Ep. 248 | George Mills | MARSOC JTAC, 4th ANGLICO, Infantryman

0:00 I do miss me some San Diego, man. I consider it my alma mater. You know, considering I went to TACP school there at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. So, yeah, I definitely miss it.

0:09 Yeah, I went to TACP school on the East Coast. You know, it's kind of crazy how.

0:13 On the East Coast. Yeah, we spoke about that. Well, a little bit.

0:16 Yeah, we talked a little bit about it. It's kind of crazy how on the East Coast you get no live munitions, really. You know, you get guns, obviously, and then you get the, what's the Mark 76, like, dumb bombs and stuff like that, the little tiny trainers. But on the West Coast, do you guys go to San Clemente or just out to 29 Palms?

0:33 I did mine at OP Left at 29 Palms. And I'll tell you, for my final check ride, dude, my final section, it was a type 1 control, low altitude tactics with a pup, right? And I had a section of Harriers. And Harriers are really freaking hard to see, dude, especially that gray little tiny plane. And it was just a bright, clear day. But they were loaded with Mark 77 firebombs for my final control. We had live artillery. Yeah, it was a SEAD mission, like Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses.

1:02 So we got the RD cooking on the C2 node in the battery, right? Or the SAM site, whatever it is we were simulating. But it was live fire artillery. And then simultaneously, we had the Harriers come in and bomb the C2 node that was there. So I'm sitting here waiting to see some kind of Vietnam... you know, of a big fireball, and it was just, it was so, so, yeah, man, there was no big red fire, like, no big black, it was just dark smoke, but I was told that, you know, hey, look, you know, when I was in JTAC school, they were like, you know, we don't, the United States doesn't inventory napalm anymore, just so you guys know that, like, politically, right? We carry a different type of, essentially,

1:50 napalm now called firebombs, But it burns hotter and it sticks better. So, yeah, we don't have napalm. Yeah, we don't have napalm, but what we do have is better than napalm ever thought about being.

2:04 I knew it was a new formula, but I've never employed it. You might be the first person I know that has employed it.

2:11 Yeah, dude, it was pure Mark 77s. I got luckier than heck. And when they checked in with that ordinance, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This is so rad. The problem though, dude, uh, I, I got, you know how you get a yellow page, um, when you're being, uh, when you have your evaluator over the shoulder before you become a JTAC and I'm this close, man, it's my final, final, final control, my final check ride control.

2:37 So I can't see the, I can't see the Harriers, but I can hear them. And I know to look ahead of the noise, right? So I'm trying to trace my, with my finger, like, okay, got it, got it, got it. And I, I didn't have it, man. And at that time, my vision, um, It was like 2025, 2030. I had LASIK a couple times. I'll have to explain that one to you. But the guy who was over-shouldering me, he knew.

3:01 He's like, yeah, he's not tracking on these aircraft, dude. He's like, they're actually over there. What are you talking about? So he just taps me on the shoulder. He's like, hey, abort. I'm like, okay, whatever flight name, abort, abort, abort. So he's like, all right, man, you've got enough gas. Set it up again and run it. He's like, but you need to assess the nose geometry of that aircraft for your type 1 control. He's like, otherwise, man, you know, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah.

3:24 He's like, okay. Good on him, though, man, you know, for not just going, okay, fuck it. You know, it's safe. Like, even if he saw it and was like, yeah, it's safe, even if he doesn't, you know, good on him for making you do it. Because some people will, there's nothing worse than getting, like, an evaluation or something from somebody that's afraid to, like, tell you you fucked up, you know?

3:46 It's like, tell me I'm doing something wrong. Like, don't let me just continue down the road of fucking things up, you know? Cause then at the end, especially in this job, that kind of job, you have to, you have to be like blunt with people, um, and be like, Hey, listen, man, you messed this up. You got to do this to fix it. And then if they don't fix it, they don't correct how they're doing it. Then it's, this isn't the job for you.

4:06 Um, no, you go fucking her feelings report later, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

4:11 You know, another person, I had a couple really good instructors over the years. Carinthi out of Camp Lejeune. He was a, I think he was with MARSOC for a little bit. I could be wrong about that, but he was the division fires chief or the division JTAC manager at 10th Marines. And then over here, Paul Smith, he was the WTI at Anglico. Always a great dude to go to. And he was always very much like You know, he didn't bullshit it. And that's what I wanted from people. Like, I don't want to be... I want... This is too important to bullshit. So, good on him for that. And, again, that's crazy you got to do the Mark 77s. I've actually never heard of anybody doing that. And it's... 29 Palms is such a crazy place for stuff like that. Because...

5:02 Do you know anyone that's ever employed DPICM? No, never. This guy has.

5:08 Yeah, it's got a 90% dud rate, right?

5:12 Something like that. There's a specific area in 29 Palms. It's either one or four grid squares. I'm pretty sure it's one grid square. That's an impact area for DPICM. And it's kind of like in a valley. You have to hike up these huge-ass hills because it's inaccessible, essentially, because of the dud rate. They don't want people going through there. And I was out there with 10th Marines in the winter of 2011, I'm pretty sure is when we did it. And they were like, hey, you and your FO team is going to go up on this hill, and you guys are going to call in DPICM all day, and then the other team is going to go over this area, and they're going to be shooting wraparounds all day.

5:49 And I was like, fuck yeah, dude. This is cool shit. And like you said with the Mark 77, seeing it was like, oh. It's kind of like that with everything in the Marine Corps. When you throw your first grenade, you're like, oh. That's kind of like a big firecracker, really. It's just a big dust ball. DPICM was the same way.

6:07 Yeah, it's a lot of, I try to over-promise or under-promise and over-deliver, right? Yeah. Yeah, that definitely did the opposite for the Mark 77s. Hey, man, I just want to rip off with a quick funny story about a tactical air control party or JTAC school out on the west coast for you, man. Go for it. So I'm going to beat up on California for a little bit, but do know that I love me some San Diego County.

6:32 But this is a true story, and it's absolutely hilarious. So you know how your first week in J, so like, for the folks who don't know, man, to become a JTAC, you have to be groomed for like two years, right? At least in Anglicos. For two years, you're a 0861, 0861 forward observer. So now we know mortars and artillery.

6:54 That's cool. And then you progress to become a joint fires observer, but Major Sam Griffith picked me up and brought me under his wing and was my grooming mentor type dude. So I'm going to kind of tell you how I got to JTAC school. It's pretty funny how this worked. Somewhere along the line after my Anglico deployment with 4th Anglico attaching to 2nd, I came home, and for whatever reason, man, I think it had a lot to do with me teaching Sam Griffith just weapons manipulation, CQB.

7:30 I mean, we did a lot, a lot of shooting. We went to... Went to basic urban skills training and did a little bit of a robust course and did a little bit of AUC style stuff. And that was pretty cool. So that reignited my grunt bug. And I told you last time I struggled with that. Like, you know, I miss being an infantry rifleman and kind of wanted to come back to that world. So I dropped to the reserve. I mean, I'm in the reserves and I come back to Florida after my Iraq deployment. And I'm just kind of like, you know, I was underwhelmed, right?

8:00 So I go down to tank scouts. In Hialeah at the time, they had a scout platoon. And the scout platoon down there, it was my first time ever seeing and or working with female Marines, right? So no problem with it, man. I mean, cool. But the thing is they were in the headquarters and support company, I suppose, or a section. And I was the first squad leader of, you know, 1st Platoon. of the scout platoon. So the gist is we're on a hump and we're doing like a three mile admin movement from range to range. It's not a hump, it's an admin walk basically. So you got a 25 pound day pack and the gist is we're still stepping it out because we got to meet our time hack to get to the range so we can, you know, for range control. So this female in front

8:43 of me, she takes her M4 and she slings it behind her back like an 81 millimeter mortar tube and she starts falling out. Like she's, you know, I'm like, it's a three mile walk, dude. Like you got an M4 and a day pack, like.

8:55 I've never seen anybody do that with a rifle. That's crazy.

8:56 Bro, that's not a thing. That rifle is muzzled to the deck at all times, slung across your body, and there is muzzle discipline. That is a thing. We don't take our muzzle and have it shoot out to the sides. But, buddy, I saw something new that day, and I didn't dig it. So Sergeant Mills, we were going to talk about the immature warrior, moving to the mature warrior. Sergeant Mills decided that he was going to crawl in her ass for this.

9:23 And I said those words. I said, let me catch you. I was like, good, fall out. I'm coming. I'm coming up behind you. I was like, you hear my voice getting louder. I was like, let me catch you. I was like, I'm going to crawl in your ass. And anyway, after those words left my mouth, I realized, ooh. Probably not something we should say to females. But again, you have to understand, man, this is 2008, 2009.

9:45 I guarantee that's not the worst thing a female in the Marine Corps has ever heard.

9:56 I know, but in this time it was enough, right? So she didn't dig it. And, um, but I didn't think anything of it. I was, I didn't think of her as female or male. I just thought of her as a Marine. And you know, when you're, when you're a buck E five Sergeant, you know, that's what you do. You kind of, you kind of chew people's asses. So she's falling out. I don't dig, she's got her rifle slung. Like, you know, she's on her way to, you know, um, I'm not going to say it. You get the gist. Um, So after we come back from that field op, it was like our annual training thing, like little two weeks.

10:24 And I love the Scout platoon. These guys were super cool, man. And now Scout is an MOS in the Marine Corps, by the way, which I think would be super rad to go to that school. But anyway, man, the first sergeant calls me in the office. He's like, hey, Mills, man. He's like, you're new. I get it. He's like, dude, we love you, man. He's like, everybody here loves you.

10:42 It was great working with you the last couple weeks, but you got to go. You got to go back to Anglico. I'm like, why? What's up? You know, he's like, that female Marine, um, you know, that sexual harassment and the inspector general or the IG or some form of inspector, uh, or, you know, investigators going to come down from fourth tank battalion because the tow scouts, you had the toes and scouts, tow scouts, um, fell under four tanks. Right. So that dude was going to come down and investigate this and I was going to be found guilty and put up on charges. So first sergeant did me a favor and he scooted. Yeah, no kidding, man. He was like, dude, if you're not here, like go back. It just, just bro.

11:24 I'm telling you, man, it would be, it would be super clean. I'll sign the inner unit transfer right now. You go back to fourth angle code. And I'm glad he did. Cause that would really suck to catch, you know, catch a charge over, you know.

11:34 That's crazy that that would be considered sexual harassment because it's not like you were literally context matters.

11:42 Right.

11:43 You weren't like, you weren't actually like, that's crazy. I mean, that's, that's the kind of stuff like, obviously we shouldn't like, there's a line, right? You, you can correct people and still treat them with respect. But at the same time in the military, when you're talking about jobs that are life and death, sometimes corrections are a little bit more harsh than are acceptable in the real world at a real job, because the consequences of not doing your job are so much higher. It's so much crazier, you know?

12:15 So it's like, I saw a video, there was a video yesterday on Instagram where, where this mortar man dropped a mortar round and he held his hand there for just a second. And then he pulled it away. And I audibly gasped when I saw the video. And then I went to his, um, he like did it drop, didn't hit his hand. He's good. It shoots around. And the section leader is like, what the fuck? And like smacks him across the head. And people were like, oh, he shouldn't do that.

12:42 He shouldn't do that.

12:43 And I'm like, maybe not. Like maybe, you know, smack him in the helmet, like whatever. But at the same time, he's trying to keep this dude from shooting his hand off. He literally almost lost his hand. I'm not a mortar man. I've seen enough mortar shoot. And I gasped. I was like, because I thought I was like, oh, I thought I was about to watch this guy's hand get blown off.

13:01 And then even just a few weeks ago, there was a video that came out of some army. I think it was an army lieutenant who lost all of his fingers. It was a GoPro video. Yeah, because... So, yeah, the correction is harsh because the consequences of them doing that again and not, you know, him losing his fingers, way worse for that guy and the section leader. Because it's not like just that guy gets his hand blown off and, well, that sucks for you. The section leader is going to be punished for allowing that kind of action to occur within his pit.

13:31 So... Yeah.

13:35 It's a fine line, obviously, but that's crazy. Personally, if that's the full story, obviously there's two sides to every story, but if that's the full story, that's crazy in my opinion.

13:44 It is. I think it was the muzzle thing. Like, you know, for example, if she would have fallen out of that movement without that. It's an M4. It's a carbine, dude. It's a chopped down version of the musket.

13:54 Dude, all you got to do is let that sling and pull it against your body.

13:57 She's like, ugh. I'm like, this ain't an 81-millimeter mortar tube, dude. You got to chill. I'm going to TCP school with this somehow. But the best part about it was that that was the exact time that the 1st Marine Division put out a memo to all 0861s, specifically on the reserve side. And the memo read, gentlemen, there's an opening to become a JTAC. The paraphrasing was, hey, the chances of you getting it are slim. There's only one spot.

14:28 But if you submit your reserve qualification summary to us, we'll take a look at it. And if you're interested in doing at least two years of active duty orders, we'll bring you on board and send you over. But you must be prepped and willing and know that you can pass TACP school and the rigors of it. So, well, George, I'm like, man, open doors, opportunities, timing. We talked about all that on the last show that we did. I took full advantage of it, man. So I gen up my RQS. And that's where I got to put, you know, DOD, military contractor. That's where I got to list all my schools.

15:00 Designated marksman school, entry rifleman, non-lethal weapons and tactics, freaking Israeli counterterrorism marksmanship school. Like, you know, I mean, among all others, right? So I sent that RQS off, and I'm the one that got picked, man. So I was a Ford observer, joint fire observer, prepped and primed. But the dude who picked me was the colonel, the G3 Air officer, Group 3 Air, working out of the, well, obviously, G3 ops section. But, yeah, he was at the White House at Camp Pendleton. So I get selected, and, again, I get a notification, hey, report to Camp Pendleton at this time and check in at G3 Air. And I'm thinking, no kidding, dude. So again, I was individual mobilization augmentee guy for the purposes of going to California to attach

15:54 to some element unbeknownst to me. I had no idea who of the first Marine division, but my primary mission was to go to TACP school and pass. And then I would be chopped off to a deployment to Afghanistan, which was my first Afghan deployment. So I show up at the White House. I was thinking about wearing my alphas, but I called ahead, and the full-bird colonel was like, dude, just wear your camis. We don't care. You're checking in with me anyway, personally. So I bang on the hatch, and it's a full-bird colonel and a Master Gunnery Sergeant in there. Master Gun's deuce is out. Everybody was so chill and kind, and coming from Camp Lejeune where everybody's, it was just like, hey, how you doing there, man?

16:32 I'm like, I'm doing pretty good, sir. He's like, hey, relax, man. He's like, you got pulled out of the reserves, right? I'm like, yes, sir. I absolutely did. And I looked around his desk and saw pictures of F-18s, and I knew he was an F-18 driver, so obviously he's got a naval aviator pin. And he just says, he looks at me stone cold, and he goes, hey, brother, do me a favor. He goes, relax, relax, relax. I work for JetBlue, man. He's like, I'm a reservist, too. I'm like, cool.

17:01 He's like, hey, dude. He's like, I don't really have anything for you for about two weeks. He's like, so what I'm going to do is check in at Sharky's, the hotel over on Del Mar. Do you think you can stay out of trouble for a little while until we get you jamming? I'm like, yeah, I think I can handle that, sir. He's like, cool. You got your own vehicle? Yeah, POV'd it out here. Cool. Well, check in with me. Give me a call every other day.

17:22 Let me know you're still alive. Let me know things are good. After reviewing your RQS, I called back to your unit, and the guy said you're pretty jammed up. So I'm really looking forward to sending you to TSP school. Just do me a favor. Don't get in trouble. Don't disappoint me. And, um, and I'll be a happy guy and something about that meeting and the way he spoke to me, I wanted to do right by him. Right.

17:44 So let's keep that in mind. So I go, I have two weeks. I go to LA. I go to San Francisco. Um, I go to Alcatraz. I drive all around, you know, kind of off, you know, outside the limit, but whatever, man, I didn't have anywhere to be. So I got to enjoy being in SoCal for a little while and kind of reporting back, um, It's my first time back there since EWTG PAC, Expeditionary Warfare Training Group Pacific, which is where the JTAC school is held at Coronado, the amphibious base. So I loved me some Coronado. Just as trained with 11th Marines a little bit and got to go to Gila Bend, got to do some CAS exercises there. And then they chopped me off to first tanks, and I actually did a CACS, a combined arms exercise,

18:28 which was... A whole nother deal, man. I'm riding an Amtrak, sucking smoke, you know, popping out the TC hatch, but like on the move, it was my first time controlling air while I was moving, um, you know, with all these other assets in place. So that was, that was a big JTAC school prep kind of thing. Uh, of course I had a JTAC kind of overshouldering to me, helped me get ready. The gist though is when I go to TACP school, your first three weeks are academic and they're in the sim, right? So you're in the big golf ball simulator and you're, you're going through your, your sim casts. And I was really nailing the homework.

19:04 I was doing very well academically and I was having a good time and I was kind of riding the high. So your final week is all your live fire stuff at OP left at, um, you know, at, uh, 29 palms. So I get done with the academics. I feel the weight, you know, cause I'm studying every night in my hotel room.

19:21 I'm really busting my coconuts. And, uh, so yeah, I go out, I go out that night, I go to Gaslamp, dude, and I go to, uh, Bucca di Beppo, nothing crazy, Italian dinner, I want some good Italian food, and I had three sangrias, man, three sangrias with my chow, but over, like, two hours, and I'm, I'm not a small guy, so whatever, man, so I'm driving this stupid-ass H3 Hummer, like, yeah, I don't need to say, please make fun of me, that's fine, so I'm driving this Hummer, man, and I had a GPS system installed. And back then, I called her Bitchin' Betty because, you know, turn right, turn left, do this, do that. I'm like, oh, man, she won't stop telling me what to do. So she has me turn right down a one-way street, which is newly constructed. So I

20:04 got pulled over from the front by California Highway Patrol. Ha, ha, ha. So here I am, a couple drinks deep, but I'm not drunk, dude. I'm not inebriated whatsoever.

20:16 Says the guy driving down the wrong way of a one-way street.

20:19 Yeah, but Bitchin' Betty got me. She got me jammed up, dude. So anyway, man, the point is I had a guy named Waco. I don't want to go into a further name, but he was a MARSOC guy. He was there for JTAC school, and he was a cool dude, man. He was an American-Indian. I love them. Everyone's like, don't go out with Waco. And I was like, I don't know, man.

20:39 I like me Waco. Waco would go out and he would tell people that a scuba bubble would be like, hey, man. He's like, you know what I tell chicks just to mess with them? I'm like, what's up, man? He's like, I tell them this means I'm an astronaut.

20:54 Was he ever tattooed on him?

20:56 No, dude. When he was rocking his camis, he'd just go out from time to time when we didn't have time to change. And, you know, he'd talk to some chicks.

21:03 Wait, he'd go out in town in his camis?

21:06 On Coronado, yeah. He didn't care.

21:08 What?

21:08 Nobody cared. Nobody cared?

21:12 What are you talking about?

21:13 Nobody cared, dude.

21:15 That's crazy because, dude, even now, it's funny even being on Facebook now, there's still these older guys that will take pictures of guys at gas stations in their uniform. They're like, look at that shit bag. I'm going to correct him.

21:29 Hartzell and I got a funny one from that. I got kicked out of Enterprise rental car because some female gunny had a uniform on. I went in camis, but I was going to Iraq in literally 35 minutes, and I had to return my rental. Another story. But anyway, so yeah, so he's in the car with me, dude. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. But yeah, he's in the car with me, and we get pulled over. That's cool.

21:49 We get pulled over, and he darts. Yeah, he just runs, man. And I'm like, come on, bro.

21:58 See your prac app.

22:00 Yeah, I'm alone and unafraid, and I've got this skinny, sucked-under version of Ponch, this California Highway Patrol dude looking at me. I roll down the window, and I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know why he ran. I turn down this one-way street because my GPS is new, and it's new construction. I'm sorry, man.

22:23 He goes, you a Marine? I'm like, yeah. He goes, I was, too.

22:29 Yeah, yeah.

22:29 He's like, I was, too. And I was like, okay, cool, man. What did you do in the Marine Corps? And he told me something, and I... I don't know. I forgot what his MOS was, but I... My face must have given it away that I, you know... It's not that I wasn't impressed. I was just kind of like, huh. Like, that was enough. He's like, get out of the vehicle.

22:47 Step out.

22:48 You're like, fucking Pogue.

22:49 Come on, dude. Under your breath. I didn't say it, man. I was probably thinking it. But, yeah, so I get out of the vehicle, dude, and he's like, hey, I want you to blow. I'm like... Hey man, here's my leftovers. Like I got book into Beppo brother. Like I'm not, you know, I'm not hammered. Um, I'm just trying to make it back to the amphibious space. Um, you know, it's Friday night and this is September 11th, 2010. Boom. Right.

23:14 So it's like September 11th. Come on, man. Like I just had some dinner and he's like, dude, he's like, I want you to do the field sobriety test then. So I do that and I ace it. It's like, I still want you to blow. And we're all taught here in the great state of Florida, never blow. Because if you do, you give evidence. And in Florida, that's it.

23:33 Unless there's property damage or grave harm or you injured somebody, they're not going to take your blood. But your best chance, I realize now I'm going to get jammed up for DUI. That's clear to me. So I'm like, I ain't blowing. So he's like, all right, dude, put your hands behind your back. He arrests me, puts me in the back of his car, and he brings me to the San Diego County Jail, where immediately they strap me to a chair like this. where my veins are exposed, they put a needle in my arm and take my blood. It's law.

24:02 So under suspicion of DUI, if you refuse to blow there, they're going to suck your blood, pure and simple. Well, the good news, my guy, is I came back at. 07. Think about that,. 07.. 08 is the legal limit. But, dude, I beat the charge, but I did not beat the ride. So I spent two nights in San Diego County Jail. Oh, damn. Yeah, so they call it the San Diego County Blues because you get this jumpsuit, man. They strip you naked, do all the things they do in jail, and then I'm in a cell with like 30 other guys. So, yeah, man, I'm mopping the floors and just kind of doing stuff, and people are calling me names, like, what up, Wood?

24:39 I'm like, shut up, dude. I'm just trying to get out of jail. So I call my buddy who is a former Marine, and he stayed in Iraq as a contractor for like two and a half years. Hank, I love you so much, brother. Thank you. And then he became an air marshal. So it's $ 25, 000 for your DUI. 10% of that's $ 2, 500, and that's your bail. And I didn't have the cash, so I'm like, hey, man, can you post my bail and call the bondsman? Homeboy had me out of there Sunday morning. So yeah, cool. Anyway, so I get out of jail, and I go back to the base. Kind of the absolute worst experience I've ever had in my life to that point, right? But I'm worried about making the blotter. I've heard of this thing called the blotter. I have no idea what the

25:23 hell it is, but I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm going to make the blotter. But I understood that it's the system where the military can see when its folks get rolled up. But I'm thinking, hey, dude, I've got the paper from the blood report in hand that says. 07, so I'm a happy guy. And my attorney, who I immediately contacted after I posted bail, their shops were right next to each other, like bail bondsman, attorney. I walked from bonds to attorney. And anyway, I paid him, I want to say four grand or something. But he's like, dude, your case is easy. Don't worry about it. Sign here, sign here. I'll take care of it. I'm like, all right, cool.

25:59 So I go to TACP school on Monday and I show up like nothing happened. Fresh pair of camis, clean cut, new shave, haircut, ready to rock and roll. And the lieutenant colonel of the schoolhouse calls me and he's like, hey, Mills, come here, dude. He's like, do you spend the weekend in jail, bro? I'm like, yes, sir, but I'm not guilty.

26:18 It's like, what? I'm like, honestly, I'm not guilty. Look, right here. Like, this is, I was. 07, dude. Like, I don't know. This cop's a dick. You know, I don't know the deal. The backstory on this is that under California state law, from my understanding, and I'm probably going to butcher this, but I don't care, is if you're like. 04 or above, and I think this is designed for, you know, people with medical conditions or maybe skinnier, you know, super non-body weight folks, no muscle mass having folks out there, um, that even if you are below the legal limit and the officer deems that you're inebriated, you can still be charged with DUI regardless, you know?

26:58 Yeah.

26:58 Um, which is why you rolled me up. But anyway, so I, I show him the paper, I tell him the deal. I'm very honest about it. And he's like, Mills, he goes, I don't know what to do, man. He goes, you're supposed to go to the hill today. Like, like today you're going to the hill for your final, your final week of the school. He's, He's like, I know why you were, you were plucked out of the reserve specifically to come to this school. You know, he's like, so there's a need, man. Like, I don't know what, I'm like, sir, the bottom line is truthfully, I had some sangrias with dinner. I was not, I was not driving drunk. I was below the legal limit. Um, can you just have mercy on my soul? He goes, pack your shit and get in the van. You're going to

27:37 the hill. I was that close to getting kicked out of JTAC school, dude.

27:42 You know, if you were to try to lie about it, you probably would have. You know, I always tell people it's like in those kinds of situations, just be honest, man. It's like, you're, it's not like you're not caught. You might as well.

27:51 Yeah.

27:52 And then take your, you know, Hey, I'm so sorry if I, you know, throw it out there, but, and you just kind of hope that the person is, uh, um, sympathetic to your cause, but you never know.

28:05 Yeah, and then another Master Sergeant read me my rights because, you know, there's double trouble with the UCMJ, but I never got charged.

28:11 I was going to say, even if the California Highway Patrol doesn't care or the legal system, the Marine Corps might have still fucked you anyways. But I know when I was in MOS school, when I lap moved and I was in MOS school at Coronado, one of the guys that also I lap moved with was a sergeant, and he, like, he knew one of the instructors or there was some kind of loose connection between one of the guys that was in school and one of the instructors.

28:37 And we had just finished. And my buddy who I was in school with borrowed the instructors like truck for like that. That was like the day, literally we had our graduation and we all went out and partied that night and he got a DUI and the instructors truck that night. And he was supposed to be leaving for Afghanistan soon. So he did the same thing. Like, go to jail, call the lawyer, get everything set up. Like, it was kind of a big deal, but they were also like, hey, you're out of school now. Like, you technically have graduated, so it's not our problem. And I think the other instructor was like, listen, we're not going to report it to your command, but if they find out, we're not going to lie about it, you know, kind

29:19 of deal.

29:19 Yeah, sure.

29:20 And he just had to kind of handle everything through a lawyer and while he's also prepping to go to Afghanistan. You know, this was, yeah, it was... Dude, that's tough, man.

29:30 Well, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what, man. I haven't got a ticket since. Like, even today. It's 2026, dude. Genuinely. I don't have a single track.

29:40 Sign.

29:40 Nothing. I don't drive drunk. I don't do any of that stuff. You know, by the grace of God, right?

29:45 I didn't know they... Why would they keep you in jail for a DUI? I thought a DUI was one of those things where... I thought a DUI was just one of those things where you just, like... It's like a drunk tank kind of deal, and you get out. You had to stay until someone bailed you out?

30:01 Yeah, dude. The phone on the wall, the cord's like six inches long because you can't beat people with it. If they give you a long cord, you smack people with the phone. It's like six inches. The bail bondsman numbers are posted on this acrylic part of the jail cell wall. The gist is I'm trying to remember the number, dart back to the phone, but other people want to use the phone, so I've got to wait in line.

30:25 There goes the first day. Um, on the second day, I think it was three, five. There was a dude who, this is a true story, man. Um, anyway, he showed up and he just shot two guys. And the gist is before he joined the Marine Corps, he used to be a gangbanger running with Latin gangs and he didn't dig it. So he wanted out and he wanted to improve his life and write his life. His brother, uh, was still, you know, kind of in the gang life and they were going to have a meeting or they did actually, they had a dinner that night to discuss, Hey, There's a way out of this, bro. I love you.

30:59 This is the story he's telling me because we're sitting right next to each other. So all the other people in the drunk tank are hearing this. There's two Marines and he's like, yeah, man. He's like, they came and stabbed my brother while we were out at dinner. He's like, so I pulled out my pistol. I smoke checked the first dude. He's like, and then the second guy, the bad guy, he ran to his car and he tried to get away. He's like, so I ran to my car.

31:21 I reloaded. And as he was driving off, I unloaded that magazine into the back of his vehicle. I guess a couple rounds shot him through the back, and he made it down the street, made a right-hand turn and hit a phone pole. So the gist is the first guy he smoked was in defense of others, his brother specifically, but the second guy he smoked is what got him.

31:42 Legally questionable there.

31:44 No, I'm sure he was done for, man, because there's two colors. There's the San Diego County blues. That means you're going to make it out of here. And when they put you in the orange suit, You're sticking around, pal.

31:58 Oh, really? Is that how it rolls?

32:00 Yeah, but the deputy sheriffs were really cool, man. The deputies kept popping in, and they were giving them updates because the dude was in critical condition at the hospital, the second guy he shot. They were like, I don't know, man, it's not looking good, but hey, we hope the best for you. Because they understood the concept of self-defense, and they understood what he was trying to do.

32:20 I mean, I have a little sympathy for the guy, but I also, I have, or for the guy that was shot, but I also understand why legally that becomes questionable because now you're not, you're no longer in fear of your life. Now you're just retaliating, but it's also, you're telling that you're trying to, you're talking about someone that's in the moment that literally just saw their brother get stabbed and they shot someone. So I can't imagine the adrenaline rush and everything that was happening. Like, you know, someone stabbed my brother. I'm going to try to fucking shoot them too. You know, like, what are you talking about?

32:53 Um, so, but it was funny cause we were, you know, that, that conversation, I wanted to get him out of that cause you know, he was, he, he knew what was coming and he didn't dig it. So, um, we started talking about, you know, tours. I was like, yeah, man, I'm about to go to Afghanistan here soon when I get out of jail, if I pass JTAC school. Um, I was like, but yeah, I did three tours in Iraq and you know, we were, we were talking about, you know, using deadly force and, um, you know, bringing hate and discontent to the enemy's doorstep. And as this conversation progressed, I noticed the whole room got quieter and quieter and quieter. And some of these guys you could tell were, you know, not upstanding citizens, we'll just say.

33:32 But they're now listening to two Marines who, you know, are both combat veterans and have, you know, we don't have any qualms about doing what needs to be done. And all of a sudden we kind of became the, let's just say we got left alone. How about that?

33:49 Yeah, that's I think that's probably it could probably go one of two ways. Either you get left alone or they're like, all right, I'm going to fuck this dude up to kind of establish myself. You know, like these guys over here, they're so badass. I'm going to go over and beat the fuck out of this one. And that way, I don't know. I'm glad I don't know enough about jail politics and stuff like that, you know, to to get everything. But yeah. That sucks though. Did he get out? Do you know who that was? Did you ever look him up?

34:17 I do not, man. I don't remember his name. I don't remember anything about him. I kind of wish I did, but I'll tell you what, man, um, my prayers.

34:23 I bet you could, you know, the date. I mean, it was been the date same around the same date you got arrested. I bet we could find him real quick. We'll have to do that when we get off here. Um, so after let's move up after you got to TCP school, after you finish that, yeah. Do you go back to fourth Anglico then?

34:38 And then no, my, my, the whole purpose. Yeah, no, the whole purpose. So, um, I definitely want to get right to the Marsoc thing and I want to, um, I would, I'm going to get into that deployment and, you know, Justin, I'm going to be honest, my whole point to this coming back around to podcast is, um, I think the first podcast we kind of did a little bit of career mapping. Um, you know, this, I, I, yeah, I want to kind of get into the nitty gritty of, um, you know, actually, you know, actually fighting the fight in different capacities and what that looks like. But, No, I was slated to go to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, Echo Company, right? So, yeah, there was not much of a workup for this. The workup,

35:21 you know, the training is like, hey, man, like JTAC is all you need, you know, especially since you have prior combat experience, especially being an 0311. That was a huge selling point, too, with all the other stuff. They, you know, they're like, you're primed and ready, man. We just graduated TCP school and, you know, kind of a fresh rookie JTAC. We're going to send you over there.

35:41 So I go to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, Echo Company. We're in Garmzer District at that time in 2010 around the Safar Bazaar area. And our whole thing was just, hey, here's your AO. Hold it down and just straight up counter. It was just coin, just a coin fight. But I didn't want to do COC cast. I didn't want to be that JTAC who just sat in the COC the whole time. I went out with 1st Platoon. out of a place called, uh, patrol base Hernandez. This, I mean, once the two one echo guys found out that I was a former grunt, it was, it was really cool.

36:20 Like we just got along and one of my brethren, uh, Josh Acevedo, who I have a deep admiration and love for. Um, he was like the first squad leader of the platoon that was getting it. Right. So I wanted to go out and patrol with him and, We got into a tick, you know, closing in on a bill. And, you know, once we got within the max effective range of the weapon systems, the AKs, they started lighting us up. So, you know, we took cover, returned fire, smoked a couple bad guys. And Ace looks at me, and he's like, and he looks at another guy first. He's like, hey, dude.

36:54 He's like, I like what you're doing. He's like, you just got your car. He's like, yo, Mills. He's like, you just got your star. I'm like, that's not what I care. It was cool of him to say that because it was just off the tongue. But he was so professional and happy. He was the happy-hearted warrior. He loved to fight the fight, and that was cool. Went out with him, went out with snipers, and a lot of times their patrols, their squads were reinforced. They had a.

37:23 240 gunner, and they had a sniper team. Honestly, man, for what it was, these guys just went out and Found Taliban. They were really, really good at it. And in the interim, I would come back to COP, Combat Outpost, Rankle, Central Hub, patrol bases surrounding it. And I would start to log all these SIGACs, these significant activities, whether it was an IED find or whether it was a tick or whether we had explosive-making materials that were found in a weapons cachet. So when you start plotting all these things on the map, you start to see the trends and develop the rat lines, right? So you know how the Taliban are moving in throughout and through your area, which was kind of cool. Which then gave me the

38:05 ability to start kind of glazing over and looking at those areas with a little bit more of a fine-tooth comb, so to speak, with intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets, ISR. So then I started finding targets to prosecute, and that was pretty cool. So that's the the gist of the 2-1 deployment.

38:24 When you were going out on patrols, did you, was there another, like who was running the COC? Who was in the COC doing air support?

38:31 So I had a really cool, um, he was a JFO and so it's kind of reverse role, right? But he was the second Lieutenant at the time. I think he, uh, first Lieutenant, um, Roberts. Um, he's the guy who wrote, uh, wrote, wrote me up for the NAM for that. Uh, probably should have had a B on it, but. Just so is, Roberts was just a great guy. He was so lighthearted, so kind, so cool. And I'm sure he eventually ended up becoming a JTAC himself, but the dude was just all too happy to support whatever he needed supported. So we had CPOF, the command post of the future, right?

39:06 Not that cool.

39:07 And all those schools.

39:09 But at the other time, too, we had a guy, his name was Bodden. He was a Cobra pilot, and his call sign was Schmeagle. So Schmiegel, I was CH-23, he was CH-24. Those were our JTAC call signs. And Schmiegel was like the company air officer, but he stepped down. He didn't want to do it. And, you know, look, I'm a Christian, big time. like I believe in fighting the good fight especially with spiritual warfare you know all that other good stuff it's real but I have no qualms about killing the enemy like zero Schmiegel on the other hand did he had some kind of you know I don't believe that you know the Bible allows this as murder etc I'm like no.

39:46 Dude Why'd you join the military?

39:49 Yeah, get out. But he, zero credibility to this day with me. Like, you are, bye. But he had a 20 pound brain and like all, you know, like all thinkers, they overanalyze and think too much and he thought himself out of wanting, you know, wanting to, you know, employ Cass and kill. So, bye. So, the company commander, basically, he relegated himself. He relegated himself to, not only, you know, not only was he not first string anymore, he basically just became, he learned posh too because he picked it up really quick, and he just wanted to go out to the bazaar and talk to folks and kiss babies and shake hands, and he's like, yeah, this is me winning hearts. The company commander was doing this? No, no, no,

40:32 I'm sorry, Schmiegel.

40:33 Oh, okay.

40:35 Oh, gotcha. Yeah, the company commander shit-canned him and made up a job for him on the spot and gave him this warm and fuzzy role that you're going to be like the hearts and minds guy or whatever, and then I then took, I became the company JTAC slash de facto air officer proper for all things 1st, 2nd, 3rd Platoon for Echo.

40:56 Well, then I will say, knowing that, and you may not want to hear this, but you should not have been out on foot patrols. You should not have been out on foot patrols. If you were the only JTAC, you should have been planted in that command. And I know what you're saying. You don't want to be the guy that just sits in the command center the whole time. But...

41:18 As the only JTAC in the company, you should have been planted. Yeah, but you just said that he was ineffective. You should have been planted in that command center, and you should have been working your JFOs. I know you don't want to hear that, and I'm with you. I probably would have done the same thing you were doing. Like, hey, I can go out and fuck this. But... You know as well as I do that you should not have been there. You should have been in that command center.

41:40 I know now, but I wanted to cut my teeth, man. And the other thing about it was I wanted to know the AO. I wanted to walk and see what these guys were. Because it's one thing to get the top-down view. It's one thing to view it through sensors. But 95% of my gear was interchangeable with snipers. Same thing.

42:01 you know, compact laser range finder, same, um, you.

42:04 Know, cause you, what do they call that? The keyhole suite. You got the keyhole suite and then some of the optics and stuff like that. Some of the.

42:10 Extra tech optics. So, you know, I had the comms and basically anything that was outside of the range, uh, for precision fire for, you know, our sniper teams was not outside the range for me. Cause all I had to do is drop an immediate pry, immediate priority requests for fix or rotors. And we would see Talib all the time and we just start schwacking. So that's pretty cool.

42:32 Yeah, for people, I just want to explain my thought process for people that aren't in the JTAC community or aren't in the fire support community. If I was the fire support chief or if I was like the company JTAC or battalion assistant, whatever. If I was like a JTAC E in that battalion, I would have been.

42:53 Ripping your ass for fucking... Battalion air officer, yeah.

42:55 I mean, I don't know if as an E... Well, yeah, I probably would have been an air officer. Either way, that's like an officer's actual job, but... um, I would have been ripping your ass for going out there. And for people that don't understand why, here's the deal. Here's how it's supposed to work. We have, you have your Ford observers, you have your Oh eight, six ones. You have your mortar absorber observers who are Oh three mortar men that learn how on the job training, how to do observation. And then from there, you know, as Oh eight, six one, you learn mortars, artillery and Naval gunfire and you become an expert at that. And then like, like George was saying earlier in the show from there, you

43:31 get pushed up to being a joint fires observer. A joint fires observer does all that stuff, but now they're getting introduced to the aircraft side of the house. They're learning how to talk to aircraft. They're doing target location. And they're essentially the assistant to the JTAC. And they can be right next to them on the hill doing call for fire and running it like that, or they can be out forward on foot patrols. And when that patrol takes contact, they're radioing back everything to the JTAC to run strikes. And they can do everything. They can talk to the aircraft. They'll do talk-ons. They'll do all that.

44:04 They just can't clear the aircraft hot, and that's what the JTAC is for. Now, my argument to George here is why he would not, why I would have been mad for someone to do that, although I would have probably tried to do the same thing, is the JTAC is supposed to be managing the JFOs. Yeah, you can go out on a foot patrol, and you can get into contact and control from the ground, but But what if another patrol from the same company gets into contact?

44:32 It becomes a lot harder for you as the JTAC managing that battle space to give clearance when you're also out on a foot patrol. So now you're trying to manage what they got going on and deal with maybe you got something going on as well. And that's my only, you know, I'm not shitting on you or anything, obviously.

44:47 There's no argument to what you just said. Zero. That's the whole point of a joint fires observer. So for the civilian audience and for those who don't really understand how this works... When it comes to employing close air support, there's three types of controls, right? A type one means you have to be able to see both the target and the aircraft. And the point of that is that aircraft is brought in from a specific part of the airspace.

45:13 That way you can assess the nose geometry and make sure that, hey, like, you know, we're not, we're not biting off on anything wrong here, right? Now you can abort that aircraft and reset them and re-rack them. But most of the time, the type one control is I have, visual confirmation of the aircraft, he's in the chute, he's oriented correctly, and I see the target. And he can see the target. Right. Type two control with an observer is what we're, so I can see the target, but I may not be able to see the aircraft given a cloud layer or some kind of obscuration. Or I'm pinned down and I'm unable to see the target, but I can see the aircraft. Type three control, can't see either.

45:55 But I'm using sensors. I have the video downlink from the aircraft sensors, and I can do target correlation that way to make sure that I'm attacking and I'm going to strike the right target. So it's all about target correlation, and it's all about ensuring that we're restricting the effects of our fires to the desired target no more, which does a lot of things. Prevents collateral damage, prevents sieve casts, and prevents fratricide, which is a huge thing, too, if all goes according to plans. But type two with an observer is the observer has eyes on the target. You may not. And he's giving you, you know, the information so you can run that type of control. So that puts you back into type two category, which is kind

46:37 of cool, which is the whole point of the JFO, the joint fire.

46:39 Well, Yeah, most of that's right. The Type 3 is a little off, I think. So Type 1 means that I can see the target, I can see the aircraft, and the aircraft can see the target. If any one of that triad is broken, the aircraft can't see the target, I can't see the target, I can't see the aircraft, then it automatically becomes a Type 2 control. The Type 3 control is just you're giving a target area and a window of time for them to attack. you don't, it's not, you're not giving individual clearances and stuff like that.

47:09 You're just like, Hey, here's your target area. And you have a window of from five, five to zero, zero. And it's on them to just kind of run in and do their own attacks and stuff like that. You can give them corrections and you can abort them if you need to. And that kind of deal that just means that's just a window. So that's the only difference between the type one and type two is that one of those three things is missing. I can't see the target.

47:30 The aircraft can't see the target or, you know, I can't see the aircraft. One of those has to be missing. So, You were pretty close there, though. Yeah, we all get rusty.

47:39 Yeah, not bad for a guy 14 years out of the game.

47:41 I feel like, man, I'm evaluating. Look at this. I'm going through an evaluation with you. First off, sir, quit going on foot patrols, and let's work on our types of controls a little bit.

47:51 I love this kind of stuff, though, man. No, don't.

47:54 I had to say something, because if I didn't say something, there would have been guys in the comments who were like, I can't believe you didn't correct him on the type 3 control. Oh, I know.

48:01 Yeah, I know. Whatever, man.

48:02 So after that, how many controls do you think you got on that appointment?

48:06 I think it was nine, like nine total that resulted in actual strikes.

48:12 What were the targets that you were looking at mainly?

48:15 Talib, straight up, like on foot, right?

48:17 Okay, so like individual fighters or like groups of fighters kind of deal?

48:20 Yeah.

48:21 Like IEDM placers maybe?

48:23 Yeah, smoked a couple of those. We had one IEDM placer that was, he was, what's funny is, During that, it's not funny, that deployment, we found, and by we, I mean Echo 2.1, NRAO. You can look this up. We found 450 IEDs in seven months. Jesus.

48:43 450, dude.

48:44 And I don't remember the statistics, and that's what happens when you, you know, it's 2026, and you're talking about something from 2010, so forgive me. Where were you guys at?

48:52 Where were you guys at?

48:53 We were in Garmser District, Helmand Province, yeah.

48:57 That was a pretty active time in Garmshire. There was a huge operation that happened around that time.

49:03 I think. Yeah, I used to think it was called Operation Everclear, but I think it was called Operation Overlord, where we did a two-week Taliban clearance operation through a stronghold, and I was definitely on the deck for that one. I think I was out of the first CH-53 operation. And, yeah, we landed in an LZ that was, I mean, I wouldn't call it a cold LZ, I'll tell you that.

49:28 The gist, though, is we had this ingenious, it's genius because it's simple. It was called the Holley Stick. named after Gunnery Sergeant Holly, he was an EOD technician, and he, it's basically like a piece of bamboo or wood that's 10 foot long, and on the end of it, if you've ever seen like the sickle and the crossed hammer on the communist symbol, right, for the old USSR, you take that sickle and you duct tape the handle to the end of the holly stick, and with, everyone went to combat hunter's course, which is cool, so you're looking for ground sport, ground sign, you're looking for natural bottlenecks of terrain, and you're analyzing hey, that dirt looks churned up, or this looks like a great place to place an IED.

50:12 So your lead dude on the patrol would punch out, we'd set security, we'd call a halt, and he would just take the edge of that scythe and scrape the ground with it, or sickle. And you, generally speaking, we got really, really good at pulling up the wires. And then you'd find not only the 12-inch pressure plate, which was basically two blocks of wood with a compression spring between them, And the wires would run through it. So like this, when the two blocks of wood are stepped on, you know, victim-initiated IED, right? The power source would generally be an AD cell battery pack, and then the IEDs themselves would be their 20-liter, 40-liter jugs of HME, homemade explosive, which is a low-order detonation. So like military-grade explosives or

50:57 high-order detonation, the overpressure blast is pretty significant. A low-order detonation, no less dangerous, but it's a slower... It's still violent, but how do I explain it? I'm not an EOD technician, but I think you guys know where I'm going with this. The gist is, low-order deaths will rip off arms and legs, and it'll rip pieces of your gear off, too, which is why taking an elastic rubber band and rubber-banding tourniquets to you is dumb. But I digress. Point is... Yeah, man, we'd dig up either the power source, disconnect the AD cell battery pack, and, you know, hey, we know we're good.

51:37 Or we were able to find a majority, a vast majority, I want to say 93% of these IEDs we found the easy way, and the other ones were found the hard way. And I want to give a quick shout-out to all the folks at Echo 2.1, Corporal Chad Wade, who was killed at that deployment. Yeah. So.

52:01 Yeah, those holly sticks became like SOP for everyone. When I went to Afghanistan in 2011, our pre-deployment training included going through the IED lanes that they had. I think it was, I don't remember the name of the group. There's a civilian contractor group that would run those. I don't remember what. Anyways, but yeah, the sickle, dude, those are crazy. Looking back, it's like, oh, we would, the whole thing was lay down on your stomach, take this 10-foot pole with a hook on the end and throw it out there in front of you and kind of drag it until you think you hit something. And I remember when I was with 3-6 in 2011 in Marja, the CO would try to go out and be the guy using the sickle. his, his PSD guys were like, sir,

52:47 what are you doing? Like one time he did it. And after they think after that, they're like, you can't be doing that, sir. Like you're the Lieutenant Colonel.

52:51 It's an art, man. You like, so everything you learn in the combat hunter course and anybody who wants to get fammed up on that, there's a book out there called left of bang. So on the linear timeline, bang is in the middle. Bang is the event, right? So everything to the right of bang is, is reactionary, right?

53:08 Everything left of bang is proactive. So if you, Again, it's an art form, and you know your AO. So where I'm going with smoking IED in placers is we got so good with the holly sticks. And, dude, if there was a wadi or a canal or if there was something with water in it, we'd walk through that. So a lot of this was fast moving, and we had to have spotters in the water, too, and slick off our kits. But they got so good at finding these pressure plates. The folks at Echo 2.1, these grunts, they were genius at it. that the enemy started realizing that we'd gladly get wet and get soaked and forward a waterway as opposed to trying to go through IED-laden territory.

53:51 So they started waterproofing the pressure plates with tires and rubber. They'd wrap them in plastic.

53:58 Yeah, they'd wrap the pressure plates in plastic and then bury the jugs inside the bank and stuff like that.

54:03 Yeah, dude. It's like, okay, I see your scheme. I raise you this. And I'm like, all right, well, I got something for you. I got a pair of F-18s in the overhead now, and I'm watching you two nerds trying to put an IED in that's going to target my guys on patrol. So I'm watching them, and I gave specific instructions. The section was their battlefield call sign was Maker. It was like Maker 1-1 and Maker 1-2, flight of two by Marine Corps F-18s in the overhead, right? Yeah, dude.

54:30 So I got Maker, and they got either Lightning III or Sniper pods. So they have the high-fidelity pod, whatever it is we were using. So I'm watching these two fools, and they're by a riverbank, or kind of like a little irrigation ditch, let's call it. And they're in placing an IED. So part of my nine-line workup, I know I'm going to kill them. So I want one by GBU-12 off a lead aircraft, which is a 500-pound laser-guided bomb.

54:57 But what I wanted Dash 2 to do was kick in low and slow and do a 20mm gun run to clean up squirters. So anybody who leaves a target area in a hurry, we call them a squirter. But we know that when there's IED in place, those are generally spotters. So that was my instructions for that attack. So just as lead aircraft says, hey, we're IP inbound, make our flight continue. these guys must've burned the target area with their jet noise because the IED emplacers took a blanket. I, this is weird, man. They laid down next to each other like this, right? They took a blanket and they dipped it in the water and it was a water soaked blanket and they laid under it and they completely disappeared off of the teapot system. So,

55:47 you know, the pilot's never seen that. I've never seen that, but his pipper, right? At least from his video downlink is still, um, you know, basically this crosshair is still on the dudes. It's like, you know, kind of our desired mean point of impact or our DMP, right? It's what we call it. So we got the DMP that's locked.

56:07 The target area is locked. It's, it's, they're not moving anywhere. They're digging up right there on that, that exact spot of the earth, but now they're gone. So the pilot, his initial reaction was like, well, do we still have a target? And I'm like, yeah, like we're absolutely striking those guys. So we did, um, you know, so we sent a patrol out to do a BDA and they just found pieces of the dude, like chunks of flesh everywhere.

56:33 And they were, they were all excited about that.

56:35 But, um, that became a bigger, that became a tactic that ISIS was using in like Syria and stuff. And, uh, there was, I think we've gotten around that. I And they're like, yeah, that doesn't fool us at all. They're like, we saw plenty of guys that tried to do that. They thought they were hiding. And it's like, dude, I can still see you. Here's your 25 millimeter.

57:01 So a cool factoid, man, is we got so good at this that we actually, and by we, I was there to support Echo 2.1 as the JTAC, man. I don't mean to say we isn't taking any credit for this. All the credit goes to these guys who put in the hard work and got smart. Boy, were these guys smart. So we started, you know, I heard that some adjacent battalions were having some struggles, you know, and we were in ranger file. We were stepping in footsteps. We were very cautious because the quantity of IEDs in our area was such a thing. Like, you know, and we got so good at mitigating that threat. And we also got really good at, you know, yeah, we got really good at shooting these dudes. The gist, though, is we started

57:48 putting guys on aircraft and flying them out to other battalions to teach them the tactics that we were using that proved to be so successful in our AO. And I heard that that really did help folks in other AOs drastically reduce their casualty count. And one of the wisest things that that battalion commander said when we left, because we lost one guy on that deployment, the whole deployment, right?

58:09 He was like, hey, man. the enemy contact that you got into, the enemy killed in action, you know, racking up the numbers, the numbers of wounded Marines that are numbers of friendly KIA, that's not the hallmark for, you know, how kinetic or how successful or unsuccessful your deployment was. He goes, that's not what we're looking for. Like, there was another battalion that lost quite a few guys in that adjacent area, and Everyone was like, man, it must have been really hard for those dudes. And it was, of course. But yeah, man, success to us was not the amount of guys we killed. It was the stabilization that we were able to bring to the Ville. And part of that didn't involve killing Taliban. But the other

59:00 part of that was engagement. We actually did engage just as much as we wanted to engage the enemy. These villagers invited us into their homes. So when we were doing night patrols and stuff like that, they were feeding us, giving us intelligence, which was huge. And we were able to take that intel back to the S2 cat that we had at the combat outpost, run that through an all-source dude, fuse it, and do stuff with it. So I consider that to be we had a really, really successful deployment, but I cut my teeth as a JTAC.

59:34 I learned how to battle track. I learned how to figure out how bad dudes operate in Afghanistan, which was my first time in that, in that theater. I had no idea what I was doing, but I, you know, I'm a quick learner. Um, Schmeagle did bring me under his wing at first, but then Schmeagle relegated himself and, you know, um, I don't, I don't like him very much.

59:54 He ended up bringing my buddy, uh, up on a charge of first degree murder. You can look it up. Josh Acevedo, he was awarded the Bronze Star with a V for Valor by General Mattis. It would have been a Silver Star. But my buddy Josh Acevedo and some of the other Marines on that deployment, these guys were some of the most hardcore warriors that I've ever met.

1:00:16 But they were kind and they were humble. Just lethal. But Schmiegel didn't like the amount of killing that they were doing. And he decided he had a problem with it. And one of his, they would have a Bible study. And I'm all about Bible study, man. I love to get into the Word of God and, you know, Operation Restored Warrior, man. I just came back from it, so.

1:00:37 But he did it wrong. You know, we're meant to be warriors. We're meant to be dangerous men. But we're good. You know, we're good. Our hearts are good. We believe in the fight that we're fighting. But Schmiegel believed that, you know, this one was out of bounds. Like, you know, he shouldn't have killed those guys. They laid down their weapons.

1:00:56 It's like, I don't know, man. It doesn't work that way. They did not lay down their weapons. They were armed, and they did get killed properly. So he had a whole investigation launched against my buddy Josh, and Josh and I became pals. And until I made it, even when I went to MARSOC, the JAG dudes were, the prosecuting side of the JAG house was calling me trying to drill me down for evidence against my own friend by playing word games over the phone. But I got to be a witness at my buddy Josh's trial and absolutely discredit and slam all that negative shit that was being said about my friend. But for two years of his life, man, for killing the enemy, for doing his fucking job, and for going out there and bringing the fight to the

1:01:50 enemy's doorstep, you know, and which helped secure the village. Um, because some dude thought it was murderous. You know, my buddy suffered the consequences of that, but in the end he was vindicated and he was awarded the award that he should have got. And, uh, he was found not guilty, cleared on all charges.

1:02:07 Cause, uh, you know, truth comes after that.

1:02:13 No, he got out, but he became like the consummate contractor. He, he, he still went to fight, but he went to fight, um, you know, on his own terms as a contractor.

1:02:25 Yeah, it's a bitter pill to swallow, I think, when the organization that you give so much to turns around and does it. The same thing happened with all those, the Marsauk, you know, guys, the Fox Company guys that went to Afghanistan on that first rotation. Just being slandered and just crazy.

1:02:42 I can't imagine.

1:02:43 Treated like murderers when it came out, because when it came out, all the facts actually came out. They were like some of the most accurate shooters, you know, ever. And what happened was, is that SOCOM just, one, didn't like MARSOC and two, went ahead and took the word of the Taliban PR campaign that came out right after the battle and not the American troops that were there on the ground. And it took them, what a decade to get their names cleared, you know, guys died and stuff in the meantime. And while their name was being tarnished and stuff, it's, it's fucking bullshit. But I digress.

1:03:22 Everything I just said, I'm speaking from the heart. That's that all happened. That's all real.

1:03:26 It's crazy.

1:03:27 It's, it's, it's not fun to talk about that kind of stuff. It certainly wasn't fun for my buddy, Josh. Uh, so it wasn't fun for some of the other Marines involved in that, but I, you know, that kind of shit happens. And, um, albeit it's unacceptable, but I'm just glad my buddy made it through and the truth prevailed.

1:03:49 These JAG dudes, like the prosecutors, they would call me when I was out at a bar, and I'd tell them straight out, I'd be like, hey man, I changed commands, I'm at MARSOC, I'm out of Stone Bay, but I can't talk to you right now, nor would I, by the way, but I'm at a bar consuming alcohol. Again, I knew the line was being recorded. She said, so you want me to speak facts about a case that you're currently pursuing, that you're getting after, while I'm under the influence of alcohol, and you're going to write down what I say and take that back and try to use that to prosecute my buddy? Is that where we're going with this right now? And then click, they'd hang up the phone. You know, scumbags.

1:04:31 Yeah, I don't know. Again, luckily, I guess, I don't really know too much about the military legal system. I got called for jury duty one time. I had to do jury duty in the military once. But other than that, I don't know how good or bad. In that case, the prosecutors kind of fucked up. The one I was involved in really fucked up. But I don't know if that's common. I think someone told me that the prosecutors...

1:05:01 I want to say the prosecutors are generally like newer JAG officers, right? I think they're usually junior JAG officers and they're like newer. There's probably obviously an experienced one to kind of lead the team or whatever, but sure. So I wonder, yeah, I don't know. Anyways, sure. Whatever.

1:05:19 Yeah. I don't know either, man.

1:05:21 It's, it is messed up, man. Especially when it's like something, you know, someone didn't do. And it's, it's like, man, again, that the Fox company thing, Those guys really got raped over the coals for no reason. And they were probably the most professional people, some of the most professional shooters in Afghanistan at the time. Absolutely. SOCOM took a lie that they killed all these civilians at face value rather than actually investigating. And then when it came out, all the bodies that were recovered all had headshots. They made it sound like they were just going through and smoking everybody, just shooting wildly. And then they, like, found all these, you know, when they actually investigated, it's like all these

1:06:02 bodies were, like, two to the chest, one to the head kind of deal. You know, like, professional shooters. And Major Galvin, Fred Galvin, he was the company commander. Yeah, he was the company commander, and he had to spend years trying to clear his name and his Marines name and was actually allowed to, I think he was allowed to come back in the military after, his name was cleared.

1:06:30 Really interesting. If you haven't heard the story, he's actually been on the podcast twice. So just look his name up and former guys and you'll, you'll see him. He'll talk about it, but it was a crazy time for those guys.

1:06:41 Yeah. One last word on my buddy, Josh, man. He was, I served with him in anti-terrorism battalion as well. And he was on the cat team. What we were called mobile assault platoon. They were cat is basically the same job. It's not like they had toes, but, but I knew, I knew Josh for a while and, um, you know, it was so cool to see him in Afghanistan again, you know, like it was random happenstance again, small Marine Corps.

1:07:06 So I show up, Josh kind of paves the way, Hey dude, our new JTAC George, I'm telling you guys switched on after that. Like these guys, we became fast friends and the amount of camaraderie that I shared with the folks at Echo 2-1 during that deployment was insane. Um, all the helicopter support, you know, we went and saw this, we went to this, um, We went to Bastion, hopped on a flight, met all the guys who were flying aircraft in the overhead for us. One of the major guys I really want to talk about, his name was Major Legoski at the time, then Lieutenant Colonel, then Colonel Legoski, who recently retired. But Gash was his call sign. He was a frickin' rock star. The dude, he did his fact tour, I believe, with Anglico. But what was really

1:07:48 cool about that is when the grunt squads got in trouble, you know, again, this is why the Marine Corps rips pilots out of the cockpit and they do the fact tour. Then they return to the cockpit and become flight leads because gash do the next max effective range of the 40 millimeter grenade launcher. So these guys are in a tick, they're pinned down and unable to maneuver. And they're like, Hey dude, you know, we don't have an estimated distance or we have an estimated distance, but like, you know, we can't get a direction right now for whatever reason.

1:08:15 So he's like, Hey dude, do you guys have it? And over the radio, he's like, do you have a fucking two Oh three with smoke? And they're like, yeah. He's like, launch that fucker and tell me how far they are from the 203. He's like, we got, you know, we have visual friendlies. We have eyes on you. He's like, put a 203 in the exact direction of the enemy and then pop smoke and, you know, talk me on from there. And then he got, um, you know, of course they, they just clean house, man. It was really neat.

1:08:44 But going back to the squadron and looking at the footage from, um, They had an Australian exchange pilot too, so he was stoked to fly with marine aviators. The tightness that we were able to weave with them, because they were in direct support of us, it lasted after that deployment um gash brought me over to his house i mean we met over the radio in afghanistan dude and um he brought me to his home you know we went out to carlsbad we drank together you know we commiserated together um Talked about the deployment and he invited me to his retirement ceremony, but I couldn't go because I was training to become a firefighter at the time.

1:09:27 But yeah, man, like Gash and Ace, it's just so neat how these relationships forged over radios become personal friendships in real life. Does that make sense?

1:09:39 Yeah, I mean, that's what happens when you're working with professionals, right? And the big thing, too, is that you want a liaison with these people. You want to meet them so that you're not just another voice on the radio. When I got to Afghanistan in 2013, we flew into Leatherneck, and we were waiting to take our flight to Sangin.

1:09:59 And while I was at Leatherneck, I grabbed my corpsman. And I'm like, hey, let's go over to the squadron and introduce ourselves to the skid guys and then go over and introduce ourselves to the PJs and the dust off guys. That way we can go ahead and one, make sure our map data is matching whatever they're using right now. And then talk face-to-face about anything that they've been seeing in the AO that we're going to and kind of expectations on both ends. So that once we're in the moment, all these things that you may have had to have worked out, they're already worked out. And now this guy has a face to my name. So when I say Siege 2-2 on the radio, which is kind of funny, you were 2-3, right? I was Siege 2-2.

1:10:40 They know, oh, that's that fucking guy that came by and got the maps and hung out for a while. So, you know, it's important to... Professional networking is what it is. We don't make it out like that. Sometimes we discourage it because of the whole fraternization and rank thing. But in a job like this where as a JTAC or JFO, you're always talking to officers. You're always talking to pilots.

1:11:07 You're always talking to artillery officers. That kind of more like formal relationship and conversation gets kind of broken down a little bit. And just because you're trying to, you're working as professionals together. I respect them for what they do. They respect me for what I do, you know? And as long as that maintains the balance, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know.

1:11:31 You know, at, at, um, at cop rankle, uh, it was pretty funny. We like whenever we had, um, you know, so the CH 53s are, they're kind of an undersold asset. Those, I mean, those are big cargo heavy helicopters, right?

1:11:44 They're the fastest helicopters in us military too.

1:11:47 Dude, I'm telling you that they're badass. But, you know, these guys would, like, their families would send them. They called it the Snake's Head. We were the furthest combat outpost down. I don't know geographically how to describe it because I haven't looked at the map in a while. But we were the furthest away, I guess, if that makes sense, from the centralized hub of Bastion Leathernecks. So kind of between us and even further south, it was like no man's land. Until 3rd L.A. Light Armor Reconnaissance units came and took it. But the gist is, you know, the boundaries of RAO, sometimes we kind of push past just to test and probe and see what's up. But in short, when they knew that, you know, we were

1:12:27 at the bottom of the totem pole when it came to supplies and shit. So the CH-53 squadrons, they would take, like, all the things that they received from their family in the mail, like, you know, Gucci items and feel-good stuff and ramen noodles and, I mean, everything from batteries to Like, you name it, man, shit that you would just need when you're in an austere environment, forward deployed. They would pack it all, especially during Christmas they did this. They brought all their Christmas gifts to us. Yeah. How kind.

1:12:58 You know, they packed their helo and fly into our LZ. And I'd be like, you know, hey, winds are light and variable, about five knots or less. You know, the only obstacle that we have for you, the only hazard we have is, you know, about 50 meters to the east of the LZ. We've got some barbed wire fence.

1:13:12 Other than that, you're cleared into the zone. Let me know when you're two minutes out. Um, I will pop smoke. You call visual and color, you know? And, uh, so I, they'd be like, all right, uh, Hey, we're two minutes out ready for smoke. So I'd go to pop smoke and I'd pop like violet, red, green, you know, HC and throw it all out there. And I'd be like, Hey, call color, dude. Like, uh, we got every color. I'm like, yeah, that's us. You're what you're clearing in the zone. So the tail ramp would lower and I'd run in and go chat with the pilots and they're still kitted up to the point where they called me on the zipper line and I had to run it through my company commander and they were like, yo dude, is there any

1:13:54 way that we could go on a patrol with you guys? What? Yeah, that's what I got. So yeah, we were planning the major operation and they had to fly down to plan regardless and they wanted commander's intent from the commander face to face. So I was in that meeting. We helped facilitate what was capable and what was not. But, yeah, man, Safar Bazaar was relatively safe. But, yeah, we gave them some M4s. They jocked up. They were still wearing their aviator's helmet.

1:14:24 Looking ridiculous with those giant helmets.

1:14:26 Oh, they stood out, yeah. They looked like close encounters of the 14th kind, you know. But, freaking, dude, yeah, we took them out on a patrol, a foot patrol, and these guys were, like, feeling– Like, dude, we got rifles, we're Marines, and we're on patrol in Afghanistan.

1:14:44 But zero reason for them to be there.

1:14:47 Yeah, yeah.

1:14:48 Zero reason for those guys to be out on a foot patrol.

1:14:50 Again, if I'm.

1:14:52 That pilot and I'm like, hey, they're going to let me? Fuck it, let's do this. You know, I'm going to do it too. But imagine if one of them would have gotten shot. Their command would have been.

1:15:00 Like, what were you doing? You're on a foot patrol?

1:15:03 Who the fuck do you think you are?

1:15:04 Yeah, that would have absolutely been like, like, Yeah, an ischemic fucking stroke. Like, they were stroked out.

1:15:11 When I was in Sangin, we had our air officer. So I was on the advisor team, but we fell under 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines AO. Like, we worked in that AO. So it was technically their battle space, but we were working with the Afghans. So we were kind of separate, but kind of. We weren't attachments to them.

1:15:29 But I would always work with the air shop, obviously. I was the only JTAC on the team, and I would work with, like, Taco was the air officer. I can't remember his actual name. And then Stork was there, Alcala was there at Fob Jackson.

1:15:43 Stork.

1:15:44 Yeah, I remember. Oh, do you know him?

1:15:48 I've definitely heard the call sign, Taco and Stork, but proceed.

1:15:52 I think Taco got his call sign. He was a Harrier pilot. I'm pretty sure he got his call sign because he accidentally crossed into Mexican airspace during like a training flight. So they changed his call sign to Taco. And then Stork just has a million kids because, you know. He's Mexican. That's the way they roll. I'm pretty sure he's Mexican. I'm going to feel bad. He's like, I'm fucking.

1:16:12 Puerto Rican, homie.

1:16:13 Hey, dude, you said it, not me. Yeah, that's rad. That's rad. I remember Taco came out with us one time. and to see you know because you're right it's different when you're like looking through the pod the sensor you're looking at the video feeds and stuff like that yeah you kind of get the idea of the terrain and stuff but until you get like out there and kind of see like the compound the mud walls the little you know rises and stuff like that or the tree lines how dense they are or could be it's kind of hard for someone that's been a pilot their whole career to imagine what you're working with so That was good.

1:16:50 That was a familiarization thing, and it was more of a mounted patrol. But I don't think we would have ever allowed a random pilot to come out on a foot patrol.

1:17:02 Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was an E-5, dude.

1:17:07 Yeah, as an E-5, you're just kind of like, whatever, let's do that.

1:17:10 Yeah, I was happy to take him out. I was hoping to get to shoot somebody, to be honest with you. I mean, how cool would that be? Hey, I'm a CH-53 pilot, and These grunts took me on a patrol, provided security, but yeah, man, I got PID on some Taliban, and I got to smoke this dude with my M4. He's going to tell his grandkids that. Then he's going to go to Anglico, because now he's got the grunt bug, and then he's going to go become the most righteous forward air controller in the world, and now he's got a thirst for.

1:17:42 We always had 53 pilots as facts and stuff.

1:17:46 Yeah, they're solid dudes, man.

1:17:49 Um the uh we had a uh the problem with that when you take random people out or when random people want to go out on a patrol it's kind of like what's your end state here because i remember one time i'm pretty sure this is when i was in marja we had someone like a patrol from meth coming mounted patrol from meth coming down to marja to just do like a site survey or something i don't even know why they were coming And there was some Intel officer that jumped in on that, that mounted patrol and came down and they did their meetup. He came in.

1:18:23 I remember he came into the command center and the first thing he did, we had a Reaper drone that had gone off station and they were flying home. They were, they were end of mission for the day. So they were heading home and on their way home, they use their sensor to like, look at the moon and the moon looks crazy through one of those sensors. If you've never seen it, it's like, one of the best telescopes ever.

1:18:46 And we're like, holy shit, They pull the moon up on the video feed, and this guy comes in, and he's like, why is that up on, you know, there should be sensor tasking, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, this guy was kind of like a douchebag. And whenever they finished whatever they were doing and they left, they got a few miles down the road, and this intel officer decided that he wanted to be the machine gunner And he was up in a vehicle and took some shots at something.

1:19:11 He said he saw some enemy and that they took a shot at him. No one else saw it. No one else heard it. Now he's like, oh, now I earned my combat action. And it's like that kind of thing, man. When that kind of thing happens, it's like, what the fuck are you doing, dude? You're putting everybody in danger with your stupid little games because you want to earn your ribbon. You know?

1:19:28 Yeah.

1:19:30 So that's.

1:19:30 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we had a, you know, talking about leaving the COC, and I'll make this quick and transition over for you to, you know, yeah, the 8133 deployment that we were going to talk about. But on that, I don't want to understate Echo 2.1. I'll lead with this. Dude, the M4, regardless of how you sexied up with the accoutrements and the toys and, you know, your lasers and everything, It shoots a souped-up. 22, and it's a. 223 round, right?

1:20:04 Your gear doesn't look as cool, but it's still ballistically rated. Maybe it's a little heavier, maybe it's a little bulkier. But these grunts are living in absolute shit conditions, man. These dudes are constantly dirty. I didn't shower for close to four months. Like, no shit. Like, no shower. I had to take water bottles and poke holes in the top and just hang them up like these little water bottles, dude.

1:20:28 And that was my show. They don't, you know, you're getting K-rats, man. You're getting K-rations, dude. My point is that for the folks that I would, you know, especially when I was growing in Iraq, I definitely, you know, I could understand. These guys are on the same AO every day, 12 hours a day, every day, on patrol in this IED-laden shit area, constantly under threat of Taliban attack, and they're holding their own, man. If I had to be honest with you, I saw, you know, given I was doing village stability operations with Marine Special Operations Command, and yes, I was able to prosecute a lot more targets as a MARSOC JTAC than I was with Echo 2-1. Yes, it it wasn't less restrictive. It's just that, that the

1:21:19 kill chain was shorter because everybody was there, but with the grunts, they don't get enough credit, man. It was like, oh, you're dumb grunt, you're dumb infantry guy or whatever, man. These guys are, these guys are just one foot in front of the other and the same shit AO, um, all day, every day. And they're, and they're rocking it, you know what I mean? They're bringing the fight to the enemy. So I wanted to kind of give that respect. Um, Yeah, there's some hardcore stuff.

1:21:46 Yeah, I mean, everybody focuses on special operations and stuff like that, but there's a lot of infantrymen that have done a lot of crazy stuff that just doesn't get recognized because they're not special operations. And it just seems like regular whatever, but.

1:21:57 It's, yeah. Soft is sexier, cool, got it. But, dude, let's not forget about our infantrymen out there. Let's not forget about our conventional forces folks. They're putting in hard-ass work, and God bless them. God bless, man.

1:22:13 You know, when you got to, you know, you were, when you were on your MSAT in Afghanistan, how often did you guys get visitors that would want to come out and see you?

1:22:24 The only time we did was after the green on blue incident, um, that we had, uh, which was absolutely unfortunate, but it was Admiral Mike McRaven. Hmm.

1:22:34 I mean, Puse was so far out in the middle of nowhere, you know, like I can't imagine too many people wanted to go out there anyways.

1:22:41 Yeah, I mean, it was still considered, you know, proper Sangan, but Sar Puse. I think the nearest person, the nearest team that we had to us. So now we're talking about 2012. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, 2012. So Sar Puse, right, our village stability post, and I'll get into VSO here in a minute. SOTIF 8-1, Special Operations Task Force 8-1, you know, MARSOC, First Marine Special Operations Battalion. Soda Fate 1 had multiple teams, not just, you know, Marine Special Operations teams, but there was Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, they were all part of that Special Operations Task Force.

1:23:26 It just so happened that the task force was commanded by, you know, First Marine Special Operations Battalion. The gist is that, you know, Sangin at that time was, the most Taliban-contested territory, I would say, in all of Afghanistan, period. Like, full stop, right? Super, yeah. We went into, well, not we, but teams prior to us got invited into Puse and were able to set up that village stability post. The idea is to be invited in by the village elder and It's an invite not through the projection of strength. It's an invite through...

1:24:12 We want it to be a genuine invitation, right? So it's like, hey, we want to help stand up local economy and free market. We want to help rebuild your schools and increase the literacy rate amongst your folks. We want to stand up an Afghan local police force, so... And everybody knew that we were going to leave, and that was kind of the shitty part. We were against that time clock that Obama put on us at the time, and then subsequently Biden. But the gist is, for now, we do project the most power, but we really want to train you folks and work with you to help push back the Taliban, give you the ability to Hold your own security. We're going to help you, but we want you to lead it. And we're going to continually

1:25:01 create white space in the battlefield by pushing back Taliban further and further. While simultaneously getting a dial and getting a read on village politics, seeing who the shadow government is, and vice the actual government. And it's a bottom-up approach to kind of plug you into uh, not only the local district, you know, local governance, but district governance to provincial governance to eventually draw a proper, the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Um, you know, and we do all that by embedding in the village and we do that from a platform, you know, called our village stability platform, because that's the name of the game where they bring stability. So VSO is a very, um, it's

1:25:47 a complex mission. It's a very complex mission. And, um, The ultimate trade-off is the paradox of an advisory war is you need trust to accomplish the mission. You've got to build that rapport. Yeah. But for us, especially, we bring a heavy hand to the fight when needed. Especially for such a small team, we punch above our weight.

1:26:18 But that trust creates a vulnerability. Um, it's just inherent as part of the mission. There's really not much you can do to get around it. Um, but the team had to be capable, um, you know, of sitting with partners, understanding the village, um, you know, building the local force and when it called for killing Taliban, you know, sometimes within a, you know, all within a 24 hour window.

1:26:45 So that blend, um, more than any gear, more than any badge or title or whatever is what special operations demanded, if that makes sense.

1:26:56 You have to, right?

1:26:57 Speaking the language, assimilating to, as opposed to showing up in a Humvee with your helmet and your kit and basically looking like an alien or landing in a helo and saying, hey, we're here, we're going to help you out. It's a much more indirect, soft, subtle approach, but really engaging with the folks and really helping to, um, you know, settle anything from disputes to, you know, tribal disputes, Bistan's I tribe, Barak's I tribe, what do you got going on simultaneously mapping the human terrain. And what, what I mean by that is, um, you know, figuring out who the power brokers are, um, you know, figuring out, you know, who has allegiances to who, um, you know, that's all human source intelligence. Right. And being able to do that

1:27:40 at the team level, um, while obviously understanding the electromagnetic spectrum of communications to our signals intelligence folks, or working with our human intelligence folks, or working with the geospatial guys, then your all-source intelligence dude is fusing that into one picture that your team commander can read and say, all right, this is the complete picture that I'm getting. Here's what we should do, if that makes sense to you. help increase the stability of the area that we're working in. That, in essence, I mean, there's a lot of overlap with foreign internal defense and FID, but this was its own thing.

1:28:24 I hope that just satisfies it right there.

1:28:26 No, I think if people want to get a really good idea of what you're talking about, it's not about Afghanistan, it's about Vietnam, but reading Bing West's book, The Village, is a perfect, it'll help you understand because that's what that whole thing was for Marines at the time. I think they called it VSPs or something like that. It was along the same lines where they would just embed in the village and it's like, hey, I'm here to help you build up the school, build a well, build up your defense force. And then when when the fight comes, I'm going to stand next to you and we're all going to fight this together. Um, that's a really good book for people to check out if they're interested in the whole kind of, I guess, theory that we have

1:29:09 behind that, um, by, with, and through mentality of advising, you know, uh, foreign forces.

1:29:17 So, you know, from the village, right. Um, you know, and I'll, and I'll tell you that my team in particular, uh, really dug their heels in on this mission. Um, to like the consummate professionals is the appropriate, the appropriate way to describe them. The language was, uh, was taken seriously. Uh, you know, every cultural habit was taken seriously. Um, having sure is having meetings, hearing out the complaints, hearing out, um, you know, and actually doing something about it and not just taking, you know, reports, but like, um, you know, Hey, this guy, but like, how are we going to, um, how are we going to use the tools that we have, uh, to really, you know, enhance the security and stability of

1:30:07 this village. Right. And, and something that's going to hold up and withstand the time, um, you know, the, uh, the pressure of the times. And what I mean by that is durability, right? So we were there to take all of the young males who had basically nothing else to do and say, Hey, would you like to be the Afghan local police force? Now, you know, when, um, When you're training an Afghan local police force, you also have the Afghan uniformed police, you have the Afghan National Army, and we were working with the Afghan National Army Special Forces too, the commandos, right? So there's a lot of key players that are government, Afghan security forces. The local police was kind of its own thing. We put them

1:30:53 on this thing called Tashkil, where it's basically, providing uniforms, giving them a sense of identity, giving them the weapons, giving them the ammunition, giving them the training, fighting alongside of them to push back Taliban, while meanwhile working with the Afghan Uniformed Police Force and Afghan Special Forces guys.

1:31:15 The gist is, you know, Commander Bob, my buddy Bob on the team, I think he spoke like two or three languages. Man, this guy was super smart. He's also a sniper, a good dude. Um, but he took this, this mission, um, and, you know, really dug his heels in. Captain Hyder, Captain Matthew Mnookian as well. Everybody knew in the village that that's, uh, Hyder is the lion, right?

1:31:39 Everybody knew that Captain Hyder was the strongest, baddest dude in the village. You know, he was the new sheriff in town, right? So here we are, we got this team and that's us. Um, and these dudes absolutely are the most powerful and baddest dudes. When we knew that one of the first tip-offs that we kind of got that we were really having a positive effect engaging the locals was when we see the kids. It's cool to play the bad guy. You know, you talk about cops and robbers, you know, play the robber, play the bank robber.

1:32:10 And Justin from George Mills, honestly, I thought about this. One of my favorite bands is Social Distortion, dude. And I like that song Machine Gun Blues, you know, if you can dig it. I know it. You know, pinstripe suits, man, Tommy guns, fast cars. I would have been a bank robber, I think.

1:32:29 Back in the 40s?

1:32:30 If I was alive in the 30s and 40s, yeah, dude, I would have been a bank robber. It's sexy, right? You'd be running moonshine. Sure, I'd run some shine. Who's the government to tell me I can't have booze? But the point, though, is when the kids stopped playing robber and bad guy in Taliban, they started playing cops. They started playing the good guy. It's because that Wyatt Earp came into town. You ever see Tombstone? Nobody wanted to be the sheriff. Wyatt Earp comes, Doc Holliday, some of these other folks. That was cool. Cool hand Luke stuff.

1:33:10 When the kids started to see that and they wanted to be that, we knew that we were having an impact there. long-term view of this is that I knew in my heart of hearts that we would have needed to stay there and impact three to four to five generations for this to really take hold and really change. Um, you know, I, I, at least that's my theory anyway.

1:33:34 No, I think you're right. You can't change cultural norms and stuff, especially in these deep villages, you know, um, within one or two deployments. I, I remember, uh, Early on, well, early on, probably around 2010 or something, I remember someone writing something that was saying how the Green Beret teams, the Special Forces guys that were rotating in, doing the same thing, the village stability and working with the locals, that the way they should have done it was have teams that rotated to that. It was off-cycle, on-cycle. And the same guys on the same team should have been going back to those same areas and to build that rapport over time and being like, Hey, I'm literally here to help you for the long run. I get it.

1:34:20 I leave for a year or whatever for my time off, but I'm back, you know, and they, and that kind of thing probably would have, maybe they did that to some degree. I don't know. Um, but yeah, I mean, those people work in long, you're talking decades and centuries of tradition and stuff like that. Yeah. There's no way we can just roll in. Exactly. We can't just roll in.

1:34:43 Some of these travel disputes are 400 years old.

1:34:46 It's crazy.

1:34:46 Yeah.

1:34:46 It's not blood. Just, yeah. You know, it's just some of it's crazy and you can't make a, you have to be there for the long run and you have to have that. Um, I don't know that long mindset, that marathon kind of mindset. And that's probably, that's the issue with going to war like that, going and doing a war like that is because, yeah. Okay. Everyone might be down for it and stuff at the beginning, but, 20 years later though, what does the American public think?

1:35:12 They're like, what the fuck are we doing? What are the American forces think that keep rotating there, but can't be told what the actual final end state is going to be, you know, like, what are we doing? You know, that's the problem. So, but it does take a long time. Like you said, like generational for sure.

1:35:28 Yeah, absolutely, man. And, um, That was part of what we were up against was the time clock. What really pissed me off during that time was when that superimposed time clock, we're going to withdraw American forces at this time and this day. What are you doing saying that shit on the news? Because it's not like these guys aren't going to hear about it, right? Everybody in the field had a phone, albeit low-tech and shitty. The point, though, is why would you put for something that we're building that needs to gain momentum, needs to be massaged over time for us to spill our hearts and minds and bodies and soul into this mission. And you're telling the enemy essentially this, dude, go to Pakistan, chill, grab a cot,

1:36:13 get some hot food in your man and just wait and wait out the Americans because they're going to leave anyway. Then there's going to be a power vacuum and you guys can swoop in and take back control. Everybody, I think, down to their very DNA knew that was going to happen, especially when we started hearing it on the news. But you want to talk about something that sucks the wind out of your sails, it's that. And the other thing is the American populace, truly, in their heart of hearts, we don't have the fucking heart for a war that's going to last 30, 40, 50 years, right? You know, albeit if you were to reduce the footprint, keep it special operations specific and you know, just have small teams

1:36:49 of dudes rotating in to do the type of mission that we were doing. Yeah, it's going to take a while to change the culture and change the hearts and the minds. But the end state, I think the return on investment done right would have been worth it. But I knew that the deck, you know, we were stacking our own card deck against ourselves, man. So my job, I'm the JTAC dude. My job is this. What is commander's intent? How can I help you? What can I do to help this mission? Because, again, part of this mission is pushing Taliban forces back. All right, so I go to work. So, you know, there's a secret classified side to Google Earth, and that's okay. I'm not going to talk about the particulars of it. But when we

1:37:35 log into that, and I'm starting to pull up the terrain around me, I'm familiarizing myself with my entire area. I'm familiarizing myself with some of the things I see. The assets that I have, whether pre-planned or by immediate priority, which is like, hey, I didn't pre-plan this, but I need some kind of asset in the overhead now for a particular reason, I can call that. So when they check in on a station with me and I'm controlling their sensors, I can start to see and track SIGACs, just like I was talking about, right? And I put the little pinprick in there, pinprick, pinprick, and I date it, time, date, stamp, cool.

1:38:12 But now I get to see the trends. So in my certain sectors and my certain compound clusters, and every compound had a number, I could see where, you know, hey, there's shitty activity coming out of this particular region. It looks like this ferry crossing is feeding this area of, from the northeast. All right, cool. So that's something I may want to keep in the back of my brain housing group as we progress. And especially over one, two, three months in, you really have a lay of the land.

1:38:43 And by going out on patrol with my team and by going out and taking a look at the area from the deck as opposed to that overhead view, that really helped me build a very memorable comprehension of the battle space in which I was working. So if in the event I needed to start prosecuting targets or we needed to go kinetic, I knew the area. I could almost do it by heart, which I actually did. and the thing I'm going to talk about here soon. So in short, here we are. We're in the middle of the village. We are highly successful. Our VSP, our Village Stability Post, it had a lot to do with Matthew Mnookian and Ryan Jeske and Bob and my other buddy Doug and some of the guys that just were really, really professional dudes that were pumping their mind, body, and

1:39:39 soul and just their spirit into this mission, man, trying to do the best we could. We had a relaxed atmosphere around the BSP. The kids would play. We had a gun range just across the street. You were asking me in the last podcast about the amount of shooting we could do. I'd grab ammo all the time and grab some of the Army squad dudes that we had in support and just say, hey, you want to go shoot for like three, four hours? Get some trigger time and basically hone our skills. We could do that whenever we wanted because we created that permissive environment around us. Now, the Afghan local police checkpoints that we set up around us, we created more and more and more, which is why Gunny Jeske wanted me to be good with, you know,

1:40:20 hammers and nails and start building stuff, and frankly, I wasn't. I didn't know a framing hammer from a ball-peen hammer at the time, but I do now. So we're training these folks. We're trying to keep them paid. We're trying to keep them armed. We're trying to keep them equipped, and we're giving them an identity. When you hand an Afghan a rifle and you say, hey, like, I want you to take responsibility for your family, your village, your tribe.

1:40:46 They were pretty receptive to that. So the Afghan National Police was also there, the Afghan Uniformed Police Force, too. Let's just get right into it. I don't know when in the deployment. I actually do know the date. It was 10 August 2012. I've already been on patrol with the guys quite a bit. There are some times where our Afghan local police checkpoints came under fire. We hopped in these vehicles called RG-33s with up-mounted machine guns. And the CROWS system, I forgot what it stands for. It's like an automatic kind of a joystick-controlled 50-calorie Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher.

1:41:31 It's Crew Something Operated Weapon.

1:41:34 CROWS were cool, dude. But you can stay safe inside of your armored vehicle and use the heavy guns up top to target these guys with pretty good accuracy. The gist is we take the RG33s, we mount up, we go to the area, you know, leave a couple dudes in the VIX to pull security, punch out, go to the actual Afghan local police checkpoint that was engaged. And, hey, these guys were kind of downtrodden. I mean, they just got hit with effective fire from a 12.7-millimeter Dishka across the Helmand River. I'm like, all right. you know, and one guy got shot in the jaw and his jaw was blown off and, you know, they medevaced him out.

1:42:12 But the gist is, uh, all right, cool. Where'd the fire come from? Let's see if there's any residual enemy hanging out in the area. All right, we can do that. So the couple of guys brought sassers, special application scoped rifles, you know, um, in civilian terms, the Barrett 50 Cal, right. Um, brought some Roffus rounds with, uh, RDX explosives on the tip of the rounds. Um, you know, brought some 60 millimeter mortars. A lot of us, you know, we'd hump some of the extra equipment, extra mortar rounds. But we were going to go to that Afghan local police checkpoint and push back any Taliban resistance that was moving or maneuvering on that checkpoint because, you know, they just got engaged.

1:42:52 And we did, man. We spent the whole day there. I was able to see through optics that there was a cave complex in the wall, the relief of this cliff across the Helmand And in that cave complex was from the Afghan local police, they were saying that they were effectively engaged with this 12.7 Dishka, like their version of the. 50 cal, right? Russian-made heavy machine gun. So I'm like, all right, cool, now we got some targets, now we got some stuff, let's start seeing what's going on here. So got some Cobras, had them hold off, I want to say about four clicks. but didn't want their sense of fidelity to be too degraded. I needed them to look into that cliff face and start seeing these man-sized cave complex, like these entryways. We called it

1:43:45 the three hole. It was like three doorways side by side by side. And that was one of the key features on the side of this cliff face we bit off on. And that's where the Afghan local police were saying they were being engaged from. So I'm like, all right, cool. Hey, I tried to do a talk-on. Hey, from the center of the cliff face, upper one-third, just to the left of center, you're going to see three doorways side by side by side. Call contact. Negative. Wasn't able to do a big to small talk-on. So I got my two sniper dudes, and I'm like, yo, man, can you guys throw some. 50 cal? You know, you got ROFUS rounds.

1:44:17 Can we mark the target? And I'm going to start putting some Hellfire missiles in this. You know, we're going to shake these dudes out of these cave complexes. So they did. You know, they did. They got their dope. They got their dope set right. And I think around after the third or fourth round that we sent into that doorway or just to the side of it, these rounds exploded and the Cobras bit off on that. And I'm like, hey, man, that's your target. Call tally. Request immediate push. Looking for one by Kilo 2 Alpha, which was the blast frag variant of the Hellfire missile, followed up by rockets and guns. Um, any squirters in or at the base of that target area, uh, they're going to be hostile forces. You're approved to engage. Um, so

1:44:59 first we had a Huey Cobra mixed section, put a hellfire into the cave system, collapse that first entryway and ensure shit. It's it, it kicked up the hornet's nest, right? So when I knew it was real and they were digging it was, um, the Cobra, the Cobra gave me an in call. I cleared them hot. He got his missile off, and then he followed up with rockets and guns, peeled off, and he set up for shooter cover as the UH-1. I think it was the Yankee or Zulu variant.

1:45:32 But they had, remember pistols and nails? Remember the 12.75 millimeter Zuni rockets? Or inch, 12.75 inch Zunis. Yeah. That were guided and unguided. So they had, I think, like seven pistols, seven nails. Nails being the... the unguided and pistols being the guided variant.

1:45:50 Yeah. It was, they call it that because they would shoot H E and then they would shoot the, um, the one that had the actual fleshette fleshette rounds, the 2.75 inch rocket, the H E and fleshette. So they called it hammer and nails.

1:46:06 Yeah. Oh, cool. Cool, man. So yeah, those, um, with, but when, when the Huey, when the Huey got the rockets off and then they turned, you could just, you just hear that and the door gunners were getting it, right? Which means that they had positive idea Taliban, which they radioed back to us that they had eight Taliban squirters armed, positively ID and they cleaned them up and killed them, which was pretty cool. So anyway, we did, you know, Hey, you're approved for me to reattacks, go ahead and reattack this area. Um, and they actually had a November health, uh, November variant hellfire, which is the, uh, the thermal barrack, right?

1:46:44 So the, uh, The November goes in, it explodes. It's so hot that it sucks the oxygen out of the atmosphere and will suffocate you, which is kind of cool. So I Winchester this section, but my buddies who were observing through both their spotting scopes and, you know, the Schmidt and better scopes that they had on their, their sassers.

1:47:09 We're now seeing Taliban activity kick up all over the place. So I'm like, Hey dudes, Hey, give me backfill there. Get some more rotors in here while you guys go hit up the forward arming and refueling point called Shukvani. And I want you to load up with nothing but thermal barracks. Like, come back with thermal. Because this is a cave complex. It's all interconnected. We're going to close this fucking thing down, right? So they did. And it was a day. It was a day, man. It wasn't really fair for them, but it was for us. My buddy...

1:47:43 You know, my buddy Mike, he was one of our SOIDCs, and then my other buddy Slice. Let's just call him Slice, man. I called him Kimbo. He knows who he is. They had handheld 60s, and they were just funk and mortar rounds, dude, just digging it while we were calling in cast strikes. It was pretty cool. But we Winchestered three sections of Cobra Pure and Cobra Huey Mix back-to-back-to-back. I think we called in like 18 airstrikes that day, which was cool, 18 controls. But we won, my point is we won.

1:48:19 And what that did was, it pushed the Afghan local police forces, um, just their morale through the roof. So they had never seen us come to the fight. I think with that degree in magnitude yet. Right. So now it's like, dude, these guys really do have our backs. Um, wow, the downside to that is the trade-off is now they want it all the time. So you see something like this.

1:48:45 Let's just ask the Americans. They can come do all this for us. But the whole idea was, yeah, we're here to support you when you guys need support, but we need you capable because the Ministry of the Interior has a hard enough time with the sustainment of this program. The long-term sustainment of it wasn't really looking too good. Um, you, we need to bolster this thing up and make it real. Um, cool.

1:49:14 So Afghan local police, they're pushed out, they're patrolling the bill. Uh, we are partnered right next to the Afghan uniform police. The AUP compound was right next to our compound. And in our compound, um, obviously we had our Marine special operations team. Uh, we had a small contingent of Afghan national army special forces, um, The weird oddball ducks in the corner, literally in the corner, were the UAE Special Forces.

1:49:41 And part of their national caveat, if you want to know what that is, look it up. It's like their little rules. Because they're a Muslim country and they didn't want to come, they showed support by saying, hey, we're here. But they never left the wire. They refused to leave the wire. They never went on patrols with us. They never did anything. Not that we had a wire because we were embedded. But they were safe in their hooch.

1:50:01 They smoked hookah all day, and that's pretty much all they did. And every three weeks, they hopped on a Black Hawk and went back to the UAE and chilled. Anyway, then we had a, I want to say, a squad-sized element reinforced of U.S. Army infantry. And these dudes were jammed up. These dudes were solid. And they were there to help provide security for us and to plus us up on patrols when needed, when we needed to go do kinetic shit. But they were there to provide security for our village stability post as well. And I loved how that wasn't the sexiest mission in the world, but they were all too happy to work with us. And I embraced them, and I loved every part of it.

1:50:45 The other Army guy that we had, his name was Zachary Quick. Sadly, he took his own life. He was our tactical psyops team guy. but he was a master sergeant in the Army. He was an Operation Anaconda, Bronze Star dude. I mean, this dude was, he was a fireman. He was infantry. Awesome dude. But, you know, being an attachment, it's tough sometimes to break your way into an MSAT.

1:51:11 But everyone loves Zach, though, man. We worked out together. I have no cartilage in my shoulder because we were repping like 350 on the bench. Old Zach, he was a stud. Just though he was tight-knit, VSP, but right next to us we had the Afghan Uniformed Police Compound. One night, I'm inside the VSP, or I'm inside the Tactical Operations Center, and I'm with Matthew, Manuki, and Manukes, and I'm with Ryan, Jeske, and in the T-Skiff, which is nothing more than plywood wall, Sky Mode is in there, and.

1:51:51 Yeah, some other buddies of mine. Um, but I'm at my JTAC desk and I'm sitting there wrapping up mission reports for some airstrikes and I'm on the super email side of the house and I'm doing some things and it's like a 1230 at night. And I honestly, I just got tired of emails. Like screw this dude. I'm going to bed, you know? So I got my 45. Um, I think I'm wearing board shorts and a sleeveless shirt.

1:52:20 I was due to stand post that night because we had four perimeter posts. Although the Army pulled security, we all took turns. It was my turn that night from 2 to 4 a.m. to stand post. So in my room, I brought my rifle, I brought my plate carrier, I brought my helmet, I brought my nods, I had my comms, I had my 152 green gear radio preloaded with all the frequencies and the crypto and shit. And normally we would store our kit adjacent to the command operation center in this NFL style locker room. Or if you ever see Ted Lasso, it looks just like that, only plywood and military and green. You know? So all these football players, the soccer players, we'd store all our shit there. And then in the tactical operations center, we had the rifle

1:53:12 racks for our rifles. So most of the time, again, this is our home. This is our home, dude. This is the compound we were given to live in, and this is the compound through which We held shuras. We invited folks into it to say, hey, let's have a meeting. Let's help settle some disputes. Let's hear your grievances. Let's hear how we can help. What can we do? And right next door, we were working on a madrasa or a school. And our team put a lot of work into that school. And the idea is to help improve the literacy rate. And then we were working closely with the Afghan Uniform Police you know, and the local police to plus up a 200 man Afghan local police force.

1:53:59 Cause we wanted Sarpuse to have the ability to sustain itself when the time came for us to be absent, right? That's the whole idea. But the Afghan uniform police, um, historically and the ANP, you know, there's for whatever reason, there's, there's some trust issues there. I'm just going to call it like I see it. Um, as I get into this story, I want to preface it with one note. Um, Everything I'm about to say, this is a traumatic event.

1:54:30 It's different than regular combat where you cross the line of departure and you take casualties. You assume that's going to happen. This one washes down a little bit differently. But trauma has a very funny way of affecting your memory. But I'm going to do my level best to talk about my experience and you know, how we were able to navigate this and still come out on top. Um, but just note that for all the folks who are listening to this, um, time and trauma, you know, can, can skew details. And, uh, especially the reverse problem when you read the award citations and when you read, uh, kind of the after actions, you know, um, and maybe you were there and you're like that parts of that are not, not incredibly accurate. 85% is, but that 15%,

1:55:22 you kind of get wish-washed in there with, and then you call your buddies, and a couple years go by, and you call your buddies and say, hey man, you know, remember this? It's just funny how time can change your perception of events, so I'm going to lead with that. But that night, I'm at my laptop, I'm at my workstation, to my immediate left is Gunny Ryan Jeske's workstation, our team chief, and he's a fucking rock star. To the left of him was our team commander, Matthew Mnooki, and his workstation. And all three of us are in there.

1:55:55 And we're laughing. We're laughing our asses off, dude. We're telling off-color jokes, saying stupid shit. It's late at night. We're all tired. And I'm the first to rack out. I'm like, hey, dude, guys, I'm going to finish this shit in the morning. I'm going to bed. So I close the laptop, and I get up, and I walk out of the COC. I make it to my hooch. And, um, I just, you know, our hooch, I had to walk about, I don't know, maybe 25 meters or something, 30 meters to get to my hooch and, uh, close the little wooden door, which, you know, just, just plywood, turn the AC on, you know, try to keep it as clean as I can in there. But all my kit is staged in that hooch because I had to stand watch that night. So all of a sudden I hear machine

1:56:38 gun fire. Um, and a lot of it, right? Like a lot of it, about 45 rounds. And, uh, you know, which you may be an extended AK mag or maybe he changed mags. I don't know, but it wasn't uncommon to hear gunfire in the bill cause you're embedded and it's fucking sang in and Sarpuza and Helmand province after all.

1:56:58 I mean, and the Afghan local police did, you know, engage folks from time to time. Uh, they, they would see Taliban at night and engage them. Uh, so it wasn't too uncommon, but this was particularly close. So you stop, look, listen, smell, uh, and you're trying to use all your senses to evaluate. And I remember being trained, um, when you open your mouth, you can hear better. I don't know if you knew that if you open your mouth, you know, more sound can get in there. So I get a knock on the door, George, like, yeah, what's up, man? He goes, yo, dude, um, it's me. And you know, his name, right? Um, he's like, what do you, Hey dude, uh, We have an active shooter loose on the compound, brother. He's like, fucking, hey,

1:57:47 Matt's dead. Sky's dead. Brian's dead. Brian's shot. What do you got for fucking weapons, dude? We need to take back the COC.

1:57:57 I got my M4.

1:57:58 I got my.

1:57:59 45.

1:57:59 I got my plates. I got my nods. I got my radio. He's like, all right, good. He's like, hey, you know, one of the boys popped out, said this is what's up, we don't know where this fucker is, we don't know what's going on, but we got to take back that COC. I'm like, hey, I agree. Let's do it. So we stacked up, systematically cleared our way back to the COC, and as we got in there, It wasn't pretty, but it was time to go to work.

1:58:34 But it was obvious that our brethren who had passed, they didn't go out without a fight, dude. They went down fighting. But this guy, this shooter, was one of the Afghan uniformed policemen that lived adjacent to our compound and was able to make it through the wall into our compound late at night. He was motivated, apparently, by the rumors of civilian casualties, which were total bullshit and baseless.

1:59:02 And he admitted later, you can look this up, there's a Time article about it in Time magazine called Green on Blue. But the gist is, he states that what caused him to do this, which I don't really give a shit why, but he heard about CivCast, civilian casualties. But he never witnessed it or saw it. There was no proof. It was just, again, it's just how effective the Taliban's I.O. campaign can be when they have you believe in shit. that they put out, which is what they do. That's how they subvert our efforts, right? So anyway, this shooter shot up all of our radios on the way out, too. He shot clean through my UHF cable, which is the cable that I had to talk to aircraft.

1:59:43 He shot my personal 117. He put around right through the KDU, the key display unit. Not to mention, I was... My buddy Brian was just exceptionally cool. You know, had a round on the arm and was patched up by our team medic. And everyone got into the COC talk, tactical operations center, whatever you want to call it, right?

2:00:10 Talk and COC are synonymous, Army and Marines. But we had no way to call out. We had no radios. So our comm chief, yeah, my buddy Anthony, he's a rock star. I love him. And then my other buddy, Mike, was like, hey, dude, we need to go to the locker, get a replacement radio, get the SKL, which is the device we use for crypto. We're going to throw that crypto in. I'm going to hand you in the freaks.

2:00:34 My ass is getting on the roof. I'm dropping a tick report. We need that fucking now. So this is just what I recall. My counterpart, JTAC, Tim, he's a CSO operator. My man grabbed his rifle, linked up with some of the other CSOs. And first, once we got inside the COC, we set security outboard. We had the inner cordon and the outer cordon, basically, right? And then the thinkiology here was let's not just go run willy-nilly through the compound because if this dude backlaid IEDs, then we're going to have another problem and it's going to get worse. But we need to systematically clear the compound.

2:01:14 So we got all the U.S. forces, all the Army personnel accounted for under one roof. That was step one. Everybody get under one roof. I got on the top of the roof and, you know, our team's call sign was Cryptic. So I said, you know, hey, Cryptic main, you know, from Cryptic, whatever. We are troops in contact this time. You know, we have three by equals KIA, one by Eagle wounded. Request immediate, you know, immediate air support fix or rotors. Do not give a shit. Have them push to the overhead in my position. Time now.

2:01:44 Have them contact Halo 05 on frequency, I don't know, I fucking don't remember, 2046 or some shit. uh, I'll be standing by and, um, you know, send medevac, um, yeah, obviously with armed assets. And then I gave the nine lines for the medevac nine lines for, uh, you know, for the wounded. The gist is, um, yeah, so I got an AC-130 Spectre gunship pushed into the overhead. Um, and I had tow or I had my buddy, uh, Anthony, um, provide security with his rifle because I'm kind of up on the roof and I'm trying to get, um, the CLNS band antenna and then the KU band antenna. Do you remember those?

2:02:23 Yeah. Yeah.

2:02:24 Yeah. So it's like, it's one of those two antennas. Yeah. So I knew, you know, I got to be prepared for whatever's going to check in on station. I don't know what I'm going to get. Cause I requested the angel stack, you know, like literally everything. So, um, whatever comes, comes man. And if it's going to be KU band, then I've got to be ready for KU band. CLNS doesn't matter. So anyway, we get an AC one 30 in the overhead and I don't remember if it was a specter spooky. I'm pretty sure it was spooky. Um, but we just spooky in the overhead. And, um, I say the first thing I do with spooky is this, I say, Hey man, um, I want you to get your eyes on, you know, Quebec, whatever Victor sector compound,

2:03:01 whatever number doesn't need to be set over, uh, you know, this, do you see that guy on the roof? He's like, and he's, you know, they come back. Oh yeah.

2:03:09 Yeah.

2:03:09 We got one guy on the roof of the compound. I'm like, Hey, that's fucking me. That's me, dude. Everybody all U.S. forces, all U.S. SOF and all U.S. forces are consolidated under this roof. I was like, all other personnel in the compound have been told to hold in their respective spots, UAESF, ANASF, but in all the U.S. Army, and that just leaves us. I was like, within the confines of this compound, if you see any fucking movement whatsoever, you're approved to engage time now. Understood? And I want you to use your 25 millimeter. So let's, hey, just for fun. Uh, spooky.

2:03:48 It's a 25.

2:03:48 Yeah. Yeah. Or 30.

2:03:50 Yeah.

2:03:50 Spooky's got the 25 or do they have the 30 millimeter? Shit.

2:03:55 I don't remember now.

2:03:56 Regardless, man, you get it. Yeah. So I'm like, Hey, yeah, that bow force. Right. But, um, I'm like, Hey, that's the weapon I want you to use because.

2:04:05 That has, um, yeah, that has, uh, lowest CDE.

2:04:11 Yeah, yeah, low CDE, but also piece of vinyl, but you get the gist. We can shoot it closest to us without having to worry about too much collateral damage or effects. So cool. So that's going to be your main job. Your other job is I want you to take your other sensor, and I want you to move that over to the LZ, and I want you to call winter cherry criteria. I want to know if it's a hot LZ or if it's a cold LZ, right?

2:04:32 If it's a hot LZ and you see any Taliban movement, we're getting chatter right now, ICOM chatter, that not only– Have we been attacked? There's going to be a follow-on attack and an ambush on our compound. I want that one on me. Anybody who tries to move on this building, smoke them. Anybody on that LZ, if they're there, smoke them.

2:04:54 Clean it. Because we have birds inbound. We have two UH-60s coming, or MH-60s in this case, because it was Pedro. We got two Pedro cats coming, and we got two AH1s, you know, the Cobras from the Marine Corps side of the house, call sign Righteous, which I love. I think it was HMLA 169 or 369. It doesn't matter. Just as they were rad. And so we're simultaneously doing the LZ control to evac our, you know, our killed, you know, enemies, our friendly killed in action and our wounded, our wounded uh, Marine or a wounded operator. Um, but that there's no messing with that. So the armed escort is going to, you know, once they show up, they're going to provide security for the LZ while we, you know, uh, while

2:05:45 we load our, load our friends and brethren onto, um, onto the birds, you know, get them home. Right. Now the AH1, the, now it's time to hunt. So once that mission gets complete, once I get comms back up and, you know, once I, Meanwhile, I'm also trying to get all of our radios back up, our 117s, the things that can push out wattage so we can actually talk, talk.

2:06:07 Because up there on my handheld, there's only so far I can get. But yeah, I was working with some of the guys on the team to get comms restored, and that was huge help. But now we started to get some players. So the two Cobras, they wanted to stay behind and help us hunt because they knew. Everybody could tell, all the pilots knew. could tell by the urgency in our voice that this was a serious thing, and by the nature of the tick report that I dropped, the whole world was coming to help us, dude. Our Navy SEAL team, that was our quick reaction force, they were at another village stability post called Malzai. They launched, and they were gaffing a ground assault force. So it was going to take them about 30 minutes to get

2:06:50 there by ground. But they're en route, and God bless these guys. They showed up with nothing but kit and ammo. No comfy, wumpy woobies, no sleeping bags, no nothing. But, man, we needed them to plus up our forces inside that BSP. Being susceptible to follow-on attack, yeah, you poke the bear, it's game on. But my ground force commander, my team commander, my team chief, who am I going to have to clear my fires? There's a succession of command, but everyone's wrapped up doing a job and doing a mission now with limited personnel. So I sent the two, not Apache, I sent the two Cobras, sorry, Cobra guys, I sent them out to hunt. One to the north, one to the south, split sensor tasking. And I knew the most

2:07:37 likely areas due to all the pinprick stuff we were talking about earlier. I knew if there were any Taliban in the area, they were attempting to get out of Dodge and hook ass and try to make their way to Pakistan, which is exactly what they wanted to do. I knew where to find them. So I gave a preemptive nine line. So, hey, here's your preemptive nine lines, right? Again, I want a kilo two alpha off a lead aircraft and multiple you know, I want rockets and guns off a dash two. Or, you know, let's amend that game plan just in case something happens. Maybe we have two kilo two alphas, whatever. But expect immediate reattacks. Everyone's going to get schwacked on this one. You know, lines one through three from the overhead. You know, like, that's something

2:08:17 you don't say anymore, but. Lines one through three from the overhead. Lines four and six are going to be read back post-strike from your systems because the location and the altitude are going to change, whatever. But hey, your target's Taliban. Friendlies are to the southeast, approximately 1-200. You get the gist. So final attack heading is unrestricted. I'm like, don't care, man. But I need you guys hunting. So the UH-1 and 2 bit off on five packs that were egressing aggressively out to the west. um, packs as persons. And, uh, these persons, they just, they, they came from the right compound.

2:08:54 They fit the right profile. And by the rate and speed of their movement, the pattern of life activity, I knew it was them, right? I just knew. So I put a hellfire on these five guys. We killed four of the five. Um, and they were crossing, uh, the ferry crossing of the Hellman river. And on the other side, I remember they had motorbikes staged and the motorbikes was going to be, were going to be, um, like basically their instrument to get some speed under them and get the hell out of there and get out of our AO. So, yeah, I'm thinking, fuck yeah, got them. They're dead. And I wasn't able to see the video downlink, right, because I didn't have that capability yet for this strike. But I did have, now all of a sudden Dash 2 comes

2:09:40 back from work in the south area because we knew we got the right guys. And then Chatter reported as well, too. You know, so we had the SIGINT. The whole machine was working, dude. So, yeah, we had just taken a catastrophic blow. But, boy, were we not out of the fight. You know, our human source and counterintelligence duties were hard at work. Our signals intelligence duties were hard at work.

2:10:04 Our operators were hard at work, uh, clearing systematically piece by piece, all the inches of ground, making sure that we were free of IEDs. Our medics were working packaging and, you know, and getting the wounded and, and, um, and, and our friendly KIA out to these birds. The whole thing was just one harmonious symphony of dudes doing what they were supposed to do in the hardest possible circumstance. Um, And honestly, man, it was humbling as shit to see.

2:10:36 These professional warfighters absolutely getting it. Minimal direction was given. Minimal guidance. Hardly any words were spoke. Everyone knew their job and did it. And it was neat. So all I remember after that is a blur because I was so tired. This guy of the five that we targeted... I killed four of them with a Hellfire missile, and the fifth guy limped his way to a compound. And at that time, I had a Predator in the overhead now.

2:11:08 So I put him at the highest stack in the altitude, and I just had him hold his sensors on that compound. I was like, hey, if this dude leaves that compound, you tell me. We're going to kill him, right? So I immediately request, now that I have proper comms, I request to drop a 500-pound bomb on that compound. I want to drop that compound and kill it because I know that this dude is part of it. But I don't know he's the shooter. I didn't know that was actually the guy. I'm hoping I had killed him and I was just like one of his little evac buddies.

2:11:38 But no, that was the shooter come to find out later. So we did not get approval to strike that compound and obviously because of the chance of women and children could have been in it as well. We don't want that. We don't want to make it worse. But I stayed awake for about two days and You know, my other JTAC buddy, he would relieve me from time to time to, you know, we'd take turns and switch. And then the SEAL team showed up and we, for a period of time, operationally became, I want to say, you know, tried at one four was the call sign. But these SEALs were the most humble, professional. amazing dudes. Again, they were sleeping in the gym. They had nowhere to go. And the only three vacancies that we had as far as quarters, um,

2:12:26 like where you can, you know, hang your hat or like take a nap or something. They didn't want to go into those rooms because it was, you know, those rooms belong to the honored, you know, the fallen men who just sacrificed their lives, saving the rest of the team. So it just popped into my brain. I want to let you know that as the shooter came into, um, As he came into the tactical operations center, my captain, Matthew Mnookian, instinctively drew his sidearm, and he engaged that threat.

2:13:02 So he went down shooting. Like, with aggression in his heart, he went down shooting. His, yeah, Captain Hider, the Lion, as they called him. uh, beloved by all, beloved by everybody in the village. All, everyone knew he was the most powerful man, but, uh, right up until the very end, he had fight in him. Absolutely. Um, through the plywood wall and in our little tea skiff, uh, Sky Moat, um, he was already wounded. He was already wounded and, and, um, he still got his, uh, he got his weapon and he opened that door leading into him and found himself face to face. And he got off five rounds, um, you know, before he succumbed to his wounds, but he went down fighting. I mean, every single one of these

2:13:50 guys went down fighting, fighting, fighting, right?

2:13:53 Yeah.

2:13:55 My buddy, my buddy Brian, who was shot, him and another Marine, whose name I won't disclose for some other reasons, they both went out the side door fighting with their pistols. They had Glocks, and they were pumping rounds back at the shooter, but collectively... this dude lost the heart to continue is my point. Like, so he, he got, he was, he was engaged and that is what saved the rest of the team. I believe, um, you know, sky and you know, the, the return of fire from some of my other brethren, uh, he just, it broke his will to fight. And his only, his only desire was to get the hell out of it. Cause he was scared and he was running scared. Um, and it was nice to, uh, to track them down and it was nice to find them.

2:14:47 And it was nice to know that I'm about to put a missile on these guys and kill them, you know? So, um, yeah, man, how am I doing? Am I all right? No. Yeah.

2:14:57 What do you mean? Yeah. I think you're fine.

2:15:01 Thanks brother.

2:15:01 I don't know what to say.

2:15:03 I know me neither. It's a tough, it's intense, man.

2:15:05 It's an intense situation. I mean, Yeah, those kind of those situations led to follow on. So when I got picked up for the advisor team, those were the things that were brief to us. Those were the things that were brief to us. And we spent so much time. I remember we spent an entire day almost just shooting pistols from different like your regular pistol shooting and stuff like that. shooting from desk, shooting for, you know, it was like, Hey, we're going to shoot from the seated position.

2:15:35 You're going to, you're going to do that. You know, you're going to move behind stuff. It was all of this stuff because of these green on blue incidents that happened, the one with you guys. And there were other ones obviously as well. Yeah. And so that became part of the advisor team training. When you did your workup was spending a lot, enough time where some of the guys were like, dude, fuck this. I don't want to shoot anymore.

2:15:56 You know, like they're just tired of shooting because we're shooting pistols so much that From all these different like what ifs kind of situations, you know. I mean, it sucks when you're doing that because it instills a automatic, I guess an automatic suspicion of the people that you're supposed to be working with and trusting. You know, there's always that little. There's always that little suspicion in the back of your mind that something could happen. And what's crazy is, like you said, that his reasoning for it was supposed civilian casualties that were likely Taliban propaganda. It's like little things where they feel slighted or insulted could turn into them turning weapons on you at any time.

2:16:46 And that's just a weird environment to work in.

2:16:49 Which I would argue that's more of a straw that broke the camel's back thing. Not that I give a shit about the camel or his back because, you know, fuck him, he's dead. But my point is, and I do think that in subsequent deployments, I think another Marine Raider team was able to kill him because he was dumb enough to come back into Afghanistan from Pakistan. Yeah. But, yeah.

2:17:09 That's always a good feeling, too. I just want to let everybody know he's dead. The guy's dead. I'm not saying his name because his name's not worth mentioning, and frankly, he's an irrelevance. He's a coward. Think about this. To go toe-to-toe takes courage. To shoot somebody when their guard is down and sneak up in the back, that's the most cowardly thing. By no means should we honor this man by even speaking his name or giving him any...

2:17:43 He's just a cowardly, scummiest, lowlife, you know. But in his mind, oh, I'm going to go get famous, right? I'm going to go make a propaganda video. And the Taliban did. The Taliban media team, whoever the hell they are, they made a propaganda video of this guy, which is how NCIS figured out his identity, because he's an idiot.

2:18:03 So he decided to make his face, and he was being showered with flowers and all sorts of silly shit that they do. But NCIS simply took the roster of the Afghan uniformed police and took this guy's photo and said, yeah, that's your guy.

2:18:17 There he is.

2:18:18 Yeah, so they got positive ID that way. But I remember when I was sitting there in this environment, you could still smell the cordite in the air. Not a good smell. And I remember that we did get one combat replacement who came in on those helos. And I want to give a shout out to him real quick. His name was, yeah. The team called him. I called him Kimbo. We're just going to leave it at that.

2:18:41 But yeah, he was an unknown. He was new. I was new. Who cares? But I saw him sit there, and he's standing there with his rifle and his kit and nothing else, and he's assessing. And then all of a sudden, he sets his rifle down, and he goes into the back room, and he gets a mop and a mop bucket. And then our two CST team females... Um, our, our, the females that we had as part of our Marine, uh, special operations team, the cultural support team, um, watching them handle the, uh, handle our dead and wounded with care, loading them into, um, loading them into the bags for transport with care, with dignity, um, watching that was one of the most humbling things to me. And in seeing it just come in with a mop and a mop bucket,

2:19:33 And just start cleaning. Because that's the thing to do. Like, hey, I don't have a job, but I can clean.

2:19:42 It's got to get done, too. You can't just let that sit there.

2:19:45 No, you can't. But, like, just everybody had their own way of honoring, right? Now, so for me, I had the SEAL JTAC now is with me. Nate, let's just call him. And he's sitting with me, man, and, you know, my other buddy. And the gist is we got work to do. We got work to do, man, because I know all these compounds. I know these Taliban compounds. I know the dudes in them. I know that the follow-on attack could possibly come. So we had to subvert this attack by going on the offensive and being aggressive. You just poked the bear. Now we're going to fuck you up.

2:20:26 So if you were outside and you had that, you know, when you've been in the Ville long enough, you know who's bad and who's good. And there were spotters. We could clearly see folks spotting. We could clearly see dudes on ICOMs. We could see the communication. And then with the assets that we had at the team level, we could link that all together and get positive identification and kill them. So we called 18 airstrikes over the next three days. Kept getting backfill error. I did not want to take eyes off of that compound. But eventually, you know, the task force kind of called it. It was like, all right, hey, guys.

2:21:00 Priority shift.

2:21:02 We've given you a shit ton of aircraft. You guys have, you know, put in some serious work. Let's let things quell down now. And, yeah, I suppose that that's the time that, you know, this guy was able to fucking ditty-mow out of there and make his way out. So just to tell you all that is this. They... They got us off balance, but by no means was this team out of the fight, man. And they didn't even disrupt the progress that we made in the Ville. Because in subsequent days, the villagers were putting pictures of Captain Hyder on their vehicles and their windshield and honoring him.

2:21:44 That's the impact that Matt Mnookian had on the village. You know, Gunny Jeske, man. Um, the team chief, the amount of FaceTime that he had with all the locals and the elders, um, they wept and mourned for it, for them. Uh, Sky, beloved by the team. Dude, we had the same nineties music playlist, grunge rock, you know, everything from Nirvana to Tool to, you know, we were just jamming to music together. Um, I love Sky, man.

2:22:10 He was my friend. Um, and he was very kind to me, you know, love that dude. He's a sick EOD tech. The guy was amazing. He could shoot really well too. Um, but that, that was, that was a thing, man, you know, different than combat, I mean, different, I mean, it's combat, but different than going out on an offensive mission or offensive operation, and, you know, it's, yeah, it's in your home, dude, it feels different.

2:22:40 Yeah, for sure.

2:22:41 But yeah.

2:22:43 Dude, yeah, man, I mean, that's crazy, I've actually, I know someone else who's, associated with these guys. One of the dudes that were killed, I think it was his brother-in-law. And I had heard some of this stuff previously, but like years ago. Um, and so it's interesting to hear your side of it as well. Um, and again, like I said, when I was an advisor, these are things that we had to look at because it was like a reality, you know, like, Hey, you're going and working and living with the Afghans. You got to understand some of them don't like you. And at any point something could happen. And, um, It was always like, I never...

2:23:22 I will say there was a few times where I was like, what the fuck? I actually had one of our Afghans tell us one time he was going to kill us. He was like, hey, if you don't help me, we'll kill you. He told the linguist. He's like, I'm going to kill you and I'm going to kill the Americans. And it was because we were in a firefight facing this direction and there was a compound behind us and he wanted us to put a 203 into this compound behind us. But none of us had seen any enemy from there and we hadn't taken any fire from there.

2:23:47 And we're like, no, we're not going to do that. And that's when he said that to the linguist, to our Terp. And we gave the Terp a pistol. And we're like, hey, dude, keep an eye on him. And then afterwards, the guy apologized.

2:24:00 We armed ours as well, yeah.

2:24:03 When they came out of that, when people came out of that compound, he wanted us to shoot two or threes at, and it was all women and kids. And then so after everything had died down, he came over and I guess he apologized and stuff like that. But it was like, dude, you can't be saying shit like that. And I get it. It was a stressful day. Five guys had been killed. Their company commander had been killed. And, you know, totally get it. But it's like that kind of thing. It just always kind of it's in the back of your mind. It always kind of puts you on edge a little bit when you're working with these guys.

2:24:32 On top of the fact that they're just not very good at basic weapons handling anyway, so you never know when you accidentally get shot.

2:24:43 I remember distinctly, I think I was on one patrol where one of our guys had a negligent discharge, and of course everybody thought that that was the first hint of contact, but no, just dipshit back there.

2:24:56 It's an interesting environment, man.

2:24:57 Fires on gun.

2:24:59 I think it's good that you came on and honored your friends to give.

2:25:03 Thanks, man. That's really tough to tell.

2:25:04 Dude, I can't imagine, man. I've never been in a situation like that. And the fact that you're willing to come on and talk about it, I think is important. I think people ought to know that these things occur. They have occurred. I think these people that were killed should be remembered. And I'm glad that you came on and let us know that they didn't go down quivering you know they got they went down fighting and it wasn't you know it just that's not at all right even some of the good guys don't make it out.

2:25:36 Of it yes like i said you know kind of earlier it's the whole paradox right of you so um you know it demands trust you have to you have to open up so you're you're forgoing force protection you're forgoing security to a degree um for to gain proximity which creates vulnerability, right? So you're purposely placing yourself in a bit of a more vulnerable position, and that's part of the training and part of the idea of it, hence embedding, right? But that trust creates the vulnerability, and then we had to be capable of sitting with these partners and kind of understanding.

2:26:22 Yeah, you have to. You can't build rapport and trust change hearts and minds by sitting inside your armored vehicle all the time. You know what I'm saying? If you're just an armored vehicle that drives by every once in a while and shoots at stuff occasionally and they never interact with you as a human being, then why would they ever trust you? You know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah.

2:26:41 I'll end on this positive note, man. I can't tell you what that means, though. So kind of the breadth of... just disbelief and disgust and, um, you know, that the villagers were showing us or like, we can't believe that. Like that, that's, yeah, it only hardened their resolve to, you know, want to disassociate from Taliban being Taliban or controlled by the Taliban. So, you know, real quick, uh, Admiral Mike McRaven flew down and, uh, you know, he was kind of talking to us about it and it was obviously, you know, his way of showing support for our team and letting us know that, 8133, we're not to be defined by this. This isn't the definition of our mission. We were still extremely successful in what we did.

2:27:34 One of my, the guys that I really look up to, I think probably most in this life, um, Matt, our company XO, uh, he pushed down to take control of our team, you know, for a while, the SEAL team officer was there, but yeah, Matt, um, you know, um, he was a double amputee, you know, he lost his legs in the previous deployment with 8133 hard as nails.

2:27:57 I love that guy. And, um, we wrestled with some tough questions. Do we continue to strike Taliban and kind of at the risk of pissing people off and making things worse? Or is it better to, at the same time, we need to create stability and part of the instability is caused by the enemy, right? So that was a paradox.

2:28:18 But these are all decisions that need to be carefully weighed. And as I said in our first episode, we're here to provide options to the ground force commander along with the fused intelligence that we have at the team level, that is absolutely the uniqueness of special operations and the team dynamics within village stability operations. We know on the ground instantly. We can analyze that data and tell if it's bunk or if it's legit and holds water, and we can relay that to the ground force commander immediately, who then can choose from his options. swath of solutions as you would right so um yeah we were we were we were off we were taken off balance but we definitely were not taken out.

2:29:02 Of the fight um yeah that's good man that's what you want to hear and that's what you know it kind of it's a weird it's for sure a weird situation and it's it's tough on commanders in charge after that because it's like what do you do what's the right answer is there ever even really ever a right answer or just a less worse answer you know, to how to move forward from that.

2:29:24 That's well put. That's well put. Yeah.

2:29:28 I mean, it's tough, man. And then it's tough for anyone that has to come in and engage with you guys after that, because of the, the head space that you're in, you know? Um, and, and it's there, anyone that would come in as an immediately an outsider, even if there are obviously American forces, but it's like, dude, you weren't here. You don't understand what just happened. And it's like, if they come in and try to critique or try to make, changes or anything like that. It's like, who the fuck are you? You know? Um, yeah, we had an officer for sure.

2:29:59 Yeah. We, so we, you know, ultimately, um, you know, our, our company XO going to stay there forever, right? He had to go, um, you know, go bump back up to, uh, hold his billet. Um, you know, our company commander, Brian, absolute rockstar. Um, I have nothing but the utmost respect. All these guys I miss, I miss. And I, I, I love every one of these dudes, man. You know, in the heat of the moment, sometimes you've got little personality clashes and conflicts and shit. But, you know, all that stuff is immaterial now in the grand scheme of things, especially being, you know, coming up on 43 years old. Like, whatever.

2:30:35 You know, we were all there. We all kind of lived through this thing. And it was, you know.

2:30:41 And once you've kind of processed it a little bit, you can probably understand your mindset at that time. was completely different. It's hard to look at something objectively once you've just gone through, you know, a traumatic event like that and everything.

2:30:56 Yeah, and really quick, the follow-on team commander, you know, this gentleman, he did some time as, I think, a cryptologist, but, you know, in the Navy. Came over to the Marine Corps side of the house as an officer. He did go to selection. He did go to individual training course to become a special operations officer. But, you know, had just kind of gotten out of ITC, and I think the MARSOC headquarters pushed him down to see us through the rest of the deployment up until, you know, we were to retrograde back to the U.S. And, you know, he, like the magnitude of this incident, I don't think you could truly understand unless you were there and lived through it, right?

2:31:36 But especially with how loved Captain Mnookian and how Ryan Jeske were and Sky and all these boys. I mean, these dudes were top tier dudes, best of the best. So how do you fill that void? How do you fill those shoes? You really can't. And as the JTAC, who's now my only job, all I could think about doing was, hey, man, I want to make sure this doesn't happen again. So if I even get a hint or a whiff of Talib's dude moving on our position, that threat never went away. They kept threatening to do that the whole time, taking advantage of our, they perceived, weakened posture, which was never really a thing. Um, this officer who came in, um, you know, he, I don't know how, maybe just maybe heavy handed or maybe too, uh,

2:32:26 you know, um, too new, uh, to fully grasp it like, Hey, like, uh, these guys are up and rolling. There are steam, there are, there are locomotive that's full steam ahead. Um, let me just sit back and, you know, kind of observe and see how they do business. And, um, you know, maybe not metal in their affairs too much. Um, but yeah, you know, you come in a little too strong, you know, it's, it's, um, it's not going to be well received. You know what I mean?

2:32:53 Yeah. I mean, you got to come in, it's a touchy situation. Again, there's really no good way to be that person to come in and do anything. You know, it's, you have a job to do, they have a job to do and it's just not good for anybody. And it's like, um, I don't know. It's, I'd hate to be put in that position, you know, where you're the guy that gets sent in to try to bring the guys home. I mean, it's one thing if it's like, hey, you're going to be there for two more weeks and you're just kind of wrapping up things and making sure logistically everything's covered. Different than, hey, you're going to be there for two more months and you're going to be overseeing combat operations and you're coming in with no idea

2:33:33 of what's been going on for the last five months into a team that has been devastated by a tragic event, you know, I mean... It's a tough spot for everybody, man. There's nothing good out of that situation. So I guess that kind of met the end state for what the Taliban guys wanted to do. It's just, I don't know.

2:33:53 Hey, man.

2:33:54 All right, go ahead.