Ep. 246 | Jordan Wilkins | MARSOC Corpsman and Special Operations Independent Duty Corpsman

0:00 Okay, so I'm gonna remove that part and probably just put that part on Patreon. Okay, but we'll go ahead, and we'll go ahead and kick it off. Jordan Wilkins, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. You know, career spanning a pretty decent amount of time and special operations as a corman. I think that's a really cool you know, as corman and then moving up. I think that's such a really cool career path. I think I've given a lot of hate to the Navy on this podcast, but I hope people know that that's mainly the Blue Side Navy that I give my hate to, and that I love the Green Side Navy and everything that you guys.

0:36 Do for us.

0:36 And don't get me wrong, I love a lot of the Blue Side Navy too.

0:39 But I also will put hate towards the Blues.

0:44 It just is what it is, you know. So I appreciate you coming on. I'm I'm looking forward to talking to you. I don't get enough Corman on here. My first guest was actually my corman, cam Emil, who's our advisor Team Corman into Singing. Okay, he's episode one and two, and I think I've had a couple other guys on Tyler Fogg, who was an Anglico Corman who also went on to become a Seer instructor. But I don't get enough Corman on here. And I think it's a really interesting career path for like the Green Side guys, and there's some like weird little you know, things that you guys can do in that. So I'm interested in Hearin, why did you decide to join the Navy? Why did you decide to become a corman?

1:27 Yeah, so always growing up, I knew that I wanted to help people, and I didn't know exactly what that looked like. So, you know, I graduated high school, I was in college doing network security because my dad did network security and you know, tinkering with routers and all that kind of stuff. And then there was a big shift in my interest to like the medical field for whatever reason, you know, looking at paramedic or firefighter TV show and things like that. And so while I was going through college still I was doing night classes for EMT Basic. So essentially, you know EMT basic, can you know, drive the rig, help you with some oxygen and maybe you're inhaler EpiPen and that's pretty much it, right. But

2:23 when my first actually the first call that I got was on a two year old boy that was unconscious. They'd already started CPR, and looking back in the history, you know, he had quote unquote fell off his bed multiple times. And turns out that you know, that wasn't falling off the bed, it was just his dad was abusing him. And so that was my first call and like my personal like way up call, so like, you have a bigger purpose than to you know, programm routers and like do network security stuff. Two weeks later, my mom showed me like the obituary for that kid because he died. So that was my kind of intro to medicine essentially. And so from there I was like, Okay, well where can I do this stuff at you know,

3:24 at the pinnacle? Where can I be at the top for this, right? And So I'm a person that no matter what I'm doing, if it's important, I'm going to research it, right. I'm not going to make some fly choice and walk into a recruiters office and sign the papers that day. But that's just not me. So I bought books, like I was reading Masters of Chaos, for the Green Berets. I was reading all the Dick Marcinco books, you know, for classics. You know, I was reading books on recon Force recon and Air Force Special Operations and all this stuff. And I was just like digging into like, Okay, where can I best have an effect on helping people? Yeah, so I went in. I went, I went and talked to all the recruiters, you know, the first one. I

4:13 walked into the Marine Corps office and I was like, Hey, I want to be medic for you guys. And I didn't understand the corman role at that point. They're like, go next door, see the Navy. And of course everybody going in the Navy, that's a dude wants to be a Navy seal, right of course. And so I was like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna be a Navy seal. At the time, it's not like it is today. It was seals didn't have their own rate, right, So the Navy has rates where like HM is a corman now s O is a seal a special operator. Previously it was like you could be any other rate like ET or whatever the case, maybe a CS. And then just in parentheses, you would be a seal.

5:03 Right, yeah, I remember that. I didn't know they changed it to just s oh ye.

5:08 So now you can go like direct a session to s O be a seal. Yeah. I was like, I want to be I want to be a Navy seal. And I went to the Navy recruiter and I was like, hey, I had read about the Fort Bragg Schoolhouse for Special Operations Medics. Right, Green Berets go there for eighteen Delta Ranger medics go there, Civil affair medics, uh swick and sealed dudes at the time went there until they created their own school. You know, all the special operations medicine was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Right. So I was like if and this is a very you know, if he were, you know, like, if I can do this, if I pass buds, SQT all that stuff to be a seal, can you guarantee me, like in writing, that I'll be a medic and not like a calm dude

6:13 or intel dude or whatever the case may be, or weapons guy or whatever. And they're like no, And I'm like okay, So I'm gonna become a Navy corman and I'm gonna find my way there somehow, right, So I mean over that course, you know, I'm talking to Navy seals and talking to recon dudes. I'm talking to green berets, you know, from the community. I enlisted from the Seattle MEPs, so northern you know, northwest Washington, that kind of stuff.

6:48 So anybody that can find I'm like, I'm trying to glean information before I go into boot camp to kind of go down this road, and recon Corman was kind of on my radar, but not really. I went through Navy boot camp, which really wasn't super crazy. It was like we would get angry because we couldn't pete as much as we wanted to. Essentially, really, yeah, that's kind of crazy.

7:19 Need more pt Yeah, exactly, So like nobody else is asking for that in any other boot camp.

7:24 So it's crazy. So they had like these big stanchions like in the middle of the you know, the barracks, and so there was a dive motivator program for the seals and swick, but if you didn't have that contract, you couldn't do it at the time. So I'd be like knocking out push ups, you know, behind one of those stanchions, just trying to like stay in shape, because before boot camp, I was like, I'm gonna be a Navy seal. I'm gonna do this stuff. I was running like ten miles a day, lifting weights, all that kind of stuff. Right. So after boot camp, get to Core School Naval Hospital Course School in Great Lakes. They have a dive motivator program there, and that's where I really got introduced more to the seal versus recon side of

8:15 things because we had people. One we had a we had a seal that was converting to Corman because he broke his back and so he led a lot of these like PT events in the morning, like zero two in the morning, like we're running to the pool and doing all that kind of stuff. We had an ET one, which Electronic Technician first class and he was a diver, so we had that end covered. And then we had a Chief Corn and that was that was running it.

8:54 And so we do these pets and everything in the morning. And honestly, from I hate to say it, but from all the seals that I met and like seeing this dude that was converting into Korman and then also meeting like force recon dudes from the Marine Corps, it was just a stark contrast to what I was expecting. So my experience was that for the most part, not one hundred percent of the time, but for the most part, those seals were just like super arrogant, like talking about everybody just for lack of a better term, like douchebags like you. And I hate to say that because I have a couple of good like seal friends, but that was at least at the time, kind of the culture and community. But every recon or Force recon dude I

9:57 talked to was professional, like knew their job inside and out. And I was like, okay, like maybe I need to rethink this, and ended up, you know, choosing to go down the Reconcorman pipeline as opposed to go into buds and being the doing the Seal thing.

10:19 So when you go to when you when you go into that pipeline, though, I mean, how do you even move into that? Because you go to your MS school, learn all your basic Corman stuff and everything from there, and then is there like an announcement there like hey, who wants to try out for Greenside like Corman's. I mean, how does that work?

10:36 So I mean, at the time, every mail, every dude that was going through Core School. He was going greet inside period.

10:45 Oh really, Now.

10:48 There was with the dive Motivator program that was there at Core School. There's an opportunity to scream to go Reconcorman, right, But either way you started with being a green Side Corman. You go to Field Medical Training Battalion and train there and that's where you actually get your orders to the Ricon Corman pipeline. And then everybody else that graduates Field med that's where they go to their standard fleet Marine Corps units.

11:21 Did you at what point? I think some people don't realize this, But at what point do they ask if you want to do the Marine Corps standards or the Navy standards? And then if you do the Marine Corps standards for people that don't realize you're allowed to wear like the Marine Alphas and stuff like that.

11:35 But with the Corman insignia, yep. So that happens close to the end of Field Medical Training Battalion. So they have two schools for that, one in Campbell June, North Carolina, one in Camp Pendleton, California. So towards the end of that they essentially, you know, they write out what we call a page thirteen. So essentially, hey, I'm saying that I'm going to here to the Marine Corps standards of uniform haircut, shaving, like all that kind of stuff. I'm no longer adhering to the Navy standards. And really that's a that's a choice that each specific corman can make.

12:17 I chose not to make that choice because I was not super excited about having a whole other set of uniforms I have to maintain and like streaming standards and like all that kind of stuff.

12:33 That's a practical way to look at it, and you don't. Don't they have to run the pf T as well or is that not?

12:37 Yeah? I mean we had to run the PFT as well, but it is a requirement if you choose to take those you know, regulations.

12:47 I only saw a handful of corman that did that, But I will say the alphas or not. Yeah, the alphas with their rank and everything on, it looks pretty good. It looks pretty sick. I was like, damn, and it throws people off. People are like what the fuck is that? You know, Like, what is he doing? No?

13:05 Absolutely there they look good. That was just not for me. I guess just style.

13:13 I mean, yeah, that's cool though. I mean, so moving on to the green side, yep, seems like the way. I mean, if I was going to be a corman, I would never want to do that job. I personally wouldn't want to have to deal with all the you know, all of that. But if I guess, if I was gonna do it, that'd be the way to go, right, you know, unless you want to sit on a hospital ship or something like that, which could also be cool, but for different reasons.

13:33 Yeah. Yeah, not a big fan of being in hospital and that kind of stuff. I like being out of the field. I love my Marines. Most of my career is spent with the Marines. Actually, my entire career was spent with the Marines. And it was only my last billet where I was actually at a technically a Navy command, but I was still here to twenty nine palems, you know, serving with the Marines, seeing the Marines and excess students. Yeah, g like all those guys.

14:07 Palms when you were So when you were you finish up, you finish up f M TB. What was what was your first duty station after that?

14:15 So after that I got orders to the pipeline, right, So you know, graduation day happened at Field Med and my orders weren't there, and so like I waited for this hum one to come out, and you know, tell the I don't remember what unit I was supposed to go to, but it was, you know, somebody in Le June. But tell them like, hey, the Stude's coming with me.

14:40 And so now I have official orders to the Recon Korman pipeline right. And from there, once you complete that, you can be sent to either you know Recon Unit, Marine Recon or Marine Special Operations Command.

14:56 Yeah, you're designated as a SARK at.

14:58 That point right after you graduate, Yes.

15:01 After you finish. Is there more to that than b r C or what all?

15:06 So what all is your pipeline for the CORM and going through that? Yep, So there's there's a little bit of a like temporary duty. So I hung out at Second Recon for a couple of months, you know, hung out here and there, just in between schools so that the course dates lined up. But essentially the pipeline begins with Basic Consistance course in Camp Pendleton. From there I went to Basic Airborne at Fort Benning, Georgia, did that happened to get married right after that, so that was interesting.

15:42 And then for me, I went up to some dudes go down to dive school, next some go to SOCCAM or Special Operations Combat medic and so I went to Fort Bragg Special Operations Combat Medic first knocked that out. Then it was Marine Combatant Diver down in Panama City Beach, Florida, and then dive Medicine right after that before I got my orders to marsock Man.

16:10 How long is that process?

16:13 Total pipeline was about two and a half years or so, the current pipeline, because essentially when I went through it was the medical course was split in half, so it was like you do six months that would be SOCCAM Special Operations Combat medic that was focused specifically on trauma, anatomy, and physiology, all that kind of stuff. The second half is was known as Special Operations Independent Duty CORMAN SYDC.

16:45 And so at the time you would go do the six months as part of your STARK pipeline and then do a deployment on a team, come back and finish the second six months as the eighteen Deltas. The Green Berets would go just straight through for that full year and now actually Marsak has been doing that with their Corman and so there's really no more like doing six months and then doing six months later. It's all like a year. So really the whole pipeline is pushing close to three years at this point.

17:24 Man, that's crazy. I guess it's a little easier to do the full full thing now when there's not the pressure of Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, like trying to get those rotations of guys in. So let's back up to one. I didn't know it was that long, and I knew it was kind of long, but I didn't realize it was that long. What was it like going to BRC? You know, you said you were prepping to go to Seals and then you went. Obviously you went through boot camp, which was kind of lame, and you go through the other training and if your experience is like mine, it's all I don't want to say a letdown, but like you're not peteing as much as you thought you would lot of cases. So at this point, did you still feel pretty comfortable, like and ready to go

18:05 to b r C And what did you struggle with while.

18:07 You were there? So I mean I remember talking to my now wife girlfriend at the time, you know, as I was like getting on the plane to fly out to Camp Pendleton from North Carolina, and just like kind of like the awe of like I'm going to train where like all of these heroes.

18:29 Have been built right, legendary.

18:32 Yeah, and so that for me was was pretty awesome. Obviously, in any training program, there's gonna be some letdowns, but overall I found BRC to be very professionally run. There wasn't a bunch of just like bs, like we don't have time to deal with the bs. It was just like, Okay, we have a mission focus on it. Like if somebody's not making it, you know, they're gonna get cut. Yeah, you know, they can have their second or third chances or whatever potentially depending on their attitude. But like, this is the place where we make Marine recon warriors, you know.

19:21 Yeah, yeah, you're not fucking around. So at this point, this is probably the best course you've been to at this point.

19:25 Yeah, absolutely, I mean I look at I remember a quote from I don't remember the specific quote, but one of the staff sergeants that was at amphib Phase down to Cornado because we do a couple weeks down there a Cornado for amphibious reconnaissance, and he was like, listen, I'm gonna be straight up with you. Ninety nine percent of the time this job sucks. The one percent is where you see you know, in the movies or like the highlight reels or whatever, and in those cases it's amazing.

20:02 But most of the time you're going to be cold, wet, hungry, and miserable, and just you know, some dudes were just like they heard that and they're like, what, maybe I don't want to do that for the rest of my career, you know. And that's fine for them, you know, but for those seeking to be kind of at the pinnacle, it was the place to be.

20:26 You just have to get comfortable being uncomfortable exactly, you know. And then also that shared misery is an experience, you know. It's like, well, a lot of people's most memorable moments in the military are these like shared misery experiences.

20:39 And that's the way to build a team. Like throw them all through some some shared suffering and you'll build an amazing team.

20:48 Yeah, they're either going to come out like rock solid together or just ready to kill each other. You know, it's gonna be like it's really no in between there. Yep, yeah, yeah, So moving on. You know, you you finished b r C, which is you know, it's funny how you're like, yeah, I went to BRC and then it's like, that's a huge that's a huge accomplishment. You just kind of went across that real quick. That's a that's a big deal.

21:12 Not many people can say they've done that, especially on the Navy side of the house. How many other Navy personnel were in your class?

21:19 So there were I believe there were six of us. Yeah, I can't remember how many made it out of b r C. I know at least one or two dropped. But it was just me and my buddy who made through the whole pipeline together without you know, getting rolled back at any phase, whether it was SOCCAM or airborne or dive or dive MED. It was just me and my buddy. There were a couple others that ended up making it after you know, a rollback or two, and unfortunately one of them is now a triple amputee and deploy with first Recombatine. But yeah, it takes a lot to kind of continue on with that kind of goal in the distant future, you know, because it's like, Okay, I did BRC check, like I still have another year and a half plus, you know before I'm actually on

22:22 a team doing the job, and every step along the way, they're like, this is just the basics, right. Yeah, it's like you're in such a rush to get there and you don't even realize how little you know. Yeah, and at the same time, you know that those guys that deployed or that that graduated field med and didn't go Reconcorman, they had already done like their first deployment. So you're like, I'm I'm missing out, you know, like I want to go and do what I'm supposed to do, but you're like, I gotta get you know, all this training done to be able to you know, reset level. Yeah.

23:04 Yeah, it's again, those guys are busy too. Like I mentioned at the beginning, cam uh My Corman with the advisor team and his in his one enlistment, he did three rotations to singing, you know, and it was just like one of them got blown up, you know, one of them did our advisor team, another one you know, it was just like three times a singing in a four year period.

23:25 That's insane.

23:26 Yeah, so yeah, it's uh, that's crazy though. Can you talk about talk about the soccer? I'm like, what are you learning there that's different than what the average because I'm sure there's some corman that you are gonna listen to this that are like, man, what what's the additional stuff.

23:40 That you learned there?

23:41 What are the opportunities? And then what does the Special Operations Independent Duty CORMAN course take that? How does that take it to the next level? What what does that allow you to do that you know, having the other certification doesn't.

23:54 Absolutely That's probably a really long witted answer. But so SOCCAM the short you know, quote unquote short course for six months. Like I said, it's folks on trauma, combat trauma. The difference between, you know, just going through field med as a CORMAN and going through SOCCAM is the immense amount of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology you get right up front, so they're expecting you at like doctor level, like going through med school, like I understand the chemical composition of ketamine and what it does to the body, the indications, the contraindications, and you know, there's a lot of people that you know, they may good be good with hands on stuff, and they're good with you know, doing their

24:50 t tris lanes, tech combat, casualty care and that kind of stuff, but they don't understand kind of like the why behind everything, And the why is what we need because we're essentially sent forward of most other operating forces and we're going to be out there, you know, alone and afraid, supposedly, and we're going to we're not going to have any real support around us. The only thing may be a metavac if they get there in time.

25:22 But we need to be able to understand what's happening with the human body as it's being injured, as we're trying to treat it, and how we can sustain it until we get it to the next level of care, which is most likely an operating room, right, And so if you don't understand the why behind that, essentially most greenside cormen they're just on an algorithm. So if A then B, B then C and they're just running down their algorithm without understanding the why behind it. So when a wrench gets thrown in there and you have have somebody who's you know, maybe you have to hold on, hold on to them longer than expected and they get septic and that kind of stuff like how do you treat that? Do you have the medication to treat that?

26:13 So really understanding the why behind everything, and then we just drilled everything over and over and over again until it was muscle memory. Me and my buddy actually we had a like a stuffed animal horse that we would like do injuries on each other, you know, for each other, and just like run scenarios over and over and over again.

26:36 And you know, for the knowledge piece, I had stacks to the ceiling of you know, three by five index cards of like things I need to memorize and know for all this stuff on top of that, you know, without getting into too much detail. Fort Bragg is the premiere place to conduct live tissue training, right, so we do the live tissue training there on the goats. And being able to actually see the response physiologically and with those animals is like I've worked on a bunch of different types of mannequins and like, you know, things that are trying to be like live tissue. Nothing compares, at least right now, nothing compares to that.

27:29 Yeah, It's just it's an actual thing. It's an actual So I've had the opportunity life tissue twice. Yeah, and both times Mike Horman that we're doing it with us, we're like, this is the best medical training you can get, Like this is you know, and I've done the mannequins also, you know, the really expensive mannequins that squirt blood and it's just like it's just not realistic. There's sometimes there's issues with them. I mean, and I think the thing that really stood out at the end of the live tissue training that the guy the contractors that we were working with, you know, we did the pigs. We didn't have the goats. We did the pigs, and you know, they're shot and stabbed and amputated in some cases and

28:09 stuff like that. And at the end of it, I remember the instructor being like, you know, look at everything that's done to this pig. That's been done to this pig. Yeah, and it's still alive and you're like, okay. So it kind of gives you like, oh, okay, it's not just like a training rep. Okay, we packed the wound, let me do this whatever, and it's done. You're you're seeing that, oh, even with all these traumatic injuries, it's still alive. Yeah, and it's like okay, so it kind of gives you It's almost like doing the gas chamber. It's like, okay, well I know my gas mask works now. Yeah, like, okay, I feel a little bit better.

28:47 It works. Yeah. Absolutely. On the flip side of that too, we've had, because I've done you know, live tissue with pigs and everything as well, there are some that just you know, get a small injury that you think would survive and end up, you know, dying quicker than you expect. Yeah. So I mean it can kind of be a you know, double edged sword with that.

29:10 Do you think they'll ever be forced to phase out the life tissue training?

29:14 I mean, right now everything everything is done to it's called the Aya Cook standards. I have a feeling that, I mean, that's been the driving force behind like PETA and you know a bunch of the other organizations that are like, we need to stop this, but they haven't been able to find a good enough replacement for it, you know. I I imagine someday they may be able to build the best mannequin with AI and whatever else and the most realistic feeling skin and organs and like all this stuff. But I don't I have a hard time, you know, at least right now, seeing something that could replace live tissue.

30:11 That's almost like taking that cadaver training out of like medical school, you know, or something like that. It's like, I don't think you can really replicate the actual.

30:20 Like handling of you know.

30:21 And for those that may not be aware of what we're talking about, you know, this is something where they bring these animals out and they're completely sedated there. I remember we had like vet texts on hand that were going around monitoring everything.

30:33 It was.

30:34 I mean, they were referred to as patients the whole time. It's like a whole thing, you know, it's not like we're torturing animals you know that are sentient and you know what the hell's going on.

30:46 So it's definitely it's highly controlled and regulated.

30:50 Yeah, yeah, because there's so much pressure on it. There's so much heat. I remember anytime we did it, it was always off site. It was off base, and it was like we drive to somewhere in the middle of nowhere or like a farm that had like blackout fencing around it. Yeah, you know, like in different location. It's kind of crazy.

31:07 But yeah, that's interesting though, So when you move beyond that, I'm glad you mentioned that too, because a lot of people do T Triple C training, you know that I did it. I did it. I know a lot of guys there in the Global War and terror did it. I thought it was really good training, and I thought it gave folks that were getting ready to deploy, who hadn't deployed yet, like probably their first actual insight on traumatic injuries and what they look like. You know, you can talk about oh so and so got his leg blown off, blah blah blah blah blah. But I remember when we did our T Triple C training, the first class, like within the first five minutes, they were showing slides of ied blast wounds in in Iraq. They were taking

31:54 in Iraq right after they happened, And there was another advisor team in the train with us, and I'm one of the lieutenants like passed out from just the seeing the the stuff. I was like, oh, you know, like those officers, but it was like, I mean, the the pictures are like, oh damn, it's like stuff you don't want to see, you know what I'm saying. But it's I don't know, it's important to have that kind of knowledge when you're when you're getting ready to employ.

32:22 Yeah, and I mean I think there is something to be said with you know, stress andoculation, and part of that being like seeing these actual wounds, because when you're you know, going to treat these wounds, you can't sit there and be like, oh, that's you know, gross or whatever. And you know, like this is your time to to shine, Like this is your time to you know, do what you're supposed to be doing, right. Yeah, and especially conventional side Corman and Marine corps like the Cormen are you know, unlike special operations, they are just there to do the medicine.

33:02 Like if the first sergeant catches you on like a machine gun, like you're screwed, you know, like you are just there to say Marines and now there's been plenty of Corman who definitely went above and beyond. There's also like the you know, they're considered non combatants and and things like that with a conventional side.

33:24 So yeah, I remember Cam would tell me he said on it. I think it was his first deployments Afghanistan that he he stopped wearing his Corman insignia and started wearing Lance corporal chevrons and changed his I think he changed his bag out as well, because they started targeting the Corman yeah you know, and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's a yeah, it's crazy man. So when you get to the second portion, what's changes from the sid C like going through that, what does that allow you to do that all these other courses don't yeh.

33:55 So this is where it really turns into like a thinking man's game. Right, So you've done all the trauma stuff, you understand anatomy of physiology, pharmacology with drugs. This is where you actually implement those things into like nursing and surgical practices. You know. Part of that is we go into the lab and we actually you know, like look under a microscope and diagnose things. We see pets and like military working dogs and things like that. And there's actually a day where you know, the vet brings in like their mule and people would bring in their dogs and cats to get vaccinated so we can work with animals and that kind of stuff. Because part of the mission you know, downrange was you know, we would do

34:43 what's called vet caps where essentially we'd bring all the animals from the villages and we'd you know, deworm them or whatever the case may be. And then you really get into like the surgery, anesesia and nursing capabilities, which is having that combination from trauma to the surgery and a sesia, you know, nursing. Like this whole spectrum is not seen really anywhere in civilian medicine. So like a surgeon civilian side does surgery, like that's what he does.

35:18 He has a nurse there, he has somebody handing him instruments like he does surgery. That's it, right, and he's really good at it right, Nothing you know, bad to be said about that. But in each of these specialties they just do that one thing. Whereas we're in the middle of nowhere with a team remotely, we have to be able to do all of the things right. So Marsarks specifically was kind of designed similar to Odia's Green Berets.

35:50 So essentially we have two sarks or sidcs on each team. So the idea is that if there's you know, a significant surgery, whether it's an amputation or debreedment or something like that that needs to happen, one of them can act as the antithesiologist and the other one can act as the surgeon. Right. So with that being said, essentially the culminating piece of SOYDC school, you know, aff rotations and all that kind of stuff, is essentially a three week almost four week process where you're buddied up with somebody.

36:34 You are given, you know, your live animal model, a goat, and your entire mission in life is to keep that goat alive and healthy. And in that process, you know you're going to have a couple things happen. You're going to have the initial traumatic injuries, You're going to have to stabilize them from that and then recover them from that.

37:02 So when it's your live animal model, it's going to be you're going to be the surgeon. When it's your buddies live animal model, your goat, they're going to be the surgeon. You're going to be the antesesiologist. And then in between there, you're taking care of everything for that goat. Right, You're making sure they're peeing, You're making sure that you're analyzing all their labs. You're doing X rays if you need to do X rays, You're checking their wounds, all that kind of stuff. So Essentially you do three major surgeries, the one being the initial stabilization, second being a debreaedment of whatever major injury they have, and the third one being an amputation, which in my experience actually proved u

37:50 to be significantly important because I ended up, you know, having to assist in an amputation, you know, in country in a ten in Afghanistan, no way, Yeah, so pretty rare. But I had the opportunity to do that.

38:08 That's that, guess crazy? You described that as an opportunity that I just flashed back to, like civil war. You know, what are they called bone saw?

38:20 So our bone saws we call giggly saws, and so essentially just you go at it.

38:27 Oh, it's like those tree saws, those like hand in tree saws.

38:30 Oh no way, yeah, like a little kind of like string in the middle.

38:34 Yeah, wow, that's crazy. What was I mean? I don't want to jump too far ahead, but what would you mean? Tell me some details about that? How did that happen?

38:44 Absolutely so, first deployment in Afghanistan, there was a a local Afghan that, for whatever reason, you know, accident or otherwise, had his hand essentially shoved into one of like the wheat harvesters or harvesters of some kind, and so he came up with just like his entire forearm just mangled right.

39:13 And fortunately we had a an army unit there, you know, that had some surgeons and that kind of stuff, and so I was able to go over there and kind of help him out with it. You know, I definitely wasn't like the number one dude like all the decisions, but you know we had we ended up and amputating essentially at the elbow for his right arm. I have a couple of pictures of it somewhere. I do not want to see that. Thank you, but no thank you.

39:46 But then what was even crazier is there was a facility down in Herat, I think either Herad or Bastion, I can't remember, but there was a facility that did prosthetics for the Afghans.

40:01 Really, so like after.

40:03 We recovered him, we use what's called the Copeland method for healing and recovery and that kind of stuff, and we sent him down there and he was able to get like a prosthetic hand. You know, It's not like the electronic stuff we see with you know, our troops and stuff today, but you know, it was enough for him to be able to like survive with his family.

40:24 So yeah, I mean that's such a different world to have a that's almost almost a death sentence to have like an amputated limb, you know, because I try to tell people like, it's such an agrarian society where hand the mouth, you know, you're like working for your food every day and stuff like that, and to have a limitation of any kind is detrimental.

40:43 Yeah.

40:44 Absolutely, man, that's pretty wild. Was the the surgeons the Army surgeons? Were they those like special operations like surgeons that come.

40:52 In Nope, I can't remember the unit that was there, but it was a decent sized army unit. Oh okay, So it wasn't like the special operations surgeons and that kind of stuff. It was just like an orthopedic surgeon and an antesesiologist.

41:11 Yeah, because there's some pretty high level oh yeah, like surgeons and stuff that work with like the Tier one units and stuff that go out and if you see them in their kit you wouldn't even realize that they're doctors stuff, but they're a full surgical team.

41:22 Yep. That's also one of my dreams to go to that, But had some other hiccups, so it.

41:29 Just didn't happen. What's the difference, So when you're talking about that kind of level of care that you're providing. I always thought it was kind of interesting the tricky flights in Afghanistan, which was the British the British shouldn't look that would come in a lot of times for mass casualties because it should look and something like that.

41:46 But it was my understanding that they had like a surgical prep team or something on board, and that they would do a lot of the work kind of like what you're describing on their way, you know, after picking up someone on their way to the next role of facility.

42:00 Yeah, so I have less familiarity with the tricky flights just because we used dust off so Army METAVAC most of the time. But we've also used like the Air Force Saucey Special Operations surgical team, and that's kind of what I equate that to you. So like they're able to do like in flight surgical care and things like that, more advanced procedures.

42:31 That which is crazy everybody else imagining doing that. Yeah, that's so crazy, like thinking about like either beginning some surgical procedures or like prepping for surgery in the back of a helicopter. Yeah, you know, that's blacked out and everything. Like, what a wild job, man, there's some crazy jobs in the military. You know, you're out here freaking cutting arms off in Afghanistan. That's I've never heard of that. That's the first time I've heard of anybody doing an amputation in country. That's pretty wild. Yeah, you know that kind of in the field at least. Yeah, well, I guess let's back up then, let's let's talk about how you're done with all these courses. You're certified, you're getting ready

43:09 to go to Marsk. What was it called at the times the Marine Raiders yet or was it no?

43:15 So I think it was twenty fourteen that become it became the Raiders. And usually the step wise process for a recon corman is, you know, you get done with the pipeline, you go to Marine recon. You do you know, a deployment there, maybe you go to force recon and then from there you maybe look at MARSK. Just the way that it worked out timing wise, and who needed people.

43:42 Myself and my buddy the only two that made it through the whole pipeline together, you know, down at dive school finished dive MAD and they're like, we have two sets of orders for second m SUP so Marine Special Operations Battalion at the time MARSK and do you guys want them?

44:01 And we're like, yeah, no, man, I've been doing all this for nothing. Yeah.

44:08 So you know that's just what you know, kind of like the happenstance was was just like these are the dudes that needed people, and that's where we ended up.

44:22 Well real quick, I forgot I would I did want to ask what was divemed Like dive.

44:27 Med was good? From what I understand, divemed is largely influenced by the instructors for divemed because it can be just very plain and like memorizing dive tables and treatment algorithms and that kind of stuff. But we had two very good instructors and so like for us, at least in my experience, it wasn't just like do dive medicine.

44:56 It was like all aspects of your medicine and you're doing it while diving. And so we did things like you know, water rescues with parachutes, you know, they so they'd lay out like a parachute in the water down in Panama City Beach and we'd have to you know, follow the the lead lines and like get to the edge and then do whatever we need to do. And so they were very The tests were also very difficult.

45:25 The written tests and the practical application tests were very difficult just because of how they designed the course and wanted it to be. And honestly, my first, my first patient I ever saw once I got to second m ZOB was was somebody going into the recompression chamber for like tissue healing after a gangrenous you know, they had a motorcycle accident and they had a piece of tissue you know, that was placed over an area that was supposed to be healing, and so we were doing you know, hyperbaric oxygen treatment on them.

46:04 Man, that's so crazy, dude. That's what a cool job. What an interesting like, what an interesting career path is? I love the military stories from different people because there's so many different things that you can do and so many things that you can be exposed to, you know, and stuff like that. I mean, like you said before, a lot of times when you get into the medical world, you're really focusing on certain aspects you you really specialize in something, no matter what level it is. You know, you may have some little tertiary like things that you you know about. But to get as much like training and then hands on and and be expected to remember all this stuff too, yeah, you know, and be able

46:42 to that's that's so crazy. When you got to second m SOB, did you feel like you were ready where you're like, Okay, I'm ready for this or was it like, oh shit, here we go.

46:51 You know, I think it was a little bit of both, Like I'm excited to go and finally do what I'm supposed to be doing. But at the same time, we had a we had a guy that's from dive school. We called him, you know and say like, hey, we're coming up and we're excited to be there, and just kind of his mannerisms, I'll say, are very uh direct.

47:21 So it's like, you know, oh, you're excited to come. I bet you are. Like it's just like fascinating for like no reason. But once you got there, man, the when they tell you through that training pipeline that this is just the basics, Like, I can't explain how much that's true because the learning curve there, you know, which is why I usually you know, you go to recon or Force or something like that first before you go to MARSK. But the learning curve there is just like straight up and it was it was a difficult learning curve.

48:05 And you know, I was practicing you know, speed reloads in my living room with a target in the wall for like hours and just like so many things learned from medicine to comms too, shooting and so many different things that you can't well you're going through this training pipeline, you can't. You just you don't know, right, And so the willingness to just you know, bear down with it and like learn as much as you can like a sponge is super important. And part of that is remaining humble, which we might get to you later later. But like some of the dudes that just were like, oh hey, I'm I'm awesome, I'm good, I got it, Like those are the views that that fail miserably.

48:57 Yeah, yeah, no, I mean that makes sense. When you when you got over there, was there a now a lot of the enablers have to go through like the socks like pipeline, like a little bit of training. Was there anything like that? Or b r C was your That was it for you. There was no other additional training at so.

49:17 I mean once you get there, there is additional training, but it's not like it is today with the enablers and everything. I mean, because you have specific requirements with Marsock, Like everybody has to go through you know, annual t TRIC. Everybody has to go through CER level C full spectrum. So I mean you got to go through shooting package.

49:40 You gotta do X, Y and Z, you know, to hit all these wickets. So I mean there's there's definitely things that you have to do that ye kind of happen really between every single deployment, with the exception of like having to go back to see your again. But but there's no like intro like selection and like mini selection or anything like.

50:02 That for you to be there. Okay, okay, how long were you there before you got as signed to your first team or was that just immediately you just got put on a team immediately.

50:11 No, So I did about a month roughly in the bas Battalion aid station, And the reason for that is one to kind of learn the ropes, get all your gear checked out, like all the admin stuff, do the house hunting if you need to things like that. But also it's you know, the Navy, excuse me, the Navy started requiring that every greenside Corman and get their Fleet Marine Force their FMF PIN, right, and.

50:44 So of all the stuff you've already done, you gotta go back and learn this stupid FMF stuff.

50:51 You got to learn all the FMF stuff and like how much you know.

50:56 Which there's a decent percentage of that information in the little book that you're to learn from that's incorrect and outdated.

51:02 Oh yeah, and it's.

51:03 So stupid that they force you to learn stuff that's incorrect and outdated to get that pin. Yeah.

51:08 So essentially it was like you have to get this, you know, most Corman because I was a battalion surgeon at three seven more recently, most Gorman get you know, the FMF PIN between like eight and eighteen months after being at a FMF unit. Yeah. Essentially, we were told from day one, like you have thirty days to do this, and if you don't do it, like you're not going to a team and there's gonna be an issue.

51:37 So it's crazy how much pressure the Navy puts on people for those pins.

51:42 Yeah, it's ridiculous, and I mean it's just like, yeah, it's crazy. So that was that period. Like I said, me and my buddy went up there together. He wasn't married at the time I was, and so I took how sunning leave and so essentially there was a hotel company that was looking for another corman, just one other corman, and so he got placed with them, so he was going to deploy sooner. And then I got placed with Fox Company Team one, A two to one one.

52:19 And when you got there, I mean, what was the what's it like? First time walking in the team room? He heay, guys, what's up? Yeah, uh, I'm here, docs here, don't worry.

52:29 Yeah, it's it's definitely interesting, intimidating, especially with MARSOC because you know, at the time, you know, it wasn't like junior Marines that were coming in. It was kind of half and half. It was older force recon dudes that got kind of grandfathered in and then it was older like snipers and recon men that got picked up for MARSOK, right, and so all these dude had, you know, multiple deployments, experience all that kind of stuff. I remember the first day we walked in and talked to the first sergeant who was an old sniper dude, and you know, he was like, Doc, you got to have two things on you at all times, and one's a watch and one's a knife, so if you have to stab somebody, you can tell him what time it was. And I was like, okay, cool,

53:25 Like let's go. I get that.

53:28 I guess yeah, it makes sense.

53:31 That's fun. But no super intimidating going in there, but just man being able to be humble in those situations and just like realize like, yeah, I did, you know, the last two and a half years of training, but I don't have the experience that these guys do, and just being able to like soak it up like a sponge is super important.

53:54 Yeah, how long were you on the team before you guys got tapped for your first deployment and started to work up.

54:01 So I mean with the special operation cycle, like you're always in some form of workup, right, Okay, So you know, if the end of a deployment is the end of a cycle, then the next thing is individual training phase. And so you know, that's kind of what I rolled into. Is like guys were off at different schools getting capabilities for the team to be able to do what we needed to be able to do as a team. From there, it moves up to like team level training to company level training for about six months and then like a you know, it ended up being ten months for us on the first eployment, but roughly it's supposed to be like a six month so it's supposed to be a two month or sorry, a two year cycle. Six months individual,

54:49 six months team, six months company, and then six months deployment. So I was, you know, lucky enough, you know, whereas my buddy got thrown into you kind of like the team company level work up and got a shorter work up, I was able to start earlier with my team and kind of like you know, go to a couple more schools, get some footing underneath me, and then you know, shooting packages and like all that kind of stuff before we actually ended up deploying.

55:24 What non medical, non corman training was like the best for you, oh, maybe the most practical or even your favorite, even if it wasn't the most practical.

55:38 Yeah, So my favorite actually ended up because after my second combat deployment, essentially i'd gotten to the point where I did pretty much all of the medical schools, and I was like, okay, like I'm trained as a medic, like as a corman, as an sid C, Like, let's start brand out a little bit. And so I started getting into the intel world a little bit and doing technical surveillance. So the Marine Corps has the Marine Special Operations Technical Surveillance Course MTSC, and that for me was you know, that was a great time. Honestly, it was just it was tons of fun. I learned a bunch, you know, it brought in stuff from you know, when I was doing college for network security and things like that,

56:31 and with that, you know, kind of grew my ego a bit larger than it should have because I was like, you know, like think of all the things I can do, because you know, we're picking locks, We're doing you know, b and ease, like you know, breaking into locations. You know, we're following people, doing tagging, tracking, locating all these you know, kind of half spy ish type things like this is awesome.

57:02 Yeah, that sounds pretty awesome. I'm gonna lie, yeah, that sounds pretty legit. I don't that's a that's such a random course for you to get sent to. But yeah, I mean that's one of those things, right when you get sent to another country, it's a lot of reconnaissance. It's one of the levels of reconnaissance there.

57:20 Yeah, and I mean I was the first. So there's only been two Quremen that have gone through that course. Yeah, it was one of them, and then another one of my buddies a couple of months later ended up going through it. But man, part of that is having like a good cover, and medicine is probably the best cover that you can have in a third world country.

57:48 Yeah, Okay, there's a lot of operations that have been built off the back of like a medical something, you know, humanitarian.

57:55 Aid something like that exactly. So yeah, for me, that was probably one of the best courses I went to, next to the Fort Bragg medical course.

58:08 I've had some I've had a few friends that went into counter intel and they got to do with something similar like that, And it just sounds like a pretty legit of what I know of it. Obviously, I don't know very much about it, but it sounds pretty pretty cool, you know. So let's get back to you were at you're at, You're at your team. You guys got your different levels of training going on, Well, what point do you get told where you're going and then how do you start to focus training towards that? Is there you know a shift and then let's talk about like getting into country. Yeah, so second m SOB at the time was just Middle East, so we knew Afghanistan.

58:44 Like that's where we knew Afghanistan. We didn't know exactly where, but that's where we're going. At the time, it was called Special Operations Advisory Group, but now it's just third third Raider Battalion. You know, they kind of had a responsibility for Africa, and then we had first MSA that was responsible for paycom essentially, Right, so we knew we were going to Afghanistan, and so we're building you know, intelligent pictures and all that kind of stuff along the way, and then we're working that into training throughout the whole process.

59:16 So you know, after everybody gets back from individual training phase, we're working as a team and like, Okay, we know we're going to Afghanistan. This is kind of the train we're looking at dealing with. So this is how we as a team are going to focus our training, right, and then same thing with the company level, like we're going to go here, you know. We ended up going to Dougway, Utah. We ended up doing Muayak, North Carolina.

59:44 We did stuff down in Texas, like all these different places where it was like we know where we're going, what we're trying to do, and build packages for and then train for that, you know together.

59:59 Yeah. Yeah, when you're I mean when you're getting ready though, and you're getting ready to go over. There's different roles that different teams can do. So sometimes some of the Marsak teams, themsots are going over and doing direct action. Sometimes they're doing the foreign internal defense. What was your team's role in this during this deployment?

1:00:21 Yep. So actually for all three of my deployments, it was all under the umbrella of VSO Village Stability Operations. Okay, largely part of that is going to be direct action. Part of that is going to be fit for an internal defense. Part of that's going to be special conistants. You know, like there's different aspects to that, but definitely that first deployment was Village Stability Operations, Like we were going into villages, living with them, and then we were training essentially like a they called him ALP Afghan local police so that they could essentially protect their own, you know, little village. So that was the whole premise behind the first deployment, less so the second and third, but it

1:01:16 was still kind of present there.

1:01:19 Those Afghan local police guys. Man. They would cruise around in these little sedans with like a PKM hanging out the window and stuff, and it was like, dude, you're gonna get blown up. I don't because they don't wear uniforms. Yea, you know, they're like the lowest level. I think it was the because you had the Alps and you had the a UP. I believe were the ones that were the blue uniforms, right, I believe Afghan okay an P. Yeah, there's I remember those ALP guys man, They're just some homies riding around with machine guns. Like, who are these dudes?

1:01:52 I mean, as we're getting into country. Yeah. So on this first deployment, well, let me back up a little bit, just throwing some personal stuff in there. So my wife and I are married, we have our first baby November sixth, twenty ten, and then I deployed my first combat deployment deployment ever to Afghanistan Thanksgiving day, two weeks after she had this baby.

1:02:26 Right, they were really nice of you to get your ten day baby.

1:02:29 Yeah, so that's kind of like leading up to it. But yeah, we get in country and essentially what we're doing and this kind of echoes throughout the other deployments is it sounds a lot cooler than it is. But essentially, we were a biker gang with a couple side by sides and I just went around like hunting Taliban and you know, helping train these local police. Like we bought motorcycles off of the the local economy. These parwas you know, fifty cc.

1:03:12 Like you know, yeah, yeah, now they're all now they're all using electric, the electric dirt bikes. Now, you know that's like the thing. Now, you guys were the fore runners. You're the testing out the theory, getting the little local Hey, the afghans Man you know as well as I do. The Taliban guys use those little bikes and mopeds to a great you know, they like roll in a pack and then as soon as they know something about to happen, they all just scatter in all different directions. There's you know, there's only so much you can do.

1:03:38 Yeah, so I mean, we had access to, you know, some of the larger vehicles matt Be's rg's things like that, but nothing was as effective as rolling around the motorcycles because you know, Talban's not gonna put an ID in the middle of a goat trail, you know, because that's where all the you know, locals go, and you know they're not trying to lose that that fight as far as you know, the visualization goes were you know, destroying the locals. So I mean we'd use all these like outer paths and goat trails and all this kind of stuff, just riding motorcycles all over the place, and it was it was a great time, but it was it was interesting.

1:04:21 I know, by my by my twenty thirteen deployment, the Taliban was getting worried about their their public image. Yeah, they wanted to stop killing as many locals with IDs and stuff, so they were starting to make these IEDs that wouldn't There was different ways that they did it that they were so wide that only a military tire could set it off, you know, like a regular car or motorcycle going over wouldn't set it off, or a certain weight, you know, they had these different ways to try to mitigate that.

1:04:49 So yeah, yeah, no.

1:04:50 That makes sense to you know, I mean even when on something they used.

1:04:55 I mean the first deployment was late twenty ten through summer twenty eleven, and I mean we even saw that there. April twenty eleven, we had an issue in Joykarr, Afghanistan, which is like northwest, so we were in bag Geese Province, which is pretty close to his Bekistan, that kind of stuff, kind of in the middle of nowhere. We I can't remember if it was five or six, but you know, we had the Afghan local police just you know, wanding over everything to see if there's metal. We ended up digging up five I think of those IDs and our id tech or eod tech sorry eod tech Dave Day.

1:05:44 He was a prior reconcur or, not recon com but a recon man, reconnaissance man, a Marine team leader of the year before that and became an eod tech and so he disarmed. Like those first five, we got to the mix the one and it was a lot bigger and earlier on in the day, I had actually rode over that in a motorcycle, like the exact spot, and you know, I was maybe twenty five to fifty meters away with our Jaketach Kriskowski and when it went off and he was trying to disarm it, and you know, it was set for specifically, like the heavier vehicles like the matt v's, the rg's things like that, and so it wouldn't go off it fit had you know, foot soldiers or motorcycles or side by sides going over it. So,

1:06:41 I mean even twenty eleven we were seeing that.

1:06:44 Did that kill him when it set it off?

1:06:46 For yep? Oh? Yeah, that was That was probably my first. That was my first like legitimate Afghan casualty. So that went off. I was sitting in a side by side next to Chris Gootsky the jatack and just like staring at it before you know, a couple of minutes before Dave came and grabbed something from the vehicle and I was like, hey, you need help with anything. He's like, no, I got it all right, cool, And I go over there and I'm just sitting there and the explosion goes off and this thing goes you know, hundreds of feet in the air, and of course, you know, I grab my med bag and I start running and you know, I look in this massive crater and I see his We had usually he wore like five finger we can

1:07:44 like the vibem five finger shoes or whatever's roll. But for whatever reason, that day, he he wore his A solos and it was like this blue boot right, and I'm like, what, like, why is his boot in there? And so I started I jumped in the hole and started digging for him because I was like, if his boot's there, maybe the rest of him is there like buried somehow, which makes now to me no sense, right because the explosion obviously goes out. I have no idea how his boot ended up in there, but I'm like digging through there trying to find him before our signals intelligence guy you know, calls my name and I hop out of the crater and go over there, and he's literally like like he no longer has eyes in his skull.

1:08:38 He's literally half you know, through the body like there as a corman. There's zero things that I can do to save this guy. Right like he's done, and the rest of the day essentially is a recovery operation, so you know, secure the perimeter, all that kind of stuff. And then.

1:09:04 That's why I wouldn't want to be a quorman man having to deal with that, like having to that's too much, you know for me personally, I just couldn't. I don't think I could deal. Like I don't know, it's like, how how many times can something like that happen and you'd be okay, you know what I'm saying, because it's just it's just takes a little chip at your soul.

1:09:23 I think every time something like that that occurs.

1:09:26 You know, Yeah, absolutely, Man.

1:09:29 That's crazy, dude. I'm I am so glad that I was never there when any of our guys got blown up. Like I think on my first appointment, I wasn't the only time I ever saw someone that got hit by an ID was one of our Afghans. On my second appointment, oh, my second appointments Afghanistan, and so I don't know, it was a little different, I guess because it was an Afghan, which is fucked up to say, I guess, but it was also like it's a little different than one of your buddies. Yeah, but man, yeah, I mean that's crazy.

1:10:01 Like I mean, as we're trained, you know, according to Genevaku mention everything like that, we're supposed to treat every single individual that's injured essentially the same.

1:10:15 Yeah.

1:10:18 About a month and a half later that I had a mass casualty incident, and you know, I had Americans, Afghans and like local national Taliban, and you know, trying to choose how I spent my time was very difficult.

1:10:40 Yeah, because you're triaging, you know, you have to triage and treat the worst to the you know, and the worst could be the Taliban guy, right yeah, oh man, Yeah, it's a difficult call and people, you know, people, I think sometimes you don't realize that we do that you talked about earlier about treating the person and having an amputate and stuff like that. That's obviously a horrific thing that has to happen. But had that person not had that medical capability at their disposal, with you guys being there, what would have happened to them? There were so many civilians that we treated in Afghanistan, kids that had been burned, you know, like because they all use propane fires and stuff to cook. There's like thing blows up or whatever,

1:11:20 they spill boiling water on themselves. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff, you know, I don't think enough people realize. I don't think we enough credit for the amount of like just day to day injuries that had nothing to do with even the war that we helped the locals with.

1:11:35 Yeah, you know, there there's a little girl. I think she was, like she might have been like four or five. Maybe got just like one of their you know, their protection dogs, you know, because they don't keep pets, they'll keep these dogs for protection, just like Afghan dogs. Just bit her butt cheek, just like ripped it off, and she was the big trooper ever. Like I I grabbed a bottle of Coca Cola and put some some ketamine in there and had her drink a little bit of it until she got a bit woozy, and then you know, I had to going through and debrid it and like make sure she was good. But she was. She was a trooper.

1:12:21 They're hardcore people, man.

1:12:23 Yeah.

1:12:23 We had this halfcan police officer that had been shot in the stomach. I think it was twice. If you had two gunshots in the stomach, maybe only once, but either way. Yeah, but he was just like taking it, just laying there kind of having a conversation. Yeah, I'm like, damn dude, you just got shot in the stomach and you're just kind of like whatever. Maybe he was fucking Maybe they had them all drugged up by that point, but I don't think they did. We were I brought my corman over there to go, you know, us and the corman whenever to go check them out.

1:12:48 I mean, they also got the net swar, you know, so I mean you got that stuff in half the time, and that's got some poppy and stuff in there.

1:12:56 So tell me about this hunting Taliban on motorcycles though? Was there any like really cool This sounds like you're a motorcycle gang. Give me like a cool story from when you guys were doing that.

1:13:09 Jeez, I don't know if it's a super cool story.

1:13:22 One of the nice that we had an issue with it is the second combat deployment. We're down in dele aram M and you know, again, we're riding around on side by sides ATVs and motorcycles, primarily motorcycles, and there's a I can't remember if it was A and A the National Army or if it was National Police, but there's a checkpoint, right, and so we coordinated with the checkpoint, like, hey, we're gonna be here doing this operation. It's going to be in the middle of the night. This is kind of when we're doing it, you know, so please don't shoot us. Right, we take off and you know, thirty minutes later, you know, we're making our way through all the waddies and everything like that, and you know, peak

1:14:17 amfire and just like starts coming in from this checkpoint and so like dudes are like like ghosts riding off cliffs, you know, not massive cliffs, but you know, maybe ten maybe fifteen feet high at the max. And just like we spend the next like I think it was like two hours on the radio trying to convince this checkpoint that we're not the Taliban. And we just talked to you like yesterday, you know.

1:14:50 Like where are you on motorcycles?

1:14:51 America's motorcycles are Our interpreter is like talking to them, and it's like, we're not Taliban, and they're like you sound like your Taliban and no, like do you hear our English?

1:15:06 Yeah?

1:15:06 Yeah, It's just it was crazy.

1:15:11 That happens sometimes, man, when you start when you get all these mix of forces and stuff and you're doing something that normally, you know, they're used to regular military convoys and stuff like that. Not yeah, like a biker gang cruising through the water. Yea coming around man, that's super cool. Though, those ATVs were ended up being like extremely dangerous. I think there was multiple people who were killed in Afghanistan with those because those ATVs weren't like regular ones. They were like a lot heavier I think than regular ones because the racks on them and stuff, and and guys would have them roll over on them.

1:15:44 There was a j Tag that was killed when his ATV rolled over on him when I think when he was going out to do a like a night aerial resupply drop and and that happened. There was something along those lines, I believe.

1:15:57 Yeah. I mean, we we didn't have any deaths, but in training we definitely had some injuries with the ATVs. And then on deployment. The first deployment, the side by side the ltatvs. You know, we had the scissor mount on the passenger side, so we had like a two forty there for the machine gun. We have an M on the back like all this stuff, and we ended up getting into a gunfight on one operation and the driver of the side by side was kind of a more junior. He was a corporal more junior, motor te marine, like, not a special operator, and we were like, hey, don't go that way, like you're gonna get stuck. Go this way.

1:16:45 For whatever reason, he chose to not listen and just go the way he wasn't supposed to go and had a roll over and ended up breaking as humorous just in half because the the rollcage just rolled right onto his arm and so I had to evacuate him for that. Man, that sucks. That's like morphine shots the whole.

1:17:07 Thing in the middle of a firefight. Yeah, that's hey, good job guy he was. This was a motor t guy that was out on this op with you guys.

1:17:17 Yeah.

1:17:18 Man, that doesn't happen very often, right.

1:17:20 So it kind of depends definitely with the I think things have changed over the years. But you know we were MARSK was just in its infancy, right, Yeah, Like we didn't have a ton of special operators go around. We didn't have a ton of dudes that were trained. And the Marine Corps is very much like you're a marine and that's special enough, you know, like like that's the best use the marine is a rifleman exactly right, which is why it took so long for the Marine Corps to come up with MARSK because they were.

1:17:56 So just adamant against exactly they forced him to do it. Ronald Donald Rumsfel forced the Marine Corps.

1:18:03 To do it. So with that being said, there's a lot of like, oh, you a motor T guy, you know, send the marine from three to four or whatever, and so like we would have to bring those people into our team.

1:18:20 Those people, how dare you?

1:18:23 How dare you?

1:18:24 I was motor T back in the day. I'm a former Motor T guy.

1:18:31 But we'd bring those people in and can and through you know, work up and training and that kind of stuff. You know, we developed some level of trust or level distrust, because there were definitely some that we were like, you're staying on the fob no matter what.

1:18:46 Yeah, for sure, take out his firing pan.

1:18:49 Just in case. Exactly so, But yeah, we there weren't enough of us to go around. Yeah you gotta do something like our our fob security was typically ran by like a platoon of conventional army. Okay, yeah, we don't have time to plan ops, execute ops and like do all this stuff and guard the FOB at the same time, and so we delegate that to you know another you know, we request those forces.

1:19:24 Yeah, and the center part of SOCOM. You know, that's pretty standard package that they give you right for that kind of thing. I remember when I was motor t my buddy was Motor T also Harper, and he was trying to go over to MARSOK for selection and he while he was waiting for his seat or whatever, he got sent there as a mechanic and he ended up deploying with a team and he was like, yeah, I was the only mechanic there and it was a MARSOC team and a Green Beret team, and he's like, they'd have me help them, like shoot mortars. I'd help him with the mortar pit because it was right next to the where I'd work on vehicles. And he's like, when I we'd go out on raids or something like that, I was in like a defensives or blocking position yep,

1:20:04 you know, up on the machine gun or something. I was like, fuck yeah, dude. I was like, helly, you know, I'm motor teeth at the time. I'm like that sounds so awesome. Yeah, like this, but hell yeah, that's good man, you got to use all the people, right, you know you're at you do what you gotta do. And I mean, if you're gonna have anybody, at least have a marine in there. Yeah, I guess because at least they have shot a bunch of different weapons, even if they are motor t.

1:20:24 So I mean motor tea wise, Like our second apployment, we had a full on like chop shop for our motorcycles. Hell yeah. Before that deployment, they sent us to to Colorado for a month to do motorcycle training like dirt bikes and things like that, and part of that was like a mechanics course. And so when we got on that second deployment, dude, we had this giant tent and like there's dudes like welding in there and like grinding stuff down and like messing with clutches and like it was full on.

1:20:58 That's a sick man. That's so cool. Damn I wish I got to do something. Damn that sounds. Yeah. You guys are running like the helmet Valley Choppers. Yeah, everybody's got their custom stuff going.

1:21:12 I forgot to mention, but the first deployment where you were talking about you know, having issues with the ALP and like recognizing them. Dude, we had cuts made. Oh no, they were jean jacket cuts that had like the Afghan flag and like Mars SoC logo on the back of them and these giant patches like they were just riding around in just like these motorcycle gangs.

1:21:40 Man, does anybody have one of those?

1:21:42 I do, Yes, you have one. I had to find it.

1:21:47 At some point. You should consider letting the Marine Corps museum like temporary bar all that. That would be such a cool display to see something like that. People wouldn't believe it.

1:21:56 They'd be like, no way, yep.

1:21:59 Man, if you have it, send me a photo of it and I'll put it on the video. I'll put it on the video so people can see what it looks like. That sounds cool as fuck.

1:22:06 Yeah, absolutely, man, So.

1:22:11 Wow, that's that's definitely different than my deployments. There was no motorcycle chop shops and gangs when I was a mechanic. I do remember, and you probably remember back in the day before like all the newer the UTVs and stuff like that, they did have like a diesel dirt bike yep, and some people got to go through training, and I remember I was a mechanic and that was one of those things I really wanted to go do and I never got to do. It was go through the course to the rider's course. Because it's a mechanic. You go through the rider's course and then you get to go through the maintenance course. And I was like, oh sick.

1:22:44 You get to go, you get your motorcycle's license, you get all this stuff. And I was like, and it's just something different, right, you're riding dirt bikes. You get paid to ride a dirt bike around, but I never got to do it. Yeah, sorry, it is what it is.

1:22:55 I think we had like two of those older Marine Corps dirt bikes, and then we just built a fleet of like local dirt bikes.

1:23:05 The local ones.

1:23:06 Were they all?

1:23:07 Did they also run on diesel or were they gas?

1:23:09 Okay?

1:23:11 Yeah, I always thought it was crazy. I was like, I've never seen a GP eight dirt bike, you know, like that's I think they were like Kawasaki or something like that.

1:23:17 If I remember correctly.

1:23:20 When you so on this first apployment, were there any what what kind of engagements were you getting in? Like what was like the enemy composition that you were kind of seeing. I know it changes obviously, but if they were going to stand and fight with you, what what would you kind of see as like a common enemy composition?

1:23:37 Honestly it was it kind of varied. Most of our Most of that deployment was winter, right, so we left in November, came back in July. So really like the winter time frame, there wasn't a ton It was really sporadic. We were just you know, kind of doing really kind of presence patrols and like investigating every thing and trying to work with local leadership of the villages and like doing key leader engagements and stuff like that. So it didn't get real crazy until like spring summertime.

1:24:13 They announced the start of the fighting season.

1:24:15 Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I mean at that point, you know, it's the standard you know, pkms, a couple aks and that kind of stuff. We did have a couple of mortars that we had to jump into some ditches for there was it was a lot of kind of more long range like less CQB type stuff and more you know, one of my gunnies he ended up taking a shot across the Baltimergab Valley and I don't remember the exact meters, but it was like some insane shot that killed this dude.

1:24:52 It was like two thousand meters or something like ridiculous.

1:24:56 That he killed or he took the shot and killed a Taliban guy or vice versa.

1:25:00 Yeah, so he took a shot, killed the Taliban dude.

1:25:03 Okay, I thought you were saying your gun he got shot from that farm, Like, wait, taliban sniper shot two thousand meters? No, no, no, okay.

1:25:11 Now he was on the fifty cal at that point, and so it definitely wasn't like one shot, one kill sniper. It was like, we're gonna bracket this dude, and you know, we saw him running into the cliffs and that kind of stuff and ended up getting him.

1:25:26 I think that's the way it works a lot of times with those longer range shots. I think, like the record breaking shots, I think a lot of those they've said that, you know, it takes like two or three rounds, which kind of get it on target.

1:25:40 We worked a lot with like i D. Not that we worked with, but we were going after i D manufacturers and stuff as well. Yeah, one of our kind of more famous ones was actually a midget. So that was interesting.

1:25:57 Oh I heard about that guy. Yeah, that guy was kind of famous in Afghanistan.

1:26:02 Was Yeah, we ended up not getting him on that deployment, but Hotel Company the next deployment ended up getting him.

1:26:10 I remember that, dude. Yeah, it was like a big deal.

1:26:12 Yeah. We were on a patrol one time and like I was up in the gunner seat for whatever reason, and I was like looking off and I saw a midget and I was like, that has to be him.

1:26:28 Yeah.

1:26:29 How many midgetes are in Afghanistan? I don't know, but I feel like there's not many.

1:26:33 There's not many.

1:26:34 We got up close to that guy and I'm like, it's not him, Like, oh, it was another midget.

1:26:43 Was crazy.

1:26:43 I was like, dude, I almost smoked you. I have a picture with the guy, like I'm hugging the guy.

1:26:49 Like my bad.

1:26:50 Yeah, it's all good.

1:26:52 It's all good. Did you guys ever encounter fighters that were would like throw grenades or anything like that. I knew a guy I would get into these like grenade battles with Talibani.

1:27:02 Yeah, so we had that happen once on that first deployment in it was kind of our last big mission, and that's where I got like the mass casualty incident in Panorak again northwest Afghanistan. But yeah, we had dudes that were like trading back and forth, like grenades over this wall compound wall with these dudes, and those two dudes that were trading grenades with them ended up being my local national casualties. So that was interesting to say the least.

1:27:46 That is something I'm glad I never had the experience of having to deal with throwing grenades over a wall and having them fly back, you know, having this literal back and forth grenade tossing with people.

1:27:57 Yeah.

1:27:57 I've met a few guys that that that they've been in situations like that, and I'm like, man, that's insane, you know, like that's just that's another level of of up close fighting when you're chucking grenades at each other.

1:28:10 Yeah, I mean I wasn't actually there for that, Like I wasn't doing the grenade throwing in that specific locase.

1:28:17 Either way, though. That's still just Yeah.

1:28:19 Two of my buddies were and then one of them end up dying later that day, but the other one died a couple of years ago in Iraq though there what.

1:28:32 So what what brought on this mass casualty situation. Was there a were you guys on like an operation? Something happened like we were ambushed or so it was kind.

1:28:39 Of like the culmination of this deployment, right we'd done We trained multiple villages to have the Afghan local police. We had some success with it to the point where one of the villages they the Taliban came and kidnapped some of their kids and like took them away, and without our instigation, the Afghan local police went out and got them back, right, So we got their kids. So we were like, okay, success, you.

1:29:08 Know, yeah, they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Yeah.

1:29:10 Absolutely. So we did a kind of a large operation with the Afghan local Police, the Afghan National Police, and the Afghan National Army, and so Panorak, Afghanistan was where it's at, and our kind of link up location was in the center of a y shape, right, and so there's going to be a force to the south, a force to the northwest, and one to the northeast. We'd all feed towards the center to complete like this ten day operation right clear out the Taliban things like that.

1:29:46 So I'm in the northeast component, which honestly, to this day I think is probably the coolest I will have ever been because we were in a chinook, landed and rode out motorcycles and side by sides into a gunfight like Chuck Norris style, like.

1:30:08 This is Delta Fores movie craziness. Yeah, so were there are rocket launchers on the front of the motorcycles though that's.

1:30:14 There were not. Unfortunately, we did have our pistols kind of on the side of the gas tank, but not rocket launchers.

1:30:22 Now you know, it's still cool though, So I mean, that.

1:30:25 Was like the coolest I will probably ever be. But we inserted my element insert on the northeast side, and we have a couple of Afghans with us and then obviously parts of our team, and so we're traveling down toward the center, and probably one hundred and fifty meters before we get to kind of some protection we're supposed to go, there's a couple of Afghans that end up stopping and me and we had an Army civil affairs team, so me and this guy named Schmidty stopped with them while the rest of the element went forward into their you know, fighting position. We stopped with these three Afghans.

1:31:12 I think it was three, may have been four, but at least three Afghans, and they were like, we don't want to go in there, right, like we know what's about to happen, Like it's not going to be good. You know. The the gunfire at that point was kind of sporadic, like it wasn't a big deal. You know, there's a huge difference between hearing you know, ping ping, you know somewhere around you and like a crack right next to your ear right, yeah, and so we weren't getting any of the cracks, so it's just kind of sporadic, and they're like, we know what's going to happen, like it's not going to be good. We don't want to go.

1:31:51 So we're standing there for like I don't know, ten to fifteen minutes with them like trying to convince them to like go forward, and then we're going to be like in a more cure area. Finally we get a move in. There's a kind of like a rock wall to our right hand side, and then as we're about to like turn a corner to go back to where we're supposed to be, like PKM opens up like huge volley of fire, you know, just small arms fire, PKM going machine guns, all that kind of stuff. There's a rock that I saw that was definitely like, I'm not a small dude. I had some issues and gain some weight.

1:32:36 Now I'm even bigger. But even at the time, like I wasn't a small dude, but like this rock should not have been able to protect me. But I crouched down behind that thing, and then you had Smitty and the three Afghan guys like laying behind me, behind like smaller rocks, and so all that fire's going off, and so I'm talking to Skowsky the Jatack and trying to get in. You know some fires, you know that happens.

1:33:08 They're like, hey, it's incoming, bombs dropped, and you know, one of our guys is like, hey, now is probably a good time to get up. So we pop up, me and Smitty do and we sprint towards the wall. And it's crazy because it in my head is like a movie, right, Like I'm sprinting towards this rock wall to jump over it, and there's like impacts like to my left and to viber right, and fortunately I didn't end up getting hit somehow, thanks speed to God, but end up making over the wall with Smitty. The three Afghans stayed though for whatever reason, one of them ended up getting a bullet to the head, so the other two were just screaming the whole time. Yeah, at that point, a guy named Billy Widowitz, he comes who was just

1:34:06 previously throwing grenades over the wall, you know, a couple of minutes ago, comes around. He has the saw the M two forty nine machine gun, right, and we're like, how are we gonna get these Afghans back over the wall wall? This campfire and everything's coming in, And to my dismay, I guess we came up with a plan where Billy was gonna jump over the wall, lay down suppressing fire, and the Afghans were gonna come. You know, we were gonna go grab the Afghans, get him back over and so you know, three two one like go that happens. Billy's out there doing his things suppressing the gunfire, We grabbed the Afghans, get him back over the wall.

1:34:52 And then as Billy's getting over the wall, he gets around right through like right underneath his rear plate, like straight through the order dude. So he collapses immediately, like on our side of the wall. And so from that point on, the rest of the day was I'm in you know Corman medic work time.

1:35:15 Yeah, you're just casually care triaging.

1:35:17 And so we had we had Billy, we had a you know, we had a difficult time getting in like a metavac just because of the amount of fire that was going on, and so we had we got Billy out at that point, you know, he was dead. He was dead within a couple of minutes.

1:35:38 Was he hit down by like his hip or something.

1:35:41 It was like it was like right center's spine, like right above his hip and came out around like his belly button. And so we had him. We had the Afghan that got shot in the head, so he was dead already. But then they were There were only other two other coremen on the ground that I remember, and one was at the northeast position and one was at the south position, and so they essentially would send me their patients as to like the casually collection point. So I ended up with it was either eight or ten.

1:36:21 Because I've been blown up a couple of times and things like that, I don't exactly remember, but it was like, you know, you had Billy, you had the Afghan that got shot in the head, and then we had two a n piece in the national police. We had these two local nationals that were trading freaking grenades with their guys, and then we had two local police, I believe. So is this just like a mixture of like gunshot wounds and fragmentation wounds from the grenades. Yes, And honestly, the the local Nationals were probably the worst off out of all of them, like the shrapnels from the grenades and everything had gone through their spine. The Afghan National Police actually, you know, really I just wrapped them up a little

1:37:14 bit because they had you know, gunshot wound through part of their like lower leg that didn't really hit anything, and they were fine and things like that. So, I mean, it was definitely a wide variety of like severely bad injuries and death to you know, walking wounded.

1:37:32 Man. That sucks that. That's crazy. Your friend was killed and then Afghan was killed because they would they hesitated, Yeah, all because of the hesitation if they would have kept pushing forward. You know, that's like and I don't want to like compare it to a movie, but you see like in saving Private Ryan when they're trying to get the people off the beach and they're trying to just like stay behind what they think is like protection, and it's like, dude, if you stay right here, you're gonna die.

1:37:57 Like what are you doing?

1:37:58 You know? And it's and in a situation like that, it's so hard because obviously they don't speak the language. You're trying to reason with them, and they just you know, if they don't want to do something. Yeah, it's hard to it's hard to make them go do something. Man. That's that's crazy.

1:38:16 Yeah, it was pretty crazy, pretty crazy day.

1:38:20 How did you guys? I mean, what did the metavacs look like for that?

1:38:23 Was that?

1:38:23 I assume multiple flights you did you guys that can bring in?

1:38:26 Uh? So we were actually able to get out Billy during daylight. The fire died down, like we you know, dropped enough that the fire died down that kind of stuff. We could get Billy out during daylight. Everybody else went out at nighttime. So it took multiple choppers.

1:38:51 Coming in at that point. So from the point of that first Afghan get shot to you guys are now pulling out of there. How long was that you think, are.

1:39:04 You talking about the metavacs pulling out.

1:39:06 Like I'm talking about you guys? Are did the the op ended after that?

1:39:10 Right? Oh?

1:39:11 You guys continued after all these metavacs. Oh. I thought, oh okay, well let us I thought that was it. I thought, you guys wrapped up with all that, and like, all right, let's get out of here. Dang, what was the follow on?

1:39:22 I mean, it was a ten day operation, and we executed the operation like we were supposed to. And that was day one. That was the That was day one. The following days got better. We definitely got spread at gunfire and that kind of stuff, but it was nothing like a full on firefight like it was that first day. Yeah.

1:39:43 So essentially what we did is, you know, we cleared through these villages in this you know, y shaped valley as far as we could with the amount of people that we had, and then you know, tried to re establish the Afghan local police, which really at this point or just you know, warlords for a better term.

1:40:06 Yeah, exactly, that's exactly what they were.

1:40:08 Yeah.

1:40:08 They're the loosest, the loosest definition of a militia. Yeah, you know, and not really sure if they're a militia for us or maybe themselves.

1:40:16 Yeah, we had uh yeah, we had so many. This might sound bad, we had so many Ak forty seven's. It was like a cheap Russian variant or whatever. But it was like, if dudes would come up and tell us that they would fight for us and not the Taliban, we'd give them one.

1:40:37 Really and it was just like you're like, I believe you.

1:40:39 Yeah, And it was just like go shoot that way, you know, like it was oh.

1:40:44 Oh, you're talking about like in the middle of a fight. Yeah, they would come up and ask for a gun. Yeah, no way, that's crazy.

1:40:52 They quickly became the Afghan local police. Yeah.

1:40:55 Wow, I mean that's you know. I mean we say a lot of bad stuff about their resolve and their ability to like, you know, fight for themselves and stuff like that, but that's a pretty good example of some dude stepping up. If you're in the middle of a fight and they're like, hey.

1:41:09 Give me a gun, let's do this, yep, And.

1:41:12 I get you got to give those guys props, you.

1:41:13 Know, absolutely, And then you know, I met the like the village doctor and all that kind of stuff, and so I helped them out with the clinic over those ten days and things like that.

1:41:24 When you meet that person, When you meet someone like that, like a village doctor, how much or how much of it is you're just trying to assist them? Are you trying to teach them anything? Are you trying to like refine some of their TTPs to like, you know what, what's kind of your relationship with someone like that, because they're they probably see themselves as you're equal. Obviously not on the on the medical side, but I.

1:41:45 Mean it really varies because especially doing like the medcaps, vet caps and that kind of stuff. Like I met people that were like it hurts when I look at the sun, you know, and like people that would refuse to drink anything but energy drinks, and I'm like, your kidneys are shutting down. They're like I will not drink water, you know. But actually, in Panorack, this this doctor was trained in Pakistan. He had some legitimate training and like knew what was up, and so in that specific instance, there wasn't a whole lot of like me training him to do stuff. It was how can I help you, you know, continue what you're doing for this village and surrounding villages. Yeah, we definitely run into some you know,

1:42:38 quote unquote village doctors that are less than and so we'll go through some training and we'll talk about medication and things like that.

1:42:48 Hey, wash your hands, holme me, let's try that's start with washing hands.

1:42:51 Dude with the civil aveyars team, we had him there, right, And this one village was asking for a while, and I told the village elder, I'm like, listen, we can get you a well, but you have to get your people to just not pee and poop in the street, because otherwise it's going to poison the well and you're all going to get sick and die. Yeah, And he's like, I can't do that, and I'm like, then, know, well, I don't know what to tell you.

1:43:23 I try to explain Afghanistan to people. I'm like, it's like a weird medieval kind of place. The occasional data plan if the cell phone tower generator is working, yeah, you know, like it's it's so craz I've definitely seen people just walking down the street. They just stop, pull their man dress up, squat down, take a shit and throw some dust up on it, and keep going. You're like, whoa Yeah, that's crazy, bro, But man, yeah, I after when you know, you take a casualty, one of your guys gets killed day one, within the first you know, it sounds like the opening moments of this operation. How does that? How does that? How do you carry that through the rest of the operation? Yeah? Nine more days? Yeah,

1:44:06 you know, this guy's obviously a friend, a vital team member, an asset. What's going through your mind after that? Are you just try not to think about it and just keep doing what you're doing.

1:44:16 So it's compartmentalization, you know, Like you talk about carrying that, I'm not carrying that consciously through the rest of that operation. There's a point that night when myself and another guy just like Buddy hug and like that was it, Like we knew the mission had to come first and we can deal with all the other stuff later. So I think that's kind of like the the go to is compartmentalize, deal with the mission first. We can sort everything else out later, you know, when we're not under fire, when we're not concerned about other people, you know, dying and things like that and making it worse because if you sit there and you wallow in it, or maybe that's not a good term, But.

1:45:18 Uh no, I think that's you know, you don't dwell on it.

1:45:22 You know, if you dwell on it during that period, you're not going to be you know, switched on for the rest of the firefights that are going to happen or the rest of the things you need to do. You're not going to be up on like your security protocols. You're going to be focused on Okay, I'm dwelling on what happened when you can't do anything about it right now.

1:45:43 You need to focus on the mission. And so it's always just mission first and we'll figure out everything else later.

1:45:50 Sounds it's very similar to like home distractions. Yeah, you know, it's like I can't think about all the other stuff that's going on back there because this is literally like and death. You know, this is my main focus. And I think one of the problems is though, you know, you said, hey, we're gonna compartmentalize it until we can deal with it a little bit later on, is that sometimes guys never find that later on period. They keep it compartmentalized, you know what I'm saying, And then that's the issue because then you never let it out and then all and if that's like a habit, now you got all this crazy shit inside of you that you've never really fully dealt with, and at some point, on some quiet night, you know you're gonna have to deal

1:46:36 with your demons and stuff like that. And it's just that's not good. I mean, I think that's one of the biggest issues we see with veterans right is guys just fucking don't want to talk about anything. They keep it all bottled up and everything. And don't get me wrong, I'm guilty. I think there's everybody has stuff that they don't want to.

1:46:54 Talk about with anybody.

1:46:56 But I think a lot of guys need to let go of some of the stuff that they're holding on to and open up to friends and family and just you know, yeah, just to let that pressure off. You got to decompress a little bit, you know.

1:47:11 I think it's difficult with friends and family just because most of like I didn't come from a military family. Yeah, so like saying some of these things, they're just like they can't shock it, you know, just hearing it. And so like having dudes like that you can rely on to be able to go to and not be ashamed of you know, talking to these guys like your best friends, super important and vital.

1:47:48 Yeah, definitely. I'm probably one of the best things for my own mental health is probably doing this podcast, just because I get to talk about military stuff all the time, and I tell that to people. I'm like, you know, sometimes people forget the military is such a huge, huge, huge part of your life, especially if you've been in for a full career, such a huge, huge part of your life. And then on that eas date, you go pick up your DD two fourteen and you drive through the gate and it's like it never happened. Now you're a civilian, and it's like, wait, what do I do with my hands? You know, like, you know, one day, this morning, I'm out doing PT at zero six with the guys, and then we're gonna go do this stuff.

1:48:28 And then forty eight hours later, you know, assume you're like a one enlistment kind of guy. Forty eight hours later, you're back on your mom's couch in Iowa or something like that, going what the hell just happened over the last four years, and now they have no one to talk to, They have no one to And that for me is like one of the worst things, And I think I think it's vital for people to reach out to people they served with just to text, hey, what's up, Hope you're doing well. I send messages I don't hear back from some people, and some people will call me and we'll have like an hour or two hour conversation. Yeah, you know, I think more if we want want guys to feel better or deal with mental health stuff, we

1:49:03 got to push that. We got to push people. We got to push reunions, We got to push like trips, you know, bro trips and stuff like that, or guys and girl whatever, because the alternative is just not good, you know. I mean, it's it's kind of getting tiring seeing so many people fucking kill themselves, and it's just it's so frustrating. And I just don't get it. I mean I kind of get it, but I don't get it, you know what I'm saying. I get where people think that they may have peaked or or or they're dealing with something they feel like it can never get rid of.

1:49:39 I don't know. People need some kind of hope, and I think that starts with someone reaching out to them to saying, hey, man, hope you're doing well.

1:49:44 Yeah, absolutely, And I mean I'm honestly terrible about that, like reaching out to dudes and things like that, and I'm like, I feel like I'm bothering them in no way.

1:49:58 Dude, no way. Don't ever feel like that. I know, but I don't want a chest tis what are you doing?

1:50:07 But that's like my feeling is just like they have their own thing now or whatever.

1:50:14 Who cares? So yeah, no bother them. They want to be bothered, dude. There's nothing better than getting the occasional message from someone that I serve. Especially with one of my friends that I used to It's crazy because these guys are You're like your best friends, and then six months later you don't ever talk to them. Suddenly this person used to go to chow with you, used to go to the gym with, used to work with every day, used to go to the range with. Six months later, it's like, damn, I haven't talked to so and so in like four months. I wonder what they're up to.

1:50:40 You know?

1:50:41 And or now if you keep going, oh it's been two years, it's been three years, and it's never too late, man, I tell I say everybody, every every once in one maybe once a week. Once a week, find someone in your old rolodex, you know, your old contact list, and go hey, man, I hope you're doing well, and just send it and maybe they respond, maybe they don't. Again, I've messaged a ton of people who've never responded, and that's okay. Maybe they will one day, but they know that I at least tried, and if they want to have a conversation, it's open. You know, I don't want you.

1:51:12 I hate that you said that, that you feel like you're bothering them. That's horrible. Dude, shouldn't feel like that. And I hope anyone that hears that it feels the same way, like you're not bothering anybody, everybody reaching out. That's the worst. That's what leads people to go do crazy shit. Is that feeling that they think they're bothering people like don't feel yeah, man, well man, it's I don't know. We got to keep we gotta keep talking about mental health stuff and get people to understand that you do not have to accept your current situation. You do not have to accept your current whatever. There is hope out there, there is things to do. Have you seen the Grand Canyon yet No, Well, then maybe you

1:51:53 should live a little longer so you can check that out first. Maybe maybe go check that out once, you know, before you go off yourself, or maybe have you traveled some you know, like there's so much to see in this world. There's so much good that if you sit around and dwell on all the negative things, and of course you're gonna be depressed and you're gonna have this mindset, but you gotta like move away from that negative mindset and dwelling because the guys that were killed, the guys and girls that were killed in combat are injured or they could only dream to be able to do some of the stuff that we could do. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, because you're still out there living, and it's kind of a it's a disrespectful almost to sit

1:52:27 around and mourn someone's lot more in the memory of someone by drinking yourself to death and until you go and off yourself. That's just you. They they deserve better and you deserve better. Yeah, you agree, So with that, I think we should have my little I'm sorry with the little rant there at the end, you know, like I don't know, man, I'm just again, I'm just tired of fucking hearing about people killing themselves.

1:52:52 It's just it. I mean the most common situations I see is like dudes or do deaths. I guess military.

1:53:00 Yeah, it's all on all sides.

1:53:01 Yeah, like they're just they don't they're in a situation where they don't see any hope whatsoever of it improving. So like for Chriskowsky talked about earlier a little bit, like he had, you know, an ex wife that was hounding him and like all this stuff, and he was had done like seven or eight back to back deployments and everything, and just like he saw no out for it.

1:53:32 You know, I as his corman was obviously tried to care for him. He was seeing like three psychiatrists at the same time and like getting all this help and you know, all the stuff that Marstock was trying to do for him in the Marine Corps, and just like he got to a point where it was like there's no way out of his you know, there's no hope.

1:53:59 And having some kind of hope, you know, is super important for me. That's without you know, going off in the left field is my faith. But yeah, I see it most often in people who just have no sight of hope in the future and they're just like, I'm done, and.

1:54:25 What is all this for?

1:54:26 Exactly?

1:54:28 Yeah, no, man, I think that's good. Having faith, you know, and getting into a church is something I've recommended to people as well, Like you need community. Yeah, that's what you're missing when you leave the military is community, and you have to find that somewhere. And I don't care what people get into. I have no judgment on the things that people do when they get out, as long as it's something that's bringing them happiness and it's helping them, like be a part of a community or something that.

1:54:56 You know, just you gotta have that. You got to have someone to talk to. You got to have people to associate with, you know, because that's it. You know, there's nothing worse than feeling like you're alone and there's just no one to talk to. And I don't know, I just I in the military is such like a special organization where it's easy to find community. I was walking down the street the other day and I just, like literally yesterday and saw a guy. He was in a wheelchair and he had a Marine Corps hat on, and I was like, Hey, you're in the Marines. And we sat there and talked for like ten minutes, you know, just a random dude, you know, and it's like it's out there, guys, you know, like go find something, Go

1:55:38 find community. It doesn't have to be military. And I also recommend people to find an outlet too. Do a podcast, write a book, keep a journal, write songs, do artwork, even if it's for only for you, you know what I'm saying, because you got to have something to like let that like creative, like you gotta let it out.

1:55:58 And I think something like this is a great way to do it, like a podcast again, even if you just record something for yourself, because it allows you to talk through all these things that you've experienced and it allows you to I think you're processing it, you know. And I guarantee when we finish this interview, for the next few hours, there's a million things that are gonna pop in your head that you were like, Oh, I should have said that, so I thought I haven't thought about that for you know, because it just brings up all that stuff and it's it helps you process it, you know.

1:56:26 So since you mentioned it, you mind if I talk about a book that we wrote. Yeah, go ahead to sound like a Navy seal, but.

1:56:35 No, no, promote, promote away, that's what this is for.

1:56:39 So we actually so this is the Untold Stories of Valhalla. It can be found on Brotherrecon dot com and so essentially what it is we're now in our unfortunately now in our second edition. But it is a book of stories of men that have fallen in the Recon MARSK and sniper communities. And so it's written by teammates that were with them when they deployed, were with them when they died, written partly by family members, their wives, kids, things like that, and it's just meant to kind of pass on their stories and they're really the their legends because of the things that they've done to sacrifice and helped build our country.

1:57:34 Send me a link to that and I'll put it in the show description stuff. People can just click on it and go right to and buy something like that's really awesome. Yeah, well you also have your other website, right it's uh, we pulled that back up, is it Karma tms dot com? Go ahead, tell us about that man.

1:57:50 Yeah, So there's a lot of time between that first deployment and what's happening now. So someone retired medically after nineteen years, three months, and seventeen days, not that anybody's counting. The only reason I remember that is because it's like March seventeenth, which is Saint Patti's Day.

1:58:14 There you go.

1:58:16 So now I work. I'm a PA physician associate. I work with an integrative psych practice here in twenty nine Palms, and so one day out of the week I do like virtual and in person medication management for patients. The rest of the days of the week, I do business development on base here in twenty nine Palms, and then I do TMS, which is transcranial magnetic stimulation. So essentially, we found locations in the brain, especially with depression anxiety PTSD, that have decreased oxygenation, decreased blood flow, and we use magnets essentially to stimulate those areas of the brain to kind of, for lack of a better term, wake them up.

1:59:07 And I mean myself. You know, the number one diagnosis on my medication or non medication on my medical retirement was PTSD chronic followed by a bunch of muscular skeletal stuff. And so I've been through like all the different therapies I've gotten you know, ten different medications for PTSD anxiety depression, which none of them really seem to do much of anything I have done. Stelic ganglion block I have yet to do, like I have a GAIN or psychedelics or anything like that. The thing that I think has benefited the most for me and for the patients that I'm seeing is the TMS. So like I'm seeing better mood regulation, Like I'm not crying in the middle of the day for no reason. I'm not as irritable. My sleep's better now.

2:00:08 It's not like a magic pill where everything's fixed automatically. You know, you have to go through this treatment process and you know, results vary, so like I'll have some patients that are, you know, get their first treatment and they're like, I slept nine hours last night and I feel great, and you know, I'm not as angry anymore, and you know, their Vietnam vets and things like that, and then to like me, like the sleep actually initially kind of got worse a little bit for a couple of days, but then started to slowly get better, and then the mood regulation started to happen and things like that.

2:00:47 So there's definitely a variance in how people react to it, but it's not like drug related. We're able to take typically take people off of medication, which I am. Even though I can prescribe medication, I don't really like to prescribe antidepressants. They have so many side effects and all that kind of stuff. So TMS for me has been great and I think should be the way forward in the future. The biggest issue is like getting insurances to pay for it and stuff like that.

2:01:22 But you know, yeah, I probably have to get more studies done and everything right before they start covering it.

2:01:26 Man, there's tons of studies. The studies aren't really the issue. The issue is they can make more money from in.

2:01:34 My longer treatment plans.

2:01:36 They can treatment make more money off the medication longer treatment plans, whereas you know, some if they do one treatment protocol. TMS typically lasts six to seven weeks. But they do one treatment protocol and if they're you know, fifty sixty seventy eighty percent better and off medication, well now the insurance company isn't making any money, right.

2:02:02 Yeah, yeah, So man, that's your theory.

2:02:05 Huh, that's my theory.

2:02:07 No accusations here, No accusations, all theories. That's I mean, hey, anything that helps, right, Like I was just saying, if it's even if it helps a few people, it may not be right for everyone, but that's the way it is. So as long as it's you know, doing something for somebody, I'm down for it. Hope you know people I'll put again, I'll put that link in the description as well. People can go and check that out if they want to read more about it. I feel like one of my friends already told me about this, and then he might be in one of the treatment. Yeah, I think he might be in one of the doing this treatment actually, but yeah, So everybody can check out my website jacrimeographics dot com or Anglicshop dot com. My Instagram is Former

2:02:44 Action Guys, Former Action News. My Former Action News page is doing crazy, getting millions of views every month, which is wild. And uh oh yeah, I want to give a special shout out. I was at the Rufus to Soul concert this weekend and uh Leo Lozano, who's an Anglico guy, was looking at my Instagram stories and saw that I was at the concert and sent me twenty bucks on Venmo to buy me a drink at the concert, So that was super cool. You know, the military community continues to shine, and you know, Leo's a great dude and I really appreciate that. And I thought that that was pretty sick. But Jordan really appreciate having you on today, and I think we should probably do a follow up and continue on the story.

2:03:20 Yeah. Absolutely, thanks for having me on and it was good talking to you.

2:03:25 Yeah, you too, Man,