I'm saying, I want to get into that kind of mentality that you had before. We let's talk about the deployment before that, let's talk about your training. What did your actual ms end up being, How was the training, how do you think it prepared you for that deployment?

And then they get into it.

So I went in as O three eleven and went into I actually went into the pipeline at SY to do recon and so I got accepted into that pipeline and I went to PREBRC. You know, it was in summer of four and at that point, you know, going back to our mentality of you know, the war's go and be done. When I first got to first Recon, I was there for one of the Bronze Star Award ceremonies and listening to what some of these dudes are doing.

From that, you know, they're there for the generation kill deployment. So like, I'm meeting a lot of these guys and seeing them, and one of the senior gunnies at the at PREBRC was like, you know, the war's gonna be done by the time you are done with all your training to be a reco marine. And at that point, as a stupid eighteen year old. I was like, well that sucks, Like, why the fuck would I Why would I go through all this training when there's still a war, you know, And so I dropped and they told us if you drop, you're gonna go to one five and they're gonna go to the Triangle of Death. And I was like, sweet, that's where I want to go. So I dropped, and a bunch of us went to First Battalion, fifth Marines, and I got a signed to Alpha Company.

You know, in the training for that, uh you know, all the basic infantry stuff from sy from you know, boot camp, marksmanship, all that, you know, we got two one five. It was heavy, and hey, we're gonna go back to combat because this was one five, it's third combat deployment and they had just gotten off of the Fallujah the first Battle of Fallujah, and so there was a lot of salty, you know, two time combat vets.

And the first guy that the first Marine that got killed, Lieutenant Childers in the entire Iraq war, was from Alpha Company one five, And so, you know, all these names are being thrown out there, and you know, a legendary kind of unit to go to and and so it was like, we have to train to go to combat, and it was you know, your standard company exercises, weapons familiarization.

You know, we're trying to train about i eds and they weren't even that common at that point, you know, in the war, and they didn't come really prevalent until we got into Ramadi. They were they were already hitting two five and everything with those, But we didn't really have much for i D training other than like fishbone or herringbone, your your vehicles and don't don't be in the kill zone.

You know, yeah, get out of the kill zone. If someone gets hit, get at least fifty meters away, I think whatever it was.

Yeah, and then they're like and then herring bone and then you know, because that was before all the secondary ones were really coming into play, and so oh yeah, yeah, so stop your vehicle and wait.

You know, it was much different in Iraq. The ied threat was much different than Iraq than Afghanistan because you guys were facing you know, actual weapons, you know, actual artillery, mortar, shale shells, stuff like that, strapped to guardrails, buried all that stuff. Afghanistan was all homemade stuff, so it was really hit or miss on how effective it was. I mean, obviously it was really effective in some cases. So but that was you know, I hear guys talk about, oh yeah, we had twenty one to five five shells daisy chain down the road. It's like holy shit, like that's yeah, you know, just to imagine that's crazy.

Well, and that's you know, and you say that because I had I was in Afghanistan in two thousand and seven and eight. I was in Helmand and we didn't get hit with one IED. I don't think our entire company did. Wow. Really, yeah, it was all And that's crazy because we all drove around sanging We were in Sangin driving around nothing with it. We were with a Green Beret team and they hadn't even seen them yet and we were down in like now's at all the you know, the southern part of Helman didn't hit one ID.

It was all mortars, small arms fire RPGs. And that was a completely different experience from what Ramadi was. You know Ramadi was. You know, we drove around, I got blown up with a one five to five round. The night or the day after, I got blown up with like one hundred and twenty millimeter shell you know. And this is when they were still they weren't taking guys off the front, you know, they were just like, hey, you got blown up yesterday. That's cool, get back out.

There and water, bro.

Yeah serious, you know your head's good. What'd you say? You know?

Damn yeah? Do you So when you say you got blown up? How close were you?

So let's see the first one on April nineteenth of five, I was I don't know, it's probably like four thirty feet maybe from it, you know, and it was enough to to concuss us. And it may have been a one five five round. I don't know. It didn't feel as big as a one five five because we took that the next you know, like eleven hours or thirteen hours later, And that one was the one five five was like eight feet behind me on my same side of the vehicle and so and that was exposed above the ground. So it was like the full blast of a one five five round and it killed two of my friends. We all got knocked unconscious, got hit in the leg. So it was, you know, that was a it was. It was just a wild experience with those

you know, And I got blown up with two hand grenades from from our own Dudesh God really and Afghanistan we had one. It was a crazy situation. But what had happened is like, and I can go back into this if you want to, I don't know. Do you want do you want to stick on your MOODI for right now?

Well, I want to hear about these hand grenade while we're on that topic.

All right. So so we were moving in my buddy got shot in the leg. We were trying to find him in the taall band. We're fighting from these like trenches that they had used for I think for water, but they were fighting. It was like a trench line, you know, it was like a waddie, but it was it was even like more of a trench. They had dug those on purpose. They even had like hiding holes in them, which was crazy. But so we were trying to find my buddy and I had the eighteen Delta with me. This fucking amazing dude. He ended up getting the Navy Cross a couple of years after we left there for another deployment he was on.

So this as an eighteen delta, you got a Navy Cross, Yeah, he was.

He was with the Green Beray team. I think two of the guys got killed and he went back and like you know, he was rendering aid to them under heavy fire, himself having been blown up as well. So it was a pretty pretty awesome. He's a pretty awesome dude. He's an amazing guy, most humble dude you ever meet, you know, he's just a very good dude. But so we're we're with him, trying to get him to my buddy he got shot, and what had happened is it was like mud walls and almost like a labyrinth as we're moving through it, and we got to this metal, flimsy door. You know those little flimsy doors that are like five feet tall. Yeah, yeah, And we get to it and he's going through first, because you know, he's

a he's a shooter, just like all of us, right, So he We've been taking turns going through the door on a lot of these, just so you're not having the stress of that for the same guy every time, right, And so we're pushing through and he goes through and I have to put my head down to get through the fucking door. So I go down and he bumps back into me, and I'm like what, And he's like there's two fucking tal band right there. And I was like, well, we can't fucking go back through the door now, and so we frag it, throw the frags over the wall, and we go through the door after they blow, and there's a fucking RpK drum and our PG sitting there and they had turned and burned and they went to the trench line that was open. We didn't know there

was a trench there yet. And what had happened we realized later, is that they were pinning down my buddy and his team from this corner. They had them pinned down on their side, and then there was another Taliban team on the other side that had them pinned down on both sides. Basically they couldn't move. And so when we popped the corner, my buddy pops the corner to look down the way and he takes two rounds right away, like pop pop, and he's like, shit, they're right there.

They got his dialed in, and I'm like, fuck, get away from that, you know, you know, they obviously had. And me, being a lot taller, I walked up to the corner and I popped it to look and I'm like, where are they at I'm looking down this alleyway and I'm like, where are they at? And as I'm saying that, the wall beneath my face like blows away. Oh comes off, and the round somehow hit. I saw the round like hit right here, like right outside my vision on my peripheral, and it blew everything into my face and I just like pulled away and I was like, fuck, they have as dialed in guys, you know. And they're like, I saw there's this half wall, and what had happened is our our guys were fighting from behind that half wall,

and the last person that had popped the corner that I was on and that our team was on was shooting at them with RPG, with RPG and RpK fire. And so the Marines that were pinned down assumed that the next person that would come across that that come around that corner was the same team, right, And so I take a FREG and I throw it down and it blows and I'm holding the corner now and my buddy has a two O three and I'm like, there's a half wall, and I'm trying to explain this to him as I'm holding security on it, and I'm shooting the top of this half wall, trying to keep heads down, and I'm trying to explain to my buddy as I'm doing this. It's right behind me, my buddy, Matt Cook, and I'm like, hey, I want you to shoot your

two o three at this half wall. You're gonna pop the corner and run the rabbit, and I want you to pop it. He's like okay, and I'm like, you know, get ready, I'm gonna pop the corner with you. We're both gonna pop it. So I came back and I popped the corner and he stepped out to shoot it with his two oh three, and I'm in front of me.

It's probably like, I don't know, eight feet in front of me. There's just like, oh shit, there's something there. And it blew up a little frag and so I was partially protected from that wall. And Matt, my buddy, he got like the whole force of the blast and somehow, like I turned around. I picked him up with like super heman strength, and uh. We're like dusting each other off, and I'm like, are you good? And we're looking at each other and it didn't feel right. Something felt really wrong because at that point, you know, we'd fought a few times with Taliban and they were never that that consistent with their fighting, like they would have already ran like this doesn't feel right. I'm like, get everyone away

from the fucking corner. And so I back us all away. I take my team and I told him. I got on the radio. I'm like, who's in contact right now? And there is a couple of units, you know, we had our our captain was in contact. And then my buddy Kurt who got shot, you know, they were pinned down, and I think it was Vincent got on the line and he's like, hey, we're in contact right now. I'm like, okay, this sounds fucking ridiculous, but I need you to we need to do something. I'm like, I need you to pop your head over or around the corner from where you're at and just see if, like if it's Taliban or not. We're gonna do the same. I don't know if we're in friendly fire or not. And so they're like okay, okay, and I go one, two, three, and

I look, Doc had taken that corner. He's like, I'm gonna take it, you know, And so I see Doc pop the corner as I say one, two three on the radio, and his shoulders drop and he walks out into the middle of the hall, in the middle of that corridor, and I'm like, oh fuck, it was our guys and they and they blew us up with a frag.

You know, dude, you guys are so lucky you didn't kill each other, dude.

I I And that's what that was my first thought. I was like this hopeless feeling of, Oh my god, how would i've like in all this, because we're still getting they're still getting shot that from the other side, and it's like, in all this, my biggest like thought was, I don't know if I could have lived with myself if I had shot my own guy. And I don't know if they would have felt the same, you know, like luckily, I don't know how Matt and I didn't get like hit with the frag from a you know, one of our hand grenades. It's not like it was a Russian one. It was a good you know, American.

American American frag that just sucked. Apparently apparently well, you know, I've through my years in the military, I learned that ordnance doesn't always do what you think, and it created. The dust that it creates is way more dramatic than the effects that it actually has.

It's so true.

You know, I've seen guys literally we we were in Marjia and we had this guy who had just I think he had just set off an ied or he just buried an id. I can't remember. Maybe you're shooting in I don't even remember. And we had blown his friends up with the hell fire and now he's running a way and he's just running. And while he's running, we're setting up another hell fire shot. Yeah, and he just keeps jogging. He keeps jogging, and they shoot the hell fire. And you know when you hear when a hell fire shoots, it doesn't go as fast as a speed of sound, so you actually hear the launch. They can hear it right before it hits. And he was jogging and he heard it and he like, put you saw it in the video, put his head down and

he started sprinting real hard and he got just in front of where it impacted and he only got injured. He had some shrapnel in his back and then his ass. We actually metavacked him out. See, we take care of the Taliban fighters too. But it was like moments like that because you know, for a second he's covered in dust.

It's like, oh, got him, you know, and then oh wait, he's still alive. Holy crap.

You know. Yeah, it's weird how that how that works, you have, I think, especially with film, right, like the show of grenades and how they explode and movies are on my first throw, my first freag in and fucking si, it was just like, oh, you know, that was louder than I thought it would be, but it that was it like, where's all the fire in the.

No fire, no flames? Michael Bay needs to start. Apparently there's a new grenade out. Did you see that?

I did. I just saw that. Yeah, I'm curious to see it's more of like a concussive grenade than it is.

Yeah, I think I said it was more of a thermo baric kind of deal.

Yeah. Than actually like it too that.

I wonder, Uh, I wonder I'd like to see one, and I wonder if there's any video out of it being thrown yet.

Yeah.

They made it weird shape too. It's like a can, like a can with a cone on the top, almost like a flat bottom. I like the baseball shape. You know, it's classic.

You gotta like cup it and get it going.

Yeah, pop the top the top man. So let's go back to let's go back to Ramadi. So we've been talking about a bunch of other stuff. So you get sent to Ramadi. When you get there, obviously you already mentioned that you'd been struck by a couple id s and stuff like that. But when you get there, what were your kind of what were you told were the enemy TTPs? Was it the IDs and stuff? And then tell us about kind of what you experienced with enemy resistance obviously the IEDs. Did you get into any firefights?

If so, kind of what was the enemy using their composition, their weapons and stuff like that.

Yeah, it was so getting there. You know, we had again OIF one and IF two vets and a lot of those guys are from Fallujah, and so there were all the stories that we were hearing from their deployments and their experiences that we were just absorbing, trying to collect and learn from. And you know, so there was a lot of expectation on us new guys of like, don't you better not be a bitch and you better be able to fight alongside us. Don't fuck this up and don't get us killed, you know. And so it was interesting because I was talking with another guy about this, and you know, he said, when when did I When did I have that oh shit moment? And it was really when we were going from Campra Madi into our fob,

which was that hurricane point right where the euphrates splits off and goes around the city. That's where we're Alpha company was. And when we got on the trucks to go there, and all the senior marines that were given as shit and like laughing and joking, like they became stoic and like super hyper focused, and everyone's head got really far down in the vehicle and it was like, okay, we're like they're afraid, I probably should be afraid now.

And it was quiet, you know, the first we got there in February. It was pretty quiet until I want to say April, which was nice for a unit transitioning in there because we we were able to learn from two to five who we were leaving, you know. And I remember sitting and talking with some of the other lance corporal sawgunners from two to five and they were just like, don't put your sling on you better be ready for you know, when you hop out of the vehicle.

If you feel weird, just put your your song condition three or sorry, condition one, you know. And so it was like all these little tips that we were listening from them on you know, the calm before the storm, and and April really had started kicking off. And that's why I think we got well. End of March. I think we got in our first gunfight. I was on top of a bank and this id trigger man blew a army convoy that went through on Route Michigan, which is the main street that went through Ramadi and my buddy Marty Mortenson, and I, you know, I think we hit him. I don't know, because we were gonna go check and see, you know, the dead dude. And it was the middle of the night. But one of our other sawgunners had an nd right next to the lieutenant's leg,

and obviously the lieutenant was super pissed and he's like, we're not fucking going there, We're going right back to the FOB. And I was like, shit, you know. So but that was kind of the first experience with that, and and that kind of was that was the theme throughout the whole deployment. It wasn't like the tail I had a lot of respect for the Taliban after fighting them, compared to who we fought in Ramadi, because Ramadi it seemed we're either foreign fighters that came just to get some experience on a trigger against Americans or to actually kill us. And a lot of them were getting paid, you know, a hundred bucks to blow an id on us and they didn't really know much about it. They didn't even plant it half the time. So it was

a lot it was like fighting cowards a little bit, and which was really frustrating because when you're when you're when you're patrolling the city and you have locals saying there's no Alibaba Ramadi, when you're getting blown up like moments before, or someone's in contact at that moment in a different area, it's hard to have compassion for the locals.

It's like, fuck you know, there's bad guys here, where are they? And so like, you know, and that even came out with our first firefight. The first big one that we had was in the city middle of the day and we were sitting in the back of the these farmer armored humpies, we called them. But they were like the pickup truck style humpies, you know, with the benches in the back, and then they just had like welded armor up on the sides of them, out of sheet metal, out of steel, you know. And it was really just like shit done. And we actually had to find like a bar, like a wooden a piece of wood to put through the bars in the back of the doors to keep them from flying open as we're driving.

So it was like it was shit, dude. And and some of them were so hea like heavily loaded with armor. Because this is when we started learning of the threat that id's were posing, is they were doing the Marines were doing anything out of desperation to keep from getting hit with shrapnel from the IED's And so when we got all of two five trucks, they weren't ready to have the amount of weight that were put on them from all the steel, and so some of them would some of our humpies would only go twenty five miles an hour even though you're at like five thousand rpm or whatever it was, you know, So like they were so heavilyloaded, we were just not ready for it. And we did definitely start seeing IDs in April. You know,

some of the units I think I hit got hit with them prior to that, but April was when they really started using those against us. And I mean there's nothing more helpless. And at that point, there was nothing more helpless then sitting in your vehicle just wondering when it's in the come, you know. And now I see like the war in Ukraine, and I was in Ukraine last year and to experience like the drone warfare, that's a completely different mind fuck than I d's because they are ads, but they're directed and accurate, they're flying.

Yeah, so yeah, I would not want to be in that. I mean, the whole all the drone stuff. I remember when we first started, I mean when it's all our fault, right, I remember when we started using Switchblade in Afghanistan and that was kind of the first real iteration of one way drones, you know, going to blow something up. And then from there insurgents just like, well, why don't we just use a DJI drone and get this little ring box.

I think they started using the for photographers or people that are wanting to do a proposal. You can you can go on Amazon and buy this really cheap connector to your DGI drone that holds a ring box coincidentally also can hold a hand grenade and then if you modify it, you can attach a mortar to it. And they started doing that and started making those where they're just dropping ordnance, and now we've moved on to suicide, you know, like these one way drones that are just smoking people. And it's I mentioned it on another episode, like I would hate to get killed by a drone for the fact that one would suck, because you're I mean, what are you gonna do? You know, there's not really much you can do there too, is it probably had

video as well, so there's likely that your death is now on four k in four k on social media somewhere, and it's like, dude, do you really want you know, like I don't know.

Yeah, it's a lot more of a psychological war in that sense where you can actually troll, like the families of the person you just killed by having their face out there, and it's just you know, it's effective, but you know, I look at it and I'm like, fuck, man, how are a lot of these both both Russia or Ukrainian, Like the if you want to say, the healing process from that or just like the time after that, like they need to be ready for the amount of like problems that could come from that.

So oh yeah, I mean, and drones are becoming more prevalent just in everyday society. We're having Amazon and door Dash and everybody else is starting to deliver with drones. And if you come back from a conflict like that into a society where there's drones flying everywhere, just that noise would probably be like, you know, I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I just wouldn't at all. You know, war sucks, man, not we keep making ways of making it worse and worse. I think one of the worst things about it, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this is, uh, one of the worst things about the whole drone warfare and it being all over the place now is how much the average person is consuming like war footage, deaths, you know,

war porn, if you will, and how desensitized it's making like society, whereas normally you would never see something like that, and if you wanted to, for whatever reason, you'd have to like seek it out now it's just part of some of your algorithm. You know, it could just show up in your Instagram feed. I don't know.

Yeah, I grew up on fucking Live and you know, oh yeah, so I mean from my own experience having seen a lot of combat footage from what was available back back in the day, back in two thousands, early two thousands, and the violence and everything, you know, I I think it does desensitize at some point. Same with the violence in the video games, you know, you know, the ease of what it is in a in a game or a simulation, or when you're removed from it, when it's not a family member, when it's not a peer, it's easy. And I remember thinking like I'm as mentally ready.

I thought I was mentally ready for combat, and then after my friends started dying, started getting injured, it was like, now this is this is much more real than I thought it would be. And so there was that like, oh shit, I don't know if there's ever gonna be a way to prep anyone mentally for that, because it's all fun and games until your friends start dying, and then it's like.

The facade of safety like really goes away.

Yeah, you think you're indestructible as a nineteen year old, as an eighteen year old, you know, until you find out how quickly you're not, you know, or until you find out how you are. And I remember thinking like, Okay, I could never be taken prisoner by these terrorists. I'll never be in an orange jumpsuit. And then I got blown up my first time, or the first time. I was like knocked unconscious from it, and I was like, oh, that's how they get you. You know, if I would have been launched from the vehicle somehow survived, you know, they very well could have taken me. And to have that vulnerability, that realization of oh shit, like you could actually, you know, get so fucked up and wake up yeah

in an orange suit. You know, it's kind of a sobering realization.

But yeah, yeah, I think the first time someone you know gets killed, I mean I had a buddy who got killed. I was still getting my shit from SITH and I was, you know, and he was like the class ahead of me. So when I joined I was a mechanic and he was a class ahead of me. And when I got to the fleet, his best friend.

We were all mutual friends from boot camp and stuff. He's like, hey, man, did you hear what happened to Bailey? And I'm like, no, dude, what happened. He's like he died and I'm like what, Like, what are you talking about? I just saw him like a month ago, you know, and he's literally been in the fleet for maybe two months and he got killed in at Lejune. A seven ton ran over him in the field at night. Yeah, and that's when you're like, oh shit, you know that was my first like okay, well, things can happen, you know, even as a mechanic, you know, and then when I moved over, when I lap moved and then you know, once you get into actual fire support and stuff like that, who knows what could happen. You know. I've had rounds

blow up near us. I've had shrapnel skip bias, like the facade of safety goes out the window. Pretty cool. Yeah, but yeah, dude, that's uh. When you were so you were talking about, uh, you carried the saw when you were in Iraq and Ramadi. Yeah, did you guys have the full upsaw or did we have the parasaw?

Parasaw? I love that thing. We used to joke because I'm so tall that I could probably try to make like a leg holster for it, because my my thigh is longer than or just as long as the sauce. And it would joke like, oh, I'm six foot seven.

Oly shit. Yeah, did you didn't have to do the pits in the rifle range?

Right?

Yeah?

I did, But it was you know, I had my first experience with that, you know, obviously.

I thought that was like six or five and above didn't have to do, uh.

Pull in the pits if you weren't supposed to. I was definitely put there.

They were like fucking keep your head.

Yeah, yeah, don't be a bitch, dude.

I would see every once in a while and see somebody that had the like full saw, and I'm like, well that sucks. Even the parasol gets annoying obviously, right, But I.

Love like I loved it because it was so small. Like I remember we'd be in firefights and I would just rock, you know, I just rock out of the corner and just like hip fire that fucking thing, you know, and it was just tiny.

You know, what did you how how did you carry your amo? Did you carry the full drum all the time or did you.

I had the nutsack, the little one hundred round nutsack on it, and then we had I had two I had two hundred, four hundred rounds total, so two you know, pouches for them for two two hundred round drums, and then my buddy would carry another four hundred for me, you know, And we'd easily go through a lot of that and some of the some of the gunfights we were in. Oh and that's where I was going at with with that seven ton thing with the sorry, the pickup trucks was our first firefight. I got way off fucking track there, but but we we were in the back of one of those those trucks in our first gunfight, and I remember the rounds just started coming in. We didn't know where they we're coming from, and people were

just all over and it was almost like it wasn't the same the same in private Ryan. It wasn't a beachhead, it wasn't anything. But the doors in the back were just getting pelted with rounds and we're like, okay, where the fuck, you know, how do we get out of here? And so we all just dismounted over the front of the vehicle and over the sides, you know, just like dumping yourself out of it. It's like getting me out of this fucking death box. And so I remember running down trying not to fall on my face because you know, when you're under fire, things move a lot slower. It's a weird experience and everything feels cumbersome, you know, it's like, go fuck, my gear feels wrong. And so I remember like almost falling on my face jumping off of the

front of the humvee as we're slowly moving forward trying to find, you know, somewhere to take cover. And so we were just running through the streets and it was just chaos. It's like where the fuck are we getting shot at from? You know, there's people fleeing. Who's a bad guy? And so we ran down the street one way and then our squad leader, Sergeant Laws, He's like, we're going the wrong way. I was turning around, and so we did this like big loop as the rest of the team, you know, we all kept running. It was like a weird loop instead of stopping. You know.

We got to the top of this eight story building and my buddy Morgan and I get up there and he has a big radio with a whip on it, and we come up on this roof and we're talking and looking at him, and a round crash right between us, and it's like oh shit, now what you know? And so then you just start shooting everything. It's like fuck it, you know, at this point there's a gunfight going on.

I'm shooting everything. And it was just a crazy experience, you know, kind of is chaotic. It doesn't make sense. Nothing, nothing made sense. It's like where's the enemy. It's not like the range, you know, Oh yeah, where's the ivan? You know he's not moving?

Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I can't. That's some chaos right there. People running around, like going crazy and stuff like that, because I am as civilians. Yeah, when you're in Afghanistan obviously have way more country you know where your yeah, I remember, yeah, they get out of there. For people that haven't been to Afghanistan, usually if they can, if an American force moves into an area, what we saw was the Taliban would kites and they signal each other with kites and stuff. And then if we moved into like an area and they were planning on doing something, you just see all the women and goats and stuff. Just leave that area. They come all out of that little village area, little whatever you want

to call it, hamlet move out of that area, because you know, they was like, all right, we're not in this. Get all the kids and goats and fucking get out of here.

I remember one of the firefights we were in in Afghanistan. It was the city of the village of Urmuz, I think it's called. And when we got done with it, like we fucked up a bunch of dudes and pushed them out, and we looked up on the hill and the like the community members were just sitting up on the hill watching it like it was a Civil War re enactment, you know. And then we remember my buddy a dental and I we grabbed. They're like, all right, let's let's now, let's win hearts and minds, right, And so we take our helmets off and we grab beans and blankets from this fucking trailer and we just like come into town. I have a photo that that somewhere.

I should should give it you for the for this, but we're walking into town holding beans and blankets, you know, right after this gunfight and everyone came back in and we just talked to them, just this really surreal experience, you know, having just done combat like that and now it's like okay, now we're gonna be kind and shake hands everyone. Yeah, hello, we're not Yeah.

Yeah, it's it is crazy. It is crazy. Yeah, it's Afghanistan is a different world all together. And I just I've said it a lot on here. You can't really understand it unless you've been there because it's so medieval, it's so like just so set back in time. But with the occasional like digital signals that they can get on cell phone digital plan you know, like, yeah, it's crazy, like they're shitting in anywhere on the ground. And Anna, I was.

Just gonna say that. I can't remember, like I remember being in a firefight and we're looking, I'm like stepping in it. I thought was mud and I looked. I'm like, oh, there's dog shit. Oh wait, that's not dog shit, that's people shit. You know, we're just stepping in it.

I remember just seeing you'd see a dude walking down the street and he would just stop and kind of lift his man dress up a little bit and take a ship, throw some sand on his ass, and keep going. You're like damn d Yeah, wow, bro, Yeah, that's a it's a different it's a different environment for sure. So then Iraq where it's you know, especially Ramadi where it's super urban. I mean obviously there's remote places in Iraq as well, but like.

I was surprised at that, almost like the exact opposite. I was like, wow, this is really like urban. You know, it's they have they're watching fucking Twister as we're going into to do a set in for an ambush. You know, there's a family watching the movie Twister with Bill Paxton, and you know, it's like what the fuck watching music videos of there, you know, of something from the Middle East, and then the next one is like a Green Day video on their MTV. Yeah, you know, and then there's like Hollered back Girl by Gwen Stefani, you know.

A hardcore in the I is a long war old like Afghanistan was.

No, that was totally different, completely different. Yeah.

Now, I don't know if you've seen now, they've completely like banded music. You know, they've removed women from society essentially.

How expected.

I can't believe that happened.

What happened?

Was it weird? You know, being in a city like Bramadi, and you mentioned earlier being on top of like a bank and stuff like that, being on top of that a story building, isn't it weird that you do that kind of thing. You're like, oh, yeah, I was just on this eight story building with my machine gun set up, and you know, like it's like, like you, I know what you're talking about. But I sometimes I think that because we understand it, we just kind of talk about it like it's whatever. But like an average person was probably like, wait, what they're setting up a machine gun that's on top of a building and or you know, like, yeah, that's so crazy to just even imagine.

It's weird like to And I think you talked about it on a podcast recently, one of the other ones about like going back to normal or civilian life, how unprepared we really are, because it's like the best thing I can say, the best way to compare combat is to a drug, and like, once you get a hit of it, it's like, oh, especially when you're mentally prepped for it, you'll never be truly prepared for it. But once you're primed for it and you experience it and you survive it, it's like well, I want more of that, because that's just like insane survival feeling. And so like the ease of going into places is setting up like a machine gun spot or going in and into a house and realizing, Okay, there's no threat here. We're not

gonna kill everyone, right, you know, we're gonna We're gonna put our gun down and get to the next place. And and going from that to you know, like normal life behind a desk in the real world. It's something that is hard to describe and it's hard to let go. And I think, you know, I've been out of the Marine Corps now for what was it eighteen years, seventeen years something like that, and I still feel like the time in the Marine Corps was the longest point in my life and the most fond memories of my life.

A lot of them are from that. And it's not like I'm living in that and wishing for that back, but it it's such a life changing experience in combat that it's hard to even after having been a firefighters a firefighter full time for you know, seven and a half years, and it doesn't do the same as combat.

You know, see, I would I would have assumed like being a firefighter or like being a police officer where you're dealing with stuff every day. It's not like a combat like the Marine Corps. I always people kind of dog on police officers and like, oh, they don't know what they're doing, and then you know, the military would be better to do something. I'm like, come on, Like the military trains a lot, and then you go deploy, and then you come back and you don't deploy for a little while, so you get like decompression periods. Those guys are out there, guys and girls are out there doing it every day like there is no time off, like months off, a year off, and then back into it, you know. So that's kind of surprising to hear that.

I mean, I guess it's never gonna be to that same level because combat's combat. You know, hunting another person is just that's the ultimate.

And that's the thing. And that's what I'm speaking to. Because there are the stressors of firefighting and law enforcement are there the day to day. You can't really break from that. I wouldn't discredit that, and I hope that didn't come off as I was downplaying it. No, no, but the difference is killing someone else that's trying to kill you. Is Once you've done that, I feel like there's nothing more rewarding in life, because it's like, hey, I survived. Yeah, it's and it was almost go ahead.

Well I was gonna say I described it. I've described it as a game before, you know, and I'm like, it's the ultimate game, and it sounds fucked up to say that, but that's what it is, and you are and like we had mentioned earlier, actually I think this was from the previous conversation as well. I think this whole thing part I say it's like a game because that's just kind of the mentality you get in. But it's the most serious game you'll ever play because you're literally putting your life on the line and you know your opponent is trying to kill you. Yep, and it's it could come anytime anywhere, you know, and you have to be ready for that. And the mentality of having to have that, you know, having to have that kind

of mentality all the time, hyper vigilant. Obviously you come down a little bit when you're on the fob or you're on whatever. We I mean, I was insane and you were talking about being insane and even being on the fob, Dude, we'd hear IDs go off outside, you know, or a car bomb go off or something, and you're like, you know, like do we need to get our gear ready?

Like it is something about to happen, because so it's there's never any like safe time, and it is really difficult to go from something which is so serious. And I think people on the outside sometimes think that the military takes like killing someone like a is a laxadaisical kind of thing, like, oh well, and everyone I ever met it was very much you know, no one joked about it. It wasn't. I mean, you joke about some stuff, but it wasn't like. It was very much serious business, is what I'm getting at. And you know you mentioned earlier how you respected the Taliban as fighters. That's the kind of mentality that I think true professional war fighters have, is you're not going in and joking and stuff. But

to wrap what I'm saying is it's such a serious thing. When you get out, everything else just seems so unserious, and it's hard to empathize with people that are making a big deal or getting upset about something that seems so like what are you even talking about like who cares? Dude? Like who cares? And I've been told by women that I've dated since then that I'm I come off as cold hearted sometimes, Like it's hard, man, it's hard not to be like what are you grind about? You know?

Like, especially when you like literally laugh about it. It's like you fucking are you fucking serious right now? You're you know, it's like I beside myself to a point that I can't even control the last that needs to come out with what you are complaining about right now. I'm not saying like specifically my wife or anything, but just like someone in general, you know, especially with you see stuff on social media now with how divided we are as a country, and then you have this fucking same people that are blowing up and losing their fucking minds over an event, but they're calling for war against the other party, And it's like, do you not see what you're saying? You are not mentally prepared to go

to war and you are you cannot speak on any like you would be destroyed in it mentally, you know.

Yeah, It's it's just I don't know, it's for people that haven't been there, it's just not you can't understand it, and it's not that's not a bad thing. Honestly, that's probably a good thing, you know, like you shouldn't. I don't want anyone I know or care about to have to go through some crazy traumatic event to be like, yeah, see now you understand you know.

Yeah, I don't want to told you so a moment. I don't.

Yeah, like it's better that way, I'm not. I don't say that as a judgment like you weren't there, man, you know, It's more like I'm glad you weren't. You know, I'm glad you don't have to deal with that, But also understand where I'm coming from where And the other thing too, where I come off as cold hearted to people sometimes is I do news. I have my news page, Former Action News.

Yeah.

So I'm constantly just immersed in the worst stuff. I'm looking No, I'm not looking for the worst stuff, but the worst stuff is what gets posted. And seeing all this crazy stuff happen time all the time really makes you understand what people really are and when things happen that you know, things happen out in the real world, it's just like, oh, yeah, of course, of course they did.

That of course those people did that because that's who they are, and I think some people don't have that kind of understanding. I mean, I don't know. It's tough, man, It's tough. Like I try to be empathetic a lot of times, and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but it's just tough sometimes where you're like, dude, what is the big deal? Like what are we talking about right now?

Yep? I mean, and you get the same going back to the and in the law enforcement and fire fighting end of it, you're seeing that whole end of the world. You're seeing that the armpit, you know, of the toilet, of what exists in the world. And when you're in a day with that, day after day after day, it does take a toll, you know, because as a firefighter, we want, you know, it's like, okay, we want to fight fire and we're mentally trained for that. But also that means that someone is losing something important to them. So you know, they're losing a house, they're losing a car, they're losing someone in their in their life, and so it's this weird juxtaposition of what what you're craving to do for

your job is also the worst day of someone's life potentially, you know. Yeah, and and so it's a really weird line to to be walking. As you talk to people, it's like, oh, yeah, we had a we had a really good fire. You know, it was a good fire. And then you realize as you're talking about it, it's like, oh, yeah, they lost their entire house, you know.

And yeah, yeah, it's definitely different. Firefighters can talk to each other about it like that was crazy, you know, like and they want to be on the like the big fire and stuff.

No, the same concept though, it's like you can laugh and joke about it, but it's a way of healing in a sense.

And you want to do your job. That's your job. You don't want to be going around freaking reviving fentanel addics all day long. Exactly what happened, what firefighters and what it was.

Five percent I think of our calls were medical because we all had to be at least EMTs, you know, and so we were running fire medic rigs and it was yeah, it was something else. But but but the going to that from combat, it's weird because I found myself and I think there's a lot of guys that you know have been in combat and then go to firefighting or law enforcement and it's like, yeah, I can handle myself in stress, and you quickly realize that it's not like when you're when you're exposed to so much combat at a young age, as we did in Remody and then Helmand, and you know, it's like everything else in life seems kind of boring. And I think trying to find peace with the boring is the hard part

for a lot of us, and find peace and just existing and trying to make sense of what life is now that you're not living a thousand miles an hour and craving that next hit of life or desk situation, and so that it took me a long time to get through that, like to try to stop seeking out those hits of adrenaline.

Yeah, I would do. I would do that same thing when I was in college. I would wait till like the last minute possible to start writing a paper. Yeah, because I was like, I know I can finish it. And it was not even like I wasn't like this is what we're gonna do, We're gonna wait till the last second. It was just these mental like I don't do it.

You just knew you could do it. Yeah.

Yeah, And dude, literally one time I turned my paper in at like eleven to fifty nine pm. It was like one minute before I'm like, come on, baby, upload upload, you know, and I'm like, what am I doing? This is so done And I would do well on the papers and stuff like that, but I was just like, you know, I realized I'm putting myself under this fake like pressure because I needed pressure, you know. I was like, I'm so you know, I got out as a j tech and I was so used to operating under that pressure.

And going from that to advertising, which is what my degree was in journalism and advertising. You know, it's just, you know, the adrenaline is no, there's no adrenaline there.

I went to business management, so so it's no different. You know.

It's like I actually started in business management and I was like, I did one semester and I was like, dude, fuck this all roads lead to some cubicle somewhere, and that's when I switched to journalism and advertising.

I've always thought that would have been a great industry or good place to be, because it is. It's journalism's ever going to be the same day, back to back. You know you're gonna have something.

The thing with journalism now is one, you don't need a degree. Two, I don't know you. You're not You're likely not gonna find a job in journalism. You're very Unless you just have good connections, you're not gonna find a job in journalism like a traditional job. And if you do, you're probably not gonna get the pay that you think you're gonna get. Really as now, a modern journalist, the best ones are out there doing it themselves. They're self funded and at least at the beginning, and then they start doing crowdfunding or they you know, some sponsors or whatever. But there's a lot of people that spend time going to these different protests. Julio Rosis is a good one. He's been on the show a couple of times. Uh,

marine reservist who's also a journalist who goes to all the riots and stuff. You know, you have to do something like he did where you have to go out and build it. You can't. It's not a traditional job where you're gonna get out and like okay, so and so it's gonna pick you up and you're gonna you know, this is a job you're gonna do. And if you want to be on air talent, the reality and they even tell you this in college. They're like, if you want to be like the news anchor on TV, the reality is you have to have a certain look to you.

If you're kind of ugly, your teeth are kind of fucked up, like you're just not gonna be on air. You're not gonna be on air talent. And if you do, it's gonna be some podunk fucking town and like Iowa, and you're gonna be there forever. You know. It's just like that's just that's journalism. You know. I knew a girl who was trying to get a job here in San Diego as a news anchor, but she had just gotten her degree and it was like, no, dude, you got to go out to the fucking doldrum somewhere and spend some time in some little town, you know, earning your your chops.

Like anchorman exactly.

Yeah they sing that squirrel squirrel news, Yeah they send you. It's exactly what it is, all those little local town like, hey, we're at the Covered Bridge festivals this week. You know, like you got to go do that stuff for like two or three years, and then you can get picked up into a more major market and then you try to go national. It's just a whole. But anyways, No, I would not recommend anybody don't do journalism. The only reason I so real quick, I'll finish here. The only reason I did journalism was because at STSU the journalism program has three splits in it, so you can do journalism straight journalism, journalism and PR, or journalism and advertising.

And I did journalism and advertising so that when I graduated, I could apply for journalism jobs and say had a degree in journalism, or I could apply for jobs at ad agencies and they had a degree in advertising. That was the only reason I even did it that way.

That makes sense, You're you're broadening it right.

So yeah, but the fire service, I mean, I always thought that would be would have been a cool job. I think, you know, the wild and firefighters, the hot shots. I used to love, like when I was a kid, reading about hot shots and stuff, doing those things, you know. But I think with the city fire, were you city fire or yeah?

I was, Yeah, as a city of Saint Paul, so the capital of Minnesota.

Okay, yeah, so that's a bigger that's a bigger one there. So for those that's what it ends up being, right, You end up doing a lot of like helping old people that are fell down and broke their hip, or someone's O ding again, And that's what it becomes.

You know, it becomes a you know, it starts wearing on you when you start going to those the calls of like somebody's O ding again and like the whole crew shows up and you see who it is and you're like fuck.

Like you're like, Bobby's second time this week? What are you doing? Well?

Well, the part of you like you get worn out, you know, and you like think about it, and you know, you look at everyone else on your crew and they're thinking the same thought. It's like do we have to revive them? Do we? You know? And it's just a weird you know, a burnout, you know, and you do get what you get putting these crazy situations like that.

But it's still even with all that, you know, the combat end of it is always it's always like I need more, you know. It's like that fire wasn't hot enough. I ain't get I didn't feel like I got in the shit bad enough, you know, And it's just weird, this weird mental place to be in, you know, And I want to touch before you go ahead, No, go ahead, before I forget about it, because it I think It's something that I didn't realize until much later getting out, was the amount of balls it takes to be a combat photographer. We talk about like journalism, because we had and that one firefight I was talking about where we had my buddy get shot. We had a combat photographer from the Marine Corps there and you know, some staff stargeant.

He came came along and he had his DSLR camera and his rifle, and there were points in the firefight where like, at one point an RPG hit the tire of my truck and it spun out. Somehow it didn't blow up. The RPG bounced off my tire, popped it. It spun out and right at his feet and he just like took his camera and snapped a photo. It's in We Were That article he did. That whole thing was in Soldier Fortune magazine in June of two thousand and eight. But the thing that I was just beside myself on in mad respect for anyone that's in the combat photography. Is he would be shooting his camera in one minute and then have his rifle up because there were targets in the next. And he's a marine just like the rest of us. But I remember thinking, like, damn,

that's a good job to be in because you still get a get some and also you have a job once you get out of the military.

Yeah, I was, you know. I actually just interviewed a guy named kaw Shawn Yee a couple episodes ago. He was a combat he's still in actually he's now a warn ont Ar Chief worn officer, but he was a junior guy and he talked about he went to the Air Wing in Okinawa and then he got sent over to I want to say it was one five. I think he was there for Alpha one five. He was attached.

He he wasn't just attached for like a mission or two. He was attached for the entire deployment to one company I think Alpha for their Afghan deployment. No shit, okay, yeah, so he did the entire deployment and just rotated through squads and stuff like that. And I'm with you, I think that job is look back in the rear most jobs sucked. That one's like every other job, there's probably a ton of like retirement ceremonies and changes a command and all that kind of crap you gotta deal with.

But you also with that job, you have the opportunity to see so many different aspects of the Marine Corps because you can get I mean, I'm when I was with the MEW, are our combat camera guys on the MEW. They'd go out with recon on missions and stuff like that to shoot photos. They'd go out with the infantry guys they go, you know there, I think one of I don't never mind, I was gonna say I think one of them was jump qualified, but that's not correct.

There was just all these different aspects of the Marine Corps that you know, they're getting eyes on because of that job. That was definitely a job I would have done, you know while I was in.

Yeah, Yeah, that'd been something I knowing what I know now about it, and then like knowing the process of getting out. You know, you can't really go be a j tack in any civilian job. No, maybe air traffic control somehow.

Don't even qualify for that. It's a whole different process. Yeah, So CCTs, the Air Force CCTs. Most people think that they're all jatax. They're actually air traffic controllers. They all have they're all certified by the FA's airstraffic controllers. That's their whole job is to secure an airfield and then run the airfield. And then on top of that, some of them are J tax. Not all of them are J tax as well, which was interesting because I thought they were all J tax and all that. But yeah, no, as a J tax man, there's no there's not a lot of only contracting jobs. I've had a ton of contract offers and I've turned them all down because I'm like, man, that sounds like good money, but that means it's probably

in a real show. Yeah, yeah, did you consider that when you got out was contracting at all?

I did? Yeah. I had looked into it my wife. So I had extended to go to Marsak. I had extend five months, just over five months, and my wife told me that if I were to re enlist, which they offered me like ninety thousand dollars tax free, and I think I was gonna get meritorious staff, which I ended up picking up in the IRR anyway. But I would have got marritorya's staff at that point and then ninety thousand tax free, and I would have been a single man at that point because my wife said, if you re enlist, I'm gonna leave you. But she was okay with me extending to do one more deployment, and so when I got out of there, I owed it.

You know, she had waited for me for four and a half years at that point, and the contracting opportunities that were there, you know, she wouldn't have been a happy camper with me just being gone. And and then in the middle of all that, her brother died in a car accident and he was best friends with like my brother, you know, we grew up together. And so that was a couple of months after I got out of the Marine Corps, and being away for all of that would have been not just a fucking terrible thing.

So as much as I wanted to and I knew the money was there, I didn't. And in the one contract I was about to get on, I ended up getting the job for the fire department like the offer and started that and so that was like, Okay, I need to do this because it's a better fit.

So yeah, and you get to be home yep, yeah, kind of yeah, kind of yeah. Get what do you do like one one or two days on and then like two or three days.

Yeah, we did every other day for a week, and then we got four days off, and then we did every other day for a week and twenty four hour shifts, so every other day, and then I got six days off.

So damn every other day for twenty four out.

Yeah, I mean it get the It gets to me a lot when you're running like a number of calls, yeah, you know in that period.

So yeah, I mean, yeah, the contracting gigs sound great and for some people they are worth it. But one of my reasons for getting out was like I was like, I want to spend more time with my kid, you know, so it doesn't really make sense to like start flying to Africa, flying over to Ukraine. You know. If I'm trying to say, I'm gonna I'm one of my reasons spend more time. But when you so, let's talk about MARSK.

Was that like the early days that was I.

Was in the first ever Bravo company that existed. Oh really, yeah, it was. It was cool, it was awesome, man, it was the best deployment. You talk to anyone, you know, see like Randall Parks, He's on a lot of the podcasts. Oh yeah, yeah, he talks a lot about it. It was the best deployment I think any of us could have ever experienced, you know, minus the two guys that got wounded, but but that was like they're still living a life, you know, and are healthy, and it's so it's just like this incredible experience having the amount of combat we saw there and having the minimal casualties that we did.

So how did you? I mean, I'm surprised he would let you extend and go to Marsak and not make you re endlist, But I guess that's early on. They were probably just looking for people at the time, right.

They were looking for people. And so the way I got in was we were getting out and I was supposed to be like done in less than a year at that point or whatever it was. And I talked to my wife and said, I just need to kind of do this for like retribution for myself, and it was a really cool opportunity. And so I had to sign a page eleven in my SRB stating that they didn't have an in doc, but my in dock was passing infantry squadally your school, you know, ifantry's squad. And so a couple of my buddies and I signed up and did that, and one of them had a newborn baby and didn't pass it, so he had, uh you know, he got kicked kicked out of it. And then we went right from there into a shooting package and then

right into like company company exercises and like random training. And we were actually training so so fucking much that my wife never saw me. And we lived up in Mission Viejo at the time, and she's just like, I'm gonna move home with my mom my parents. So it's like okay, you know, but we ended up doing that, and it was that was a crazy awesome experience. I mean, we had guys from I had we were like, I think we were initially set up to be a trailer platoon, and then right as they did that, they were like, we're not doing that anymore. So you guys are your own entity. And so we had a lot of young Marines that hadn't deployed ever, let alone to combat. And then we had the first platoon that had a lot

of like force recon guys and then younger recon guys that that some of that was some of their first deployment as well. And so as a company, it was a really cool experience to be like building what Marsak was and figuring out where we sit with everything, you know, together. And we had initially been told we were going to go to Samara, Iraq, and it was like a you know, basically they're like, it's not gonna be a good mission, guys, it's saki, you know, we kind of be like a suicide mission, really okay, and then they let's do it, you know, sweet. And I think a part of that too is we were on the heels of I think Fox Company, who had that investigation going for all the ship happening in Afghanistan then, and so we didn't even

know where we were standing as a battalion and as a company, like are they going to let us go to combat? And then our platoon, my squad got tasked with doing FID mission so for an internal defense in the Philippines, and we did a month long training program for their like DEA and their like special forces and everything, and it was like a shoot package training kind of thing.

And uh so we did that and then went after after we got done with that, we found out that we had to that we were to be deployed to Afghanistan, and so it was like, okay, like let's do it, you know, and and all ASO senior Marines are like, let's get a star in our combat action ribbon.

You know, I'm gonna look so cool.

It looks so cool, you know. That's like the first fucking thought we all have, like a bunch of fucking idiots. Yeah, well we don't. We have established we don't get paid ship. So it's like, let's look for the metal.

I made a post a few months ago and I just took a picture of my ribbons and put them on on my former Action Guys Instagram page. And I put on it like the quote from Napoleon that a soldier will do. I was something like a soldier will do amazing things for a colored piece of cloth or something something along those lines. Yeah, And I wasn't necessarily celebrating my or trying to show off like that. For whatever reason, that picture went around a lot like that was actually a really popular post, and I wasn't like me trying to celebrate what, you know, awards I had earned.

It was almost like it was more of a the cost, you know, like the cost of being away losing friends. Like that's what to me, that's that's what I see, you know what I'm saying. When I look at the different awards and stuff, I'm like, that's you're looking at the cost of you know, twelve years the Marine Corps.

Twelve years. Of those twelve years, I spent at least twenty five percent of that either overseas or on a ship somewhere, you know. And then then let's count in the training for all those deployments, and let's count in, you know, all the other stuff that you have to do. So how much time was I gone? And that's kind of how I look at the ribbons. And it's funny because you're right, when you're in literally anytime, everybody has to wear Chucks, everybody has to wear their Charlie uniforms. Well, everyone's walking around with a resume on their chest. Yeah, and you know, and you don't want to be the guys that's only got like two ribbons or whatever. You know, Oh, he hasn't done anything. You know. It's a weird it's

such a weird world to live in. It was.

It was interesting too on that note, with like going to Marsak coming from you know, the recond guys have a chip on their shoulder, the younger ones did. I would say that the the guys who had a combat experience or had deployments under them, Like, we didn't really have any shit that we got from them. But it was all these like younger guys at the time. We didn't know any different, right until we went to I think we had the Marine Corps ball and some of us went out and we were in our blues, you know, and I remember seeing some of the guys that were some of the biggest shit talkers from the other platoon and I'm like, you boot fucking bitch, Like you know, We're like it is it's their resume, right. It's like

I'm standing there with like the combat action ribbon from Ramadi and have every you know, all the other just like basic deployment shit, and it's like he hasn't even fucking deployed be in training that entire time, just like I was told I would be. Yeah, And so it was just like it was an interesting dynamic to see that and it is. It's in resume.

I saw that same thing I think when you When I worked with the recon guys on the MEW, the junior guys were definitely more like, you know, more bravado, you know, whereas a senior guys who had all done like deployments Afghanistan and all that stuff, were very much way more laid back, and they were like, it does us no good to be douchebags to everybody, Like these are all the people that are supporting us, So why would I be a douchebag to the supply guy when I could go be friends with the supply guy and maybe he can hook me up later on if I need something? You know, the maturity of the professional war fighter. Yeah, uh yeah, I think that still exists. Yeah it is.

I mean you can't hide from it. And obviously ribbons and stuff don't mean everything, but it definitely gives you an understanding. Like when someone's talking about something and you're like, dude, you haven't even been don't tell me about the MEW. You haven't even been on a ship yet, Like, what are you even talking about right now? You know, It's like it doesn't have to be combat. It could just be other stuff, you know, but yeah, it's it's such a again, it's such a weird world. It's just funny.

It's just funny when you do walk around with your uniform on, and however you just see everybody judging each other and just.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, it's I don't know.

It's just a funny world. The military is such a such a good time and good way. I mean there's bad times as well, but it's just a it's a different world to live in, and you're constantly being judged for something. You know, are you fit enough, are you fast enough? Are you you know? Are you do you have enough? Like training? Do you have? You know? Everything is being judged, and that makes you a better person a lot of times. And I think you don't really understand that until you leave it, right and you see how everybody else just doesn't give a fuck. You know.

That goes back to what you talked about before, Like having your experience of working in the real world before going the military, I'm sure gave you some insight as to how things were done better there than in the real world.

Right, Yeah, Yeah, some things in the real world I learned I was like, Wow, why don't we do this in the military, And then some things I'm like, wow, you guys really need like this is basic stuff. What are you guys doing over here? Their organization is crazy? I want to go. I do want to back up and talk to you a little bit about more about the whole Marsak thing. Yeah, so there was no selection.

This was like the first What was it like? I want to know you? So you mentioned Fox Company Fred Galvin, He's been on the show a couple of times, He's told his side of the story, and you know, they've all been exonerated and all that. What was it like at the time to be over at Marsok and hearing this news and reading these stories and like, you know, was it like no way they did this? Or I mean, what was even going through your guys's mind?

Concern for what our mission was going to be in the future, because you know, I was investigated for a shooting in Ramadi, a shut an old man, and I got investigated for it, got cleared of it, and knowing where my mental state was at the time and knowing the situation the scenario, when I heard what was going on with Fox Company, I'm like fuck not again, Like they're in war. Let our boys do war, and they shouldn't be murdering people. And I couldn't imagine, none of us could imagine that they would just be like just mindlessly gunning down people, you know, And so it's always like, Okay, how's the news reporting on this? And what's the truth?

And I felt just bad. I felt really shitty for the guys that were under the gun at that point, having been there myself, not as not as high profile, but just just being in that situation, you feel a little betrayed, you know, and it's just like a, yeah, I think we were. Our hearts were out for them as far as like God, like, I can't imagine that they'd be doing that, and if they did, like that's on that's between them and God, you know. But there was a lot of questioning of like, Okay, what is our mission going to be? Are we even there was at one point that were like I don't even think you guys are gonna be allowed to deploy, And so for me, I'm like, fuck, I just extended and did all the ship and now we're not gonna do anything

because something that someone else did, you know, Yeah, but but yeah, I mean there was it was a lot of unknown and we were just trying to focus on what our mission was. You know, we were training for deploying on a MEU at the time, and we thought we were going to Iraq, and so that's where our minds were, and that's where I was. I was just really focused on our young guys and like, hey, guys, we need keep our head in the game because we're gonna be doing some crazy shit if we go to combat.

So yeah, no, for real. Yeah, it's so weird. I mean, and you have such a better understanding because you know, you go through You went through the entire training package and everything those guys did, so you know, like, hey, these guys are pros, like these are pro shooters, Like these aren't. Yeah, I mean, go ahead. I was just say, explain the shooting package and compared that to how much you shot while you were an infantryman.

So I will say as an infantryman because I did the I did three deployments. I did Ramani was my first one, and I did the thirty first MEW. I was a team leader there for thirty first MEW and we were a boat company, so we did you know, all the boat shit and Coronado and everything, and that was a great experience. And then went to Marsac and I was a squad leader, team you know, team leader, squad leader, however you want to say it. And I stood in as platoon sergeant and like to shoot a battalion's worth of AMMO in a day for a platoon, you know, that's Marsk. You just shoot and you shoot and you shoot, and you shoot so much you don't even want to fucking shoot anymore. You just got to shoot the rounds so you don't have to bring home

or you don't you can't return the rounds. You don't want to have to bring rounds back to you know, the AMMO depot because then they won't give you as much the next time. And so we're like trying to do cyclic rate on the cheesypoof m two or three rounds just to get rid of the fucking rounds, you know.

And so like that was Marsk. We just shot. And the shooting package we had to do was I think you were allowed two flyers and then you're kicked out of the unit. And so you know that's in in the training. So you're training how to shoot, and you have to do this the square bay shoot where you're just doing like the different lanes of fire walking and all that stuff, and then you go into the shoot house.

And then that entire month or month and a half of training, you were only allowed two flyers, and so there were guys that had one flyer and if they had a second one, they were out. And so we have to sit down, and you know that was stress. You talk about stress on guys. You know, some of these junior Marines are trying to prove themselves and not fuck it up, and they have one flyer and you're like, okay, guys, we can't. We can't be the guy that gets sent home.

People. What a flyer is for those?

Yeah, a flyer I'm trying to find. I see if I have a target down here? I don't. It's when you have any round that's outside of wherever your target is. So I think we trained on like five inch you know, or whatever it was, like chess targets, and then you train on that one and then you went to it. I think you had like an eight inch or a ten inch circle when you actually came to call day.

So you trained in a smaller amount of space to have your bullets land in that way. When it came down to the actual call, you had an opportunity to to not fuck it up. But if anything was outside of that target, that's a flyer.

So you know, yeah, it's not even just missing like a paper silhouette target all together. It's missing that eight inch circle within the target.

That was on the on the flat bay. And I'm trying to remember if we did when you did the shoot house, if you had to, I can't remember if we if anything on the body. So if if my body was a silhouette and you had a round hit like here, I can't remember if that would account it. But it was definitely you know, if the paper was here and you could see the round on the paper, that would be a flyer. Yeah, and and you be out, you know, so you know, and it's there's something completely different with rifle companies. You're not doing the the reps online companies. You're not doing the reps in rooms. You know.

I was clearing fucking rooms by myself with a saw in Ramadi for real, having had no experience in doing that. But that's that's just the way it was right, and so I had a very big appreciation for what Marsock brought when we'd get training from those guys, because you know, those guys are a lot of them were from forcet Ricon and they had years of experience and they're teaching us how to how to be better warriors. And you know, when you're standing there in a room and someone's barrels like in front of your face and they're shooting this way while you're shooting this way, and you're feeling the concussion and just experiencing that. You know, it's something that you get to experience in training in a controlled environment

and not your first time in real combat, and that takes that edge off so you can think on what your true mission is. So it was a really great experience and I feel very honored and fortunate to have had it. You know, Yeah, I've said it a couple times on other podcasts, but it's like I've had a great for my four and a half years in I felt like I had a wild, full circle, almost Marine Corps experience where we had heavy urban combat Remadi, we had thirty first mea as a boat company. You know, we're fucking marines. We're litoral organization, so I had that experience, and then we did urban fighting in Afghanistan as well as a FID mission in the Philippines, so it was just like it was a wind.

Yeah. No, dude, you did a lot in four and a half years. Like you did a lot. I mean the fact that you know it's that's yeah, that's tough to even like if you would have stayed in even longer, it would have been tough to replicate. I don't know. I mean, I guess if you would have stayed at Marstok, you would have just been so busy. I would have been.

I don't A lot of the guys that I was with got really fucked up after that, and I don't know. I think my I had this gut feeling, and it's weird. I had this gut feeling that had I stayed in, I probably would have got killed. I said this feeling, and it's a weird feeling. I say that because my friend Matt Canan, he told our squad leader a couple of days before he died, he was like, I'm gonna die here, and he did a couple of days later in an ID. It's not even we were just sitting he was sitting right next to me, So it was like and then I found out later that my other friend, Marty Mortensen, who died in that same explosion, told his sister I'm not gonna come back from this one. And that was just that was both of their third deployment

to combat, and so I looked at that in my you know, I held on to that when I had that feeling when they were like, hey, do you want to stay with MARSK And I was like, no, Like, I had this feeling, and I don't can't prove it right, history is, you know, but but but I'm here now doing this shit, and.

Yeah, I mean it's staying I mean, staying there is Obviously you get what you ask for, you know, when you're when you're deciding to stay there, what am I asking for? I'm asking for a lot of combat rotations and actual combat, you know, not a lot of sitting on the fob and hanging out waiting for your patrol, maybe get hit by an ID. You know, You're getting into some actual stuff. Depending on your type of deployment, obviously they do different deployments and stuff. But yeah, I mean it's such A. I don't think there's anything wrong with that making that decision, being like, you know, I got my fill I did it at twelve years. Everybody was like, you're twelve years, only eight more years, and I'm like, dude, you know what it can happen in

eight years?

Yeah.

I'm like. The people that tell me that are the people that are like on their first or second deployment, you know, And I'm like, bro, this is my fifth, you know, from two thousand and nine to twenty sixteen, this is my fifth deployment, and I'm just kind of done with it, you know. And man, when you have one of those jobs where you are constantly rotating on deployments and training, you know, you everyone knows it wears on themselves and it wears on their families if they have families, but you kind of don't care because you're having so much fun. Yep, you know, and it's with you.

Like the guys that you're there, You're like, they rely on me, and you believe it. I believed it.

I'm good at my job. I enjoy doing my job. Everyone around me, I enjoy them. You know. You go and do these training exercises and I always told people. I'm like, you know, being a jatack and then being a jatack evaluator. I was like, it was like being a ghetto rock star. They're flying me to shitty places across the country, Yuma, you know, go to Destined Florida.

You know, go to these places and I'm getting a shitty hotel that's paid for and I'm getting a little per diem or whatever, and I'm going out and doing some controls and doing whatever. Then I was like, it's these experience, but I loved it. You know. We'd go out to Gileabin or Helabin, however you want to pronounce it.

We'd go out there and just spent all day cooking in the desert, doing controls with a tens and have thirty fives and whatever coming through, and then go back to the little Air Force hotel thing they had on the little I don't even want to call it a base. It's like an expeditionary airfield. And they had this bomb grill and we'd send some guys to get some taco meat and we'd sit there and real tacos man and have some beers. And then the next day you go out and do it again and it was like, dude, this is awesome, Like it was everything I wanted, you know, and it's like, uh, it's very easy to be like I'm gonna keep doing this, you know, and like I know I should probably go home more. I know I should do. But you know, beer and tacos with my

buddies and then we go and blow stuff up. Yeah, how you gonna say no to that?

Can't you can't do that any other job? You know, there's nothing else but rarely you I guess.

But but I But that's the other thing too, is like when you get into that kind of job, though, it's really fun, but sometimes you get what you ask for and it's time to go do the job for real, and then it becomes extremely dangerous. And there's a reason why. There's a high bonus, there's a high turnover, and there's a high casualty rate a lot of times, and these are dangerous jobs. EOD is another one. How long you know, if you talk to a guy that's been in EOD for twenty years, guaranteed he knows multiple people that's been blown up, Yeah, killed, not just blown up and injured, blown up and killed. You know. It's just that's the nature of the beast. And just like we were talking before, when you were talking about going to Romadi, you have

this facade of safety, you know, like, oh, I'm doing everything the right way. It's safe. We're doing it the you know, safe way, until it's broken. That that is shattered by an event that you couldn't have even thought about that you know, now someone's dead. Now it's like, oh shit, this is a really dangerous job. You know, I don't.

Yeah, And that makes it I think that's what makes it even harder. Like, like, I appreciate you saying that, Like, it's crazy how much I did in the Marine Corps because at the time I felt like I hadn't done enough right And when I left there were years dude like that. I felt like a coward for leaving Marsk and for leaving the Marine Corps.

Why I felt that's crazy.

I felt like I was a bitch. I didn't know who I was.

Oh you couldn't handle it anymore. Leave.

Well, that's the thing. And no one ever said that. And that's the thing, Like, no one fucking said that, but I felt that, and I felt like all the eyes it was like I was slaved to have. I was put up for Meritorious Staff and then Combat Merritoriast staff and they're like, are you gonna re enlist them?

Like no, and they're like, okay, we're gonna give it to someone else. I said, that's great, you know, And then having those like that recognition from some of my superiors and the people I respected, and then being like I'm done after this, guys, I felt like a coward and it was a It sounds absurd to me now as an older adult looking at like life and everything else and seeing these younger guys that are fucking go getters, and it's like, I would never think anyone was a coward that signed up to do anything for the military, right, But it's it's like, reflecting on it in my own mentality at the time, I think I'm not alone in that where you leave it and it's like this identity crisis.

It's this, you know, I don't know who the fuck I am, but I'm not the same guy, and I'm kind of a bit because some of my friends are still in and I'm failing the team, and so like that that constant feeling of like I failed everyone, even you know, even though I did my part. That was a huge thing that I didn't expect to wear on me upon getting out. You know, I didn't expect that to be kind of rearing its ugilyhead the entire time.

I think part of that is probably because you didn't want to get out. No, part of that is probably because you didn't want to leave yet. I didn't have the probably accurate. I didn't have the I was ready, I was done. I was so I became that staff sergeant that's hanging around that they don't want hanging around because I'm almost out and I got nothing to lose by speaking my mind, you know, and they're just like, yeah, you can, we don't need you here. You can go, you know, like because I was like, this is dumb, what are we doing? You know, like so my mentality, but I do understand what you're saying, and I do.

There's so many people I've tried to say this on the podcast a lot. You cannot ever like judge your service against somebody else's every There's so many people that look back and they're like, well, so and so did this and uh and it's like, bro, everybody did more than somebody and less than somebody else, and you know, a lot of that is timing. You know, a lot of that is whatever. If it just didn't work out for you. Now, if you if he purposely dodged deployments and stuff like that, now you feel bad for it, well, you probably should. But if you had no you know, it was just that's just the timing and stuff. I mean.

I knew guys that ran during the height of Iraq that didn't deploy because of one reason. I knew a guy who literally went all the way to Cherry Point to deploy, and they sent a duty van and picked them up and was like, you're not deploying because they had one too many people on the roster because they had some additional reservists and stuff added. And reservists can't be cut from a deployment once they're added, so they had to cut an active duty guy. His family was there, he'd already said goodbye to them all, and everything got all the way to Cherry Point, and then they sent a duty van to pick him up and be like, you're not deploying, bro, and brought him back. I couldn't believe it. I was like, he showed up at work

a couple days later. I was like, what are you doing here? He's like, dude, you're not gonna believe this, and then he I think he was one of those guys that when he got out he kind of felt like like a piece of shit, you know air quotes, because I never got to do my deployment and it's like, dude, so what, yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like, maybe, okay, I expect that you're not going to be giving deep thoughts on combat operations or whatever. Then as long as you don't do that, then whatever. But if you you know, who cares what you did, Like, it's just like, hey, man, if you want to get into heavy combat, you want to see this crazy stuff. And then it happens, and then you have these issues coming back to the real world,

and you wouldn't want your family to go through that. It's like, dude, I don't want you to have to. I remember I was in saying it and I was emailing my buddy who was on MSG duty, and I was like, yeah, it's pretty crazy out here, and he's like, man, I'm the only one you know you emailed me. He's like, I'm the only one that of our friends that is not going to have a combat action ribbon, and I was like, bro, I almost got shot in the face the other day, Like that wasn't cool, Like fuck the ribbon, dude, I literally almost got shot in the face. Like no, you know, but yeah, anybody that's I even say people that didn't join. I've met a lot of people that that were like I wish I would have joined, you know,

you regret not joining, And even those people, to me, as long as you did something within your community, you're a positive person in your community, then good on you, man, Good on you. If you're a construction worker and you're building buildings and you're doing those kinds of things, you're a plumber and you're taking care of your city's infrastructure, way more important than me going to Afghanistan and battling out with a Taliban for seven months at a time, you know what I'm saying, Like that's way more important and way more impactful, actual impactful on our society every day.

And if you're one of those people, you should not feel bad about not joining, because look at look at how many guys feel bad after the uh WE evacuated Kabul, you know, and the effect that had on people.

That's I mean one hundred percent. I don't anyone that says to me, I wish I should have joined, or I I I regret not joining. It's like, don't like you did you did your part for society, like I hope. And the same thing goes for people that are like, never seen as much stress as you. It's like, you know what you have because I think all of us have had our peak stress, right, and that's all we know.

The thing about being a human is that we are resilient and we can push past, you know, not push past, but get through that. It just depends on the level of support that you need for that. But at the end of the day, my worst day on this earth is no different than someone who never served worse day on earth. It's still the worst day on earth. And you know, until you have something new to replace that, you know, we're all living the same life in a sense.

It's just that the perspective might be different. Doesn't mean that my worst day is any worse than yours. It's just that have a different perspective on it, you.

Know, Yeah for sure. Yeah, yeah, man, Well this has been a really interesting conversation. Honestly, we we dabbled in some of the combat talk. We talked more about a bunch of other stuff. I mean probably half and half. So I wouldn't mind having you back on again. We could probably get more into it later on. So well, go ahead and plug your book and we're people can find you on social media and stuff like that, and then we'll set something up.

Awesome. Yeah, I wrote the book called Counting on Death and it's my Casemate publishers. It's available on Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, manywhere books are sold. It's on Audible as well, and I'm at Joshua Shore's official on Instagram and Facebook and at Counting on Death for Twitter. I'm not on there as much, but I should probably change that. And you can also find my website is counting on Death dot com and it has info on the book and all the podcasts I've done. Anything else, I'll put this one on there for people to be able to find it that way as well.

Oh yeah, man, And I'll make sure to put all the links in the description so everybody can check those out. Make sure to go over and check out his website, check out his book. You can see my stuff Jaycremergraphics dot com anglcoshop dot com. Those are my websites, Former Action Guys, Former Action News. Crazy Month. On Former Action News, I had a new thirty day record of seven point four million views in the last thirty.

Days, which is damn man, congrats.

That's crazy. So really really glad everybody supporting the news page. Go check that out. And then I really appreciate it and really enjoyed having me.

Thank you for the opportunity, and I definitely will take you up on coming back on at some point

Ep. 241 | Joshua Shores | MARSOC Raider, Marine Infantry, Fire Fighter

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