Two, Three, Four Missions a Night: Ranger Regiment at War | Will Hutson

0:00and getting into it with an Iraqi artillery battalion. And the mortar battalion, I closed into 60s at the time of the companies. And we were actually shooting mortars at artillery pieces and shooting, which I felt like was pretty cool. We're out there doing throw-reckly emissions with 60s and hitting vehicles with Willoughby rounds. I had a 105 round land, four feet from me. It didn't go off, it was a dud, probably didn't vaporize. But the pucker factor was up for sure. But that was probably the biggest, you know, I'd say for like a contact that I really remember being like, okay, now we're really in contact. Hey everyone, welcome to the teamhouse. I'm Jack Murphy. Here with today's guest, retired Sergeant Major Will Hudson will served in the infantry in 173rd, jumped into Iraq during the invasion.

1:02And then he went over to third-range battalion, where he served for many years, becoming a rasp instructor eventually, and then taking a worse company. And going on, you know, as he made Sergeant Major, became the op sergeant major at Airborne School and finished his career in the 101st. So really, I mean, you kind of had the infantry career, I guess. The only thing you didn't do was be a drill sergeant. You were a rasp instructor, that's the only difference. But no, that's great. Thank you for joining us, Will. Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, so start at the beginning, Will, tell us like, where did you grow up? What was your upbringing like? Okay, so I was born in Kentucky. I was from my dad's side of the family from outside of Lexington. We moved from there to Texas when I was about four years old, following my mom's family to Texas. I lived outside of Houston in Peralain for the majority of my life before I joined the Army. Had a pretty rough growing up. We were super poor and had a pretty, I don't know.

2:05Kind of abusive growing up childhood, with my stepfather and stuff like that, and had pretty tough go of it initially. And it's kind of, I guess, what drove me to join the military is, I was really kind of a lost cause. I was running around in the streets. I was on my own from that early teens. I got my first apartment when I was about 16 years old with a couple of buddies. And we were just, I don't know, what you would expect for somebody with no adult supervision. You know, for years and years on in, we were just drinking and partying and getting in trouble constantly. I ended up before I joined the Army. I was working at a bar in Houston and partying in and just drinking nonstop, and I knew that if I didn't do something, I was going to end up dead or in jail. And so I really was looking to do something different. One of my close friends I grew up with, Josh Campbell, he was in Secondary Angel Battalion. He joined the Army about two years before I did, and he would come home on leave, and you know, we do the usual, we go burn it down while he was home on leave.

3:05And then I just kind of started getting more interested in what he was doing. He would tell me what it was like to be in range of time. So I kind of had more of an inside look to what it was actually like to be in Battalion. Because, you know, my best friend growing up was there for a couple of years. And he's the one who actually kind of talked me into joining the military. I joined the Army, and my plan was to try to get an option for you contract, go straight to regiment, but I didn't work out because the slots were available. He told me that he was, you know, he was good friends with the liaison at work at Airborne School, which you know, is usually you can just volunteer from Airborne School with the Ripley's on back then at the time. And he can set you up, and for me that didn't work out because it was on TDI when I was in Airborne School. So I ended up going to the 1-73rd, which I wouldn't change, you know, for that time in my life. I had so much fun, you know, before the GY kicked off, being in Europe, you know, I can, you know, and Italy, I was, you know, four hours in any direction on a train. You can be in a different country. I was, you know, snowboarding in the Swiss Alps, and doing all kinds of outdoor activities, rock climbing, riding bikes, doing all that stuff.

4:11And I really enjoyed my time there. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Kind of in that time, then there was a lot of guys from Ranger Battalion that were inside the organization. That was before the GY kicked off, a lot of guys would kind of go out there to take a break. And so, you know, like you had squallyers between Tarns, you know, the Tyne Commanders, our major, a lot of people from Regiment there. And so I was kind of emulated those guys enough. You know, I really wanted to be in Ranger Battalion from the GYCO, but it just didn't work out. So I had them look up to, and so the first chance I got, I wanted to still try to go out there. So, you know, I got to Ranger School, and did all that, and put in my packet once I made it back to the States, you know, after, you know, went to Italy. I, I, I, awesome time there too. We got to really do a lot of cool training. We were training in different countries, you know, going to Belgium and jumping out of hot air balloons, and, you know, going, you know, I had probably five or six sets of foreign jump wings within my first year or two of being there, you know, just because we're always training with other countries and got a lot of opportunities to do a lot of really cool stuff and kind of, you know, we went to Africa, we went to Hungary, we went all over Europe,

5:17all over the Eastern block, training in different places, isn't it? Inside Italy itself, there's not a lot of places you can really do live fires, et cetera, the Italian base there. So you really have to go to Germany or other countries to really get into some of the more new live fire stuff. And so we were, we were just on the road a lot and for me, that was great because I was single out in heavy dependence or anything going on. So at any time, we would go somewhere else, say, give us time off to go kind of, you know, like R&R for a few days and exploring, go around. I try to take full advantage of that every chance I got. Yeah, it sounds like a live in the dream, especially as you know, 20 something year old, airborne infantry men. Were you there when 9-11 happened and did you see things change afterwards? Yeah, it's funny actually when 9-11 happened, I was in Graffa Bear, we were doing training. Second range of Italian was there at the same time as well. And so my buddy Josh was there. And actually, when over and was hanging out with him and he introduced me to the Italian CSM at the time and told him that I wanted to come to range of Italian.

6:23You know, and this was, I was, I might have been at PFC, I can't remember. I think I was probably a private or special somewhere in there. And he told me all that, it was good to range school. And he would, I think it was our major Robert set time. Oh yeah. And so he introduced me to them, had that link up and then right as we were finishing, getting ready to go to home fills to a box rotation, that's when it happened. And I'd gotten a car accident and the rental car that I had so I'd stayed back and was meeting everybody in home fills and like that day 9-11 happened. And you know, we didn't, we didn't have cell phones or anything like that stuff. And I just started seeing tanks rolling out and parking on the corners of the bases for like forced protection stuff. I was like, what's going on? I ended up going into a shop at somebody had AFN on and it popped up that the towers were going on. I was like, cool crap, what's going on. And of course, everybody's like, we're going to war, you know, yeah, like start to put your box rotation. Yeah. And so the box rotation got turned up a little bit, but we're like, man, I thought we didn't ready to go. We're out here training miles gear enough.

7:28Yeah. So it sounds like, you know, correct me if I'm wrong. The 1.73rd kind of didn't get spun up until a rack happened the following year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't, we never went to Afghanistan, but I didn't go anywhere until we invaded Iraq. And we jumped into an order in Iraq and we're there. We did a year long deployment and came home. Can you tell us about kind of like getting ready for that deployment, preparing for it and like what the mission was leading up to the actual combat jump. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We were just doing a lot of, you know, consolidated. We spent a lot of time in Germany because that's where we do all many of our life, our stuff out in Graffin beer. And so we were doing a lot of squad between company life, fires, you know, going in out of the box, just in rotations. And then we ended up, you know, launching out of Aviano. So we had I think 15 C 17s out there. Wow. That we loaded up. We got the big, you know, steak, the surfing turf dinner steak and lobster tails and all this stuff. And we didn't, you know, like looking back on it now, it's, I don't know, I didn't think it was that serious.

8:38I was like, also, we were getting steak and lobster. I didn't, you know, I mean, like I'm afraid you go do the thing, you know, and we all are, you know, our DC use and all our plus up stuff that we were, we're going to go and. And we were only probably, I want to say we're in Aga, I don't know for a couple of days, but I can't really remember for sure. And, you know, we had all the people out there, if and was out there reporting on everything, we're all, you know, getting geared up. But I don't know what was released and what, you know, because I was, I think I was, yeah, I was in E5 at the time. I was a jump master. And so we're just trying to get everybody geared up and get everybody JMP guiding on the birds and, you know, we all came out up. It was the jump itself was. I really didn't know what to expect to be honest, you know, we got on the birds and, you know, we know for you know, the only thing that's in back in my head is what was going on normally or two and which clearly wasn't what we, what we came into, you know. But, you know, the, the nerves were all about stuff we were packed in everything that we had during the live off of is in a rucksacks and 1950s and all that stuff. And so we got, we got jacked up ready to go and, and we got in the flight and we say we hooked up like.

9:47Probably 20 minutes out and, and at cruising altitude and then we went from like 30 grand all the way down the drop altitude and the doors open and we were out, you know. And there was, we didn't really get it hitting contact the ground. There was a massive air campaign that night. There were dropping bombs everywhere fast. We were just asking for an assortment of sand. Honestly, we jumped into a massive mud pit and we spent the majority of the time just trying to consolidate everybody. You were just like a little low crawling through mud for it would seem like hours, you know, just trying to get everything together trying to get everyone consolidated. You know, it was like a, just a real kind of crap show on the ground, like just mud everywhere. It was like needy. If I, if I understood you correctly, you guys flew from aviano straight to a rack. Yeah. That's so like such a crazy experience like you have like you're describing eating surf and turf in Italy, getting on an airplane.

10:48And the next time you touch ground, you're at a, in a muddy drop zone in a rack. Like that's got to be like a very weird sensation. I'm sure. And like I said, I didn't generally know to expect we hit the ground and you know, just the back of my head, we're gonna massive firefight. It was gonna be out of control, which really wasn't the case. There might, there might have been some small contact, but we didn't really get into the, didn't fight some of the drop zone. Yeah, I think I feel like it was several days later before we really got into any, any type of mixing it up and ticks. So you guys were this was if I recall correctly, it was designed as sort of like a classic, you know, flanking maneuver the way we use airborne forces to envelope the enemy. Like you were inserted into northern Iraq as the forces main body was coming up from the south from Kuwait. Yeah, so we jumped into the Urbule on the north side and secure their airfield there and then started bringing heavy zen. So I started landing equipment, doing all that stuff. And we spent several days that kind of in that area before we started pushing out into sector and you know started taking, you know, we're taking over schools and stuff like that, try to find places for to live in.

11:59But we let we slept patrol bases for seem like, you know, I want to say we went like a good two or three months without, you know, like probably I had my first makeshift shower like 70 days in or something like that. My uniform was brought off my body. It's stand up on its own. You don't really realize how bad everyone else stinks until you get that first. Yeah, you cleanse it like, oh man, I get smell it now. What was the mission that they had you guys doing during that time? We were just kind of in sector doing a set of blocking positions and things of that nature. We were doing some pretrait, pretrollings and just trying to set up some sort of infrastructure. Because like I said, we slept patrol bases for at least a couple of months, you know, until we got into some parts structures and we ended up taking over, you know, like a company would take over to school and we'd set up security premier and kind of launch out new patrols from there. Our biggest problem we had was logistics, you know, which is always what drives everything. You know, we were living off of a leader of bottle of water a day for I can't even tell you how many months, you know.

12:59And it's like really when the ID started kind of ramping up, you know, nobody was really ready for them. We were just cruising around the soft skin, humbies. And you know, once we started getting blown up in them, they're like, oh, we've got to do something about this. So we started putting sandbags in the floorboards and then eventually we got some kevlar blankets to kind of how fit them a little bit. We were really not at all prepared for that type of environment. That's interesting that the ID started up so quickly. Yeah. Yeah, I remember we get you know, we're probably a few months in before we really started hitting some IDs and we lost a couple guys to that. And that's really what kind of one with that kevlar blankets stuff started showing up to we kind of fit the humbies a little bit. Because we really didn't have any protection outside of that and body armor. And did you guys make your way down to Kirk hook was that sort of where you finished? We did. Yeah, we made it down that area and I'm trying to remember us.

13:59Because it's been so many years now and so many deployments fast. But yeah, I think we'll say in around the career fifth areas kind of where we finished out and we, you know, it's, you know, first you find out you think you're there for three months and six months. And then you know, it's going to be 15 months. Nobody really has any idea. Yeah, you know, something we ended up doing it doing a 12 13 months before we made it back. Any other memorable moments from that deployment before you guys redeployed back home? For the most part, it was, you know, we spent a lot of time training. We spent a lot of time, you know, doing presence patrols. A lot of long, long haul patrols and vehicles. We did a lot of foot dismounted patrols to you just based off, you know, we started getting hit with the ID threats and stuff. But I really honestly. Outside of a few a handful of times, we didn't really get into a lot of heavy combat. You know, there was initially in the push we, you know, we ended up like getting into it with like an Iraqi artillery.

15:03Like battalion and you know, the morta platoon, you know, like I was in the 60s section at the time of the companies. And you know, we were actually like shooting mortars at artillery pieces and you know shooting, which I felt. I felt like it was pretty cool. You know, we're out there doing like throw directly emissions with 60s and you know, hitting vehicles with, you know, will it be rounds? And you know, I had a, I had a 105 round land like four feet from me. It didn't go off. It was a dead prodding vaporized, but the pucker factor was up for sure. That's that was probably the biggest, you know, I'd say for like a contact that I really remember being like, OK, now we're really in combat, you know, has up into that point. It just really didn't feel that way. You know, I mean, we were, I don't say it was maybe a three to four weeks after we jumped in before we really got into that. That was the first time I was like, OK, now we're actually in combat. Let's reply and artillery rounds, you know, we, you know, we shot all of our rounds out and we're like, OK, now we've got a break contact and go re plus on ammo.

16:11I feel like that was really the first time that brought that lead in that we really felt like we're in combat. Yeah, that's pretty hardcore. So you guys are you ended up getting sent to Fort Polk after the invasion. Yeah, so after we came back from the invasion, I was on PCS orders to go to Fort Polk, but I had to go to be knocking route because I was, you know, I was a, I went to the like staff sergeant board while we were forward deployed to Iraq. So like I was either I can't remember if I, I was promotable for several months. I can't remember if I had pinned staff sergeant yet or if I was still sergeant promotable, anyways, I had to be knocking route. Not remember if we had to go to school back then yet or not beforehand. But anyways, I went to be knocking route. When I was in be knock, I was trying to put together a packet to go to go to regiment. I got in contact with the insurface recruiter and started building the packet as soon as I got to Fort Polk. The reason I was going to Fort Polk is originally I was supposed to be an OC.

17:17Which is kind of strange as a new staff sergeant, usually a more seasoned guy that's going to be a no see, you know, so maybe out for. But anyways, when I was heading there, they stood up the fourth brigade that sent them out and there. So for listeners and OC is what observer controller, they're like the referees and training exercises. Yeah, yeah, it's usually a more seasoned guy. So if you're a staff sergeant, you've already been a squad leader and done that time. So you can go out and evaluate squads or if you're a star in first class, you've already been a potential. So you can go out there and kind of show those other guys or observe them properly. And like I was a new staff sergeant. So more than likely, I probably would end up, you know, going to not for a platoon or something like that. But they stood up the fourth brigade of the tenth mountain there. And so anybody who is an empty person showing up before Polk just got fallen into that because they were trying to build brigade. And so I got there and they're like, oh, your staff sergeant suite, here's 100 privates. You're just going to be in charge of these guys until more people show up. And I was like, sweet, I'm putting a packet in to go there.

18:20And it's funny. The guy who showed up Joseph Montor, he was he was one of the battalion CSM's coming in. Well, he was my first sergeant in Italy. And he grew up in Ranger battalion. And I went and saw him and he pulled me and he's like, oh, you're coming by the time. That's awesome. So I'm ready to appreciate you pulling me in and all this stuff. And I had already submitted a packet to go to rope and all this stuff. You know, and I told him I was like, you know, I'm excited. I'm trying to go to Ranger battalion. He's like, that's awesome. He's like, well, you know, we'll see what we can do and get you there. And I was like, I already have a school date. But I didn't tell him that. I'm like, he'll figure it out. You know, I did like a week later on his office. He's like, he's like, hey, man, what's going on? I see you got a school day. I was like, yeah, I didn't want to tell you that I had already got a slot. I'm not a slot and ended up in a bad position there. You know, I didn't want to tell you that you're wrong and that I was still going to go since you were an NCO. This was like part of the deal. Like you need to go to Ranger school before you can go assess at rope. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I already had my Ranger tab. And so it was in a big deal. So I just really needed that to get a packet. So I need to get some letters of recommendation. So I got a couple of those together and got my packet submitted all that up. So as soon as I got approved and they gave me school date and I went to rope.

19:33Not really knowing exactly what to expect, to be honest. Yeah. Outside of, you know, I talked to my friend Josh, but you know, he went through rip and going through ropes, another animal on itself, you know. So I just tried to show up as ready as I could and got out there. And honestly, when I got to rope, I was really impressed by the professionalism and everything that was run by the course at the time. You know, I won't say it's more of a gentleman's course than RIP is, you know, you know, being the NCO I see it of RASP and kind of at the transition between RIP and RASP. But, you know, you know, back in the day, I mean, obviously you went through RIP. So like if you can get Hayes for three weeks, you'll be okay. You know, that doesn't mean you're going to be a good Ranger. And I mean, so the proof is in the pudding when looking at the stats, you know, I think probably 85% or so of RIP students. And I think we went to almost three years before we are a first the first RASP one graduate just because of.

20:34Oh, because they're better trained. Oh, yeah. For what is she just weed those guys out throughout the course instead of it being through weeks, it's eight weeks. The first three weeks is kind of like the common core small unit tactics, land navigation, weapons systems, all that stuff. When you get in the phase two, we give them time off, give them nights and weekends and it's market ship mobility, breaching, all that. And if they're going to mess something up, they're going to do it while they're there. And so we weed all that all that stuff happens while they're in the course. So until we get rid of them before they ever make to the times. If upgrading your full sleep setup has been on the list for a while, Ghostbed's fourth of July sale is the time to actually do it. Right now you can get $250 off mattress bundles, which means you can add cooling pillows, cooling sheets or an adjustable base and still come out well ahead of what you'd pay anywhere. And as a team house listener, you get an extra 10% off on top of that using the code house. Ghostbed is a family owned company with more than 20 years of mattress making experience.

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22:38Yeah, I mean, given them nights and weekends off is almost like part of the selection course I imagine because like you said, if they're going to screw up, they're going to start screwing up there. Yeah, for sure. One because when I do the embryo, as I see it, I always tell them say, look, man, you guys look to your left and right because at the end of the day when it comes down the last week and you're going to the commander's board. The person to the left and right is going to be the one who sells you out because you know what we're going to give you the briefing like things you can do, you're going to have your time off, but you still can drink alcohol, you can't go party, you can't go to the office, learn to establishments. And the person next to you is going to be doing the right thing and you're not going to get mad about it and they're going to sell you out and it's going to come up. Manage board every single time. Same thing. You know guys were like, no, I wasn't doing anything like really and you pull the computer, you go Facebook and you turn around, it's them like party and down an Auburn like it's sky bar. Like also, this isn't you like. I was awkward. I'm like, yep, I tell you guys, you know, it's always not goes, you know, they always sell each other out because we can get in the time we do course critiques and all that and that's when all this stuff comes out.

23:44So I mean back in back in the day, what was rope like when you went through it? So for me, it was it was a it's eye opener and honestly it was just because I had never had any experience with regiment outside of guys and the ones have a third. And so when I got there, I was I felt like it was a really professionally brand course, you know, the the cadre were professional, they weren't yelling and screaming and all stuff. So it's just like you kind of go to the dry race board and it has time location uniform where you need to be and when and so you show up that and you do that event and then they're like, OK, go look at the board and we'll be the next timeline. You know, so it's like, you know, I feel like most guys stress out about the critical events, you know, the APFT, the five mile or the 12 mile or all that stuff like that first week is when you do all the critical events. But that's the easiest week of PT that you do there is as a week you're doing those critical events, you know, like OK, now the critical events are knocked out now we're doing PT with cadre every day. You know, like one day we did the gate to gate run. I think it was like a 12 mile run and you form, we hit like six or seven off. So of course is all the cadre, you know, still to this day.

24:51It's always been like the cadre who worked there were like genetically superior. Yes, you know, like you have the super athletes always working there, you know, and guys are, you know, they can dead live 400 pounds, but also run a five minute mile for five miles, you know. And so trying to keep up with them and it was really an eye opener for me like, man, I don't know if I've prepared enough to be ready for this, you know, like I. I've always had an issue being fast like I can run the same pace for 30 miles, but like I can't get any faster. And so the speed's always been my biggest crux. I can always, you know, meet the standard, but it's always been trouble for me to get faster. But I never quit anything. And so I feel like that was a big part of assessment is, you know, they bring the psych out there and they're watching you and how you're acting all the vents and how you're responding to things. And you know, because I don't, I'm trying to remember if they do this, but I know that when I was working at RASC, we would, we would work some, you know, like we would, you know, RASC, you would come up field.

26:00And we kind of go out to cold range at the same time. RASC use doing their FTX and RASC one is doing their, you know, land navigation and field training stuff at the same time. And the way it usually works is based off of, you know, let's say there's 10 officers in the class, then there will be 10 missions. So each officer gets an opportunity to be a protein leader or company commander or whatever the case may be. And they're doing whatever mission, maybe it's a, you know, down black hawk or whatever the case is. But when they get out there, we give them, we give them like a squad of privates and we're like, hey, you have got to teach these guys how to read a map, how to plot land navigation. And they will take to the points and they're finding the points. And you know, it's, it's not necessarily like can they find them? It's like how just assessing them as a leader. You know, a lot of times what guys do is they just get mad, they take the map, like don't worry about it. I'm just going to do it. They just take the dudes and lead into the points and they come back and they fail. And they're like, I don't understand what, like, well, because you missed the whole point. The point was to sit down with the soldiers, teach them how to read a map, how to plot the points, let them lead to the land upside.

27:02Even if you don't find the point, you can still re-crack, you know, re-orient them, try to find another point, but stuff. And so we, we would do a lot of that. So my point being is when they would come out. So for, for the field problem at the end of the field problem, they're usually out there for, you're up for about 24 or 26 hours like that, who's running through all the missions and we come out and will do something to just mess with them. And then, you know, we'll come out there and start reading APFT standards. And they would, and have them do like a minute pushups and minutes situps and do like a half mile run or something. Not because you're assessed just to see if they're going to be like, oh, what are we doing? Or you're like, okay, everybody pack up and walking back to the bar. And then, you know, we're going to do a different cold range to back to the bar, just like 18, 20 miles and just take off like a really fast pace doing like 10 minute mile pace. And they don't know it, but when you get a mile down the road around the corner, the buses are there. Just to see who's going to overreact to what's happening.

28:07And we're just going to see how you're going to react. The buses are right around the corner, you know, and how to, you know, we did some of that, but that's always like the middle piece to it to like see, are you going to quit over your over react, you know, like I was pretty beat up. I went to the feed store and I got like horse lit and it's for race horses and it's like rubbing it in my skin. I could taste metal. I could taste metal. I probably had too much. Just try to just try to just try to stay healthy through the course, but you know, I made it through I was somewhere in the middle of the road, you know, I wasn't the best. I wasn't the worst best somewhere in the middle. I got hammered in the board just like, I don't think anybody ever leaves a rope or rest who board feeling good, you know, even guys, you know, especially now, you know, guys, you can be a regiment for 16 years, go to rest who and still get fired, you know. And so like I know when I went to the board out, I was the very last guy, I was out in the hallway for hours, just pacing back and forth. I'm like, I don't know what's going on. They were calling down the 375. I didn't know this until later talk about.

29:10I'm sorry, are they called me like, you sure you want this guy? I was like, well, I'm glad you told him that you did. Because that's the way you got here. So. And you get assigned to third range of battalion right down the street. Did you go straight to mortar section? Yeah, I went straight to the mortar tin. And I, at the time, you know, I can't, I don't know what year. I think it was around 0304 somewhere around there is when they went to the Consolidate concept where the mortar tin is all at HAC. And then you have sections that go out to the companies because we have all, you know, so the Consolidated mortar tin concept is we've got like 21 mortar systems. You know, we've got a 60 team for every platoon. And then we also have 481s and 4120s. And we have to be able to be proficient on all the systems at all times. And we just hash out. So like at the time coming as a staff sergeant, I was like, originally I was going to be co. So I was like to be be co mortar section leader, but we still state Consolidated at the battalion at HAC for all of our, you know, our more type of events and stuff like that.

30:18But we've always done we do everything that a line of platoon does during the training cycle. But then we do all the mortar stuff on top of it. So we kind of have to be a jack of all trades, you know, so we would go through squad tune, you know, team squad between my fires. And then when the platoon's are doing between my fires, we'll put our hash our guys out there. So they're going to the team my fires with the battoons as well. But at the same time, we're still supporting all the between my fires at the battalion level. So we're having to do all of our mortar mission on top of all of the other missions as well. So it's just a lot to stay on top of and it was a lot to manage. But one of the things I love more about anything in range of design is your ability to just do really anything that you can imagine. So any if you have a good idea that's something smarter, better way to do something, you can just bring it to the table. And as long as the commanders go with it, you can go forward with it. You know, when I was a mortar platoon, we had a lot of, you know, because what like when we were in Iraq, there wasn't a lot, there wasn't really more divisions.

31:19You know, you might have one occasionally, but you always had the 60 teams out, but there's still we had so many assets and so many things that wasn't really a mortar mission. So you got to find a way to stay engaged in the fight. And so I started putting in a climate, I started, you know, buying equipment and putting in climbing teams and we had my guys doing squirt or addiction. And that's where we really started to take off because the issues we were having is, you know, we would come back from, you know, I'd have 60 teams out with all the platoons and they come back from the point that after getting after it with the platoons the whole time, you know, there's 60 teams, but they're still just going out with the squads and doing the same thing. Right. Right. They're putting them on Humvees having them be like 50 cow gunners and all that good stuff. Yeah. They're just through jumping in with the fire teams and running and gun with the platoons the whole time they come back and they're like, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to go to reclass 11 Bravo and I'm going to go to the platoons and so we were just like losing guys left and right and trying to. It's hard. It's a hard so, you know, it's like, we all want to do that mission, but somebody's got to do this one because we're all imptrymen, you know, the only difference between 11 Bravo and 11 Charlie is the literate that you're in the last year.

32:27I mean, we all go through the same basic training, IIT, all that stuff. We just at the end of the IIT, they're like, okay, you're a Charlie, you're like sweet. No, we had 11 Charlie's, Bravo's, Mike's and Hotels, you know, it was just like whatever you landed it, you know. And so it was a hard sell and so I had to find a way to keep guys engaged like looking and we have a really good mission set here. We just have, we have to have the intellect to incorporate it properly. So like at the beginning of every training cycle, all the platoon leaders and platoon sergeants have an embryo with the battalion commander just walking them through the training cycle and how you're going to get after what you're going to do all the way until you get out the door. And so I was sit down, me and my platoon leader set all the battalion commander and we're like, this is our plan. You know, we're doing, we're going to meet all of your requirements for the mortar mission, but we're also doing all the live fires of the platoon at our platoon level. That way if we need to go out in the unilateral mission to be up another platoon for you, we can do that.

33:27We're also putting, you know, climbing teams together and we're going to do, you know, so we, our guys can provide isolation for the platoons. And then that's another problem that they don't have to worry about. So we'll do isolation. We'll handle squirter in addiction, which in my opinion is where all the fun and is anyways. It's clearly going in clear house, but doing SSC is not any fun. And I mean, but sitting up on a ladder, shooting people as a running out the back door or just flying around on a helicopter land and smoking them as a running off the objectives way more fun, then spending all night and trying to do SSC and lay everything out and take pictures and grab hard drives and all that good stuff. Was it difficult coming in as, you know, as they say, an import into Ranger battalion and there's a bit of a stigma, but it can be overcome, of course. I mean, what's that kind of a challenge for you at all? Yeah, for sure. It was always in the back of my head, but, you know, just like as we were talking earlier, you know, we were in through some five at the same time together, you know, it's like, you're also busy going so many different directions. You can be in the same time with somebody for eight years and not know them because every company, every platoon is, you know, because we're fighting as platoons and we're all moving in different directions.

34:33It's different times and it's just hard to keep track. So I just try to show up and be humble and try to learn as much as I could and just try to outwork everybody. The best way that I had in my ability to and in my experience was within the training cycle and deployment. Nobody remembers that you're an import outside of you know, the guys am up to not just new, but when all the companies you're working with, everyone just kind of assumes that you've always been there. Yeah, unless you're jacked up. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say I mean that means you were doing a good job that you weren't like on the radar. Yeah, for sure. What was your first deployment with 375? To Ramadi. I went with a with Biko Ramadi. I think it was Rob Pips was, it was Rob Pips and I turned over to the old jeans. I was at some Ray Barrett where the two platoon started. Yeah, Rob Pips was one of my rip cadre. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love Rob. We're so good friends today and he was actually my first hearing at the selection training time.

35:36That's cool. When I was running a rasp. But you know, I had a that was an awesome deployment because we were just, I think there was three days that entire deployment where we didn't do anything. And that was because we got stood down when the AMZ hit, hit happen and we lost all assets. Oh, yeah, because they were doing that. And so we spent, you know, a couple days just kind of hanging out and watching movies or whatever, but the rest of the time, we were just getting after it every single day. I mean, I think we were getting two, three, four missions a night, you know, coming back, we're stalking ammo, everything running back out. We never stop that entire rotation just hit for the whole time. And this is when they had you guys doing time sensitive targets just back to back to back. Yeah, it was just nonstop. Go go go the whole time, which was awesome. You like it's one. I was just like in my experience, like I really enjoyed my time outside of regiment. And I had a phenomenal time. The ones in the third and there's a lot of great leaders, the combat related.

36:36Like, what was the first time I really felt like I was in combat. I was like, this is what combat's like. We're, you know, we're just getting out here and getting after it every single night. You know, we're getting in ticks every night. We're getting, you know, but we didn't have a lot of, you know, friendly casualties. You know, so we were doing it the right way. Yeah, we were still getting trained in in between. We were at at Shark Base using the range down the road. So if we were not on target route, the range shooting, you know, I had my guys incorporated with the patterns and doing everything. And we had a lot of trust with them. And we really, I don't know, it was a phenomenal rotation with me. And, you know, I'd, I'd still have a great relationship with Rob Fibz. And, you know, he took us in and kind of took under his wing and really held me on a lot of air. I made a lot of really good close friends on that first rotation. Are there any memorable combat missions you were on from that rotation? Well, there's, I mean, we, there was a lot of them. I actually, I don't really know where to have came from that rotation. And it was we were, I don't remember everything on all the specifics on it.

37:45But we were going ahead of target. We spent, we, we were doing everything out of strikers for the most part. We got he-lows a few times. But for the most part, we were launching strikers. But we were getting blown up every time we went out the door. I mean, we blew up so many strikers that we had started getting there for a while. We had had some, um, Bradley's coming in. I didn't know if there was a guy D or somebody who was in there. He's brought those Bradley's in. I wrote the back of the thing. I was like, man, this is the last thing. Like, you just feel like I don't even know how to explain. I was like, I don't know how people do this every day because, you know, when you're in the back of a striker, it's pretty smooth sailing. You can still see what's going on. You have a, a feel. But like, when you're in the back of that Bradley, I was like, man, I feel like I'm going to die every second that I'm in here. I don't know what's going on. It's loud or bouncing. I don't, you know, I can't see anything. I don't know what's going on. But yeah, we, we hits, we were just getting blown up nonstop going out the gates blown, you know, hitting roadside bombs blown the wheels up strikers and then going into recovery operations. So we're doing a lot of strikers. We went on this one target. And there was at the time me and my PL, Tony Keller, we're at the time we were, we were kind of doing run in the mobility for them.

39:01I mean, him, we're kind of heading up the kind of route clearance stuff and running the vehicles, man, and the, you know, all the RWS and drivers and gunners and TCs to just get more guys guns in the fight. And so we went on target. One of the squads had gotten pinned down and they were trying to break contact, but they couldn't because we were getting a lot of heavy gunfire. So I jumped on the striker. I went and went and took my striker to basically block, block them off. And both my mine and my peels RWBS has went down. So we're on top of there like free gun and he's free gun as 50 cow. I've got a 240 running off the side and we're just, we're just trying to lay down, suppress a fire in order to get the guys so they can break contact to get out of there. And so I just basically put myself in front of them and was trying to let the striker eat all those rounds and just laying down as much machine gun fires. I could help them break contact to get away.

40:02And once we were, we were getting them in safe position, load them up and start working our Mexico plan. We were, we were able to get out of there without anybody really getting hurt. So I imagine that you know, you're kind of off to the races at this point. You're that, that generation of guys that you probably deployed like every six months going for for the next, you know, eight years or whatever it was. Yeah. What was the next rotation for you? What's a blood? I think for the next two rotations from the recovery. So it was for my body, then to back to back the lads. So I was with Biko and Ramadi and then Charlie company for the blood rotations. I was only in ballad once. So I very little experience. But there was a, what was the big like super jock that was down there? Yeah, I don't remember the name of it, but yeah, that's where the main, the main jock was, was there in ballad?

41:08What were you guys doing there? I mean, was it more time sensitive target strikes? Yeah, it was a combination. We got a decent amount of air assets. So we would, it was a combination. We'd say 50, 50 between using the strikers and using air assets. Obviously, if we were, we're one of strikers, things were a little more slow going. You know, obviously when you get out, you can get out to the X or doing offset. And so we stayed pretty busy doing that. Yeah, so I'm sorry, I went to blood and then it was by. Okay, we didn't get into a whole lot. I mean, we got in a decent amount of ticks that rotation. That's actually, if I remember correctly, I said that rotation we lost Jimmy Regan on. I'm Charlie company. And that was a, that was really, I'd say my first where I was like right there in the middle of it when it happened that I really, you know, had lost somebody for the first time. And we, I honestly, we didn't really know what was going on. We had, we were driving down the road and strikers. We had an ID.

42:16We knew that there was, so basically what happened the explosion happened and it kind of breached the back tailgate. And Regan had taken some trapezole basically like up underneath of his body armor. And he was having labor breeding out stuff. Doc Melvin was taking care of him. They got him all packaged up. We set up a Josey Bridge game. We got him that you back them and then we just continued on the target because we were on our way to target. We did the whole mission came back. Still nobody knew it was going on. We're coming back and then we came back. And I think I want to say, uh, Marit was there, you know, as a potential CSM. He was there at the lot and he had like had everybody information and pull back into gates. We're like, well, I guess we know what happened. You know, we came back in and we lost Regan. That's terrible. Yeah. And then you know, from there, it's like, you know, the next day or so or I just kind of working through that and then just getting back on target. I was going to ask was it tough for the platoon to kind of maintain their focus in the aftermath. Yeah.

43:19Yeah, because Jim, he was a team leader at the time and he was loved by all the guys and they were all super close. You know, I mean, not how tight it is inside the teams. I like I knew him, but I didn't know him the way they did, obviously. And so they were, they were pretty beat up and bought it for sure. They were struggling. And how did you kind of see that evolve throughout the rest of the remainder of that deployment? For the most part, you know, it's like you kind of just put your nose back to the grindstone and you don't, you know, we do everything. We don't ever do anything. It'll help related. You know, how to how to deal with stuff properly. Just shove it down and deal with it later when you come home. And you don't we're still deal with it then and just comes out in the wrong time. When everybody is, you know, three quarters away through a ball of Jameson. And then it all just falls apart then, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to circle back around on that one. But then the next one was a biop. Biop. Yeah. And that was a pretty interesting rotation because at that that deployment, we had split the strike force was half seals half rangers and we got there.

44:24For that rotation, we had basically spent, I want to say like a week, maybe almost two weeks where we were just doing static operations just doing rehearsals nonstop. Just trying to get everybody on the same sheet of music because we didn't we didn't have an opportunity to do that prior to the rotation until we got on ground. So we just working through TTPs and the way we kind of mitigated stuff as they would do isolation, we would do assault and we would flip flop on the next target. So we didn't have, you know, guys running through buildings at the same time. Yep. Yeah. And there was some and a lot of you goes getting in the way obviously and then you know, we had like one of that one unit guys came down as they'll know to kind of bridge the gap and try to help with that situation and, you know, just a lot of. I don't know, like because it wasn't so team six guys, it was like their vanilla seals or what are terming when you use for the regular seals. And there's a lot of guys who have been in seals for a really long time, but you know, one of the guys was, you know, one of the main team leads is like, I've been to silver 13 years is my first appointment.

45:33Wow. You're like, okay. And you're like, well, we got private to verify the planets. What was the conflict like on the leadership side or unlike the enlisted side? I think more, more on the enlisted side and it's just more, you know, it's, you always got to get past the egos as it ranges or is it seals who's better who's not and it's at the end of the day. It's just like, hey man, we got a job to do. We just need to get out there and do it and put all the BS aside and it takes after the first week or so. I think we were running pretty smooth and I think we're going well and we're going on target and we're going to have any issues and like say, I think flip flop and isolation assault is really what helps. We got into some, we got into some pretty bad, some bad ticks. We got in a really bad one one night or we were in, we were in solder city. And at that time we had to, we had to take two tanks and two Bradley's just to go into solder city because the EFP threat was so bad that they just were there to EDF peace.

46:41And so we would, we would forward stage in the green zone pick up the Bradley and tank escorts to move to target. And we got into the green zone and we were waiting for escorts and they got in there and then, you know, like we're having, one of them were having transmission issues and they couldn't take off, you know, because you have to have two tanks because one's got to recover the other if something happens and same thing with the Bradley's and we sat there and we're just burning hours and hours and hours and we're ready to come up on daylight. And finally we just took off for like, we're rolling without the tanks and we got out and then like, I don't know, 10 minutes and I moved in one of the Bradley's went down something where we're down the Bradley's like, alright, man, see guys, we got to go and and we were, we kind of burned the target on the way in and we just started, we started taking gunfire before, before we ever got to the target building. And so we were pretty, pretty heavy gunfire the whole way out there and like I said, we were at that time working, have the strike force with seals, have the other half of the Rangers and we got notice some pretty, you know, in Sauders City, it's just like any major city.

47:42There's like really tall buildings everywhere, it's, it's very chaotic and it's just really difficult to figure out where everything's coming from. So we had, what guys were doing as they were ahead, had kind of weapons stashed on top of all these buildings and they would run up there or they'd go weapons, start shooting from the top of the buildings and they would just go across streetwalk when they're guns and then go to the next building, run up to the top. So you're not shooting an unarmed civilian as they're crossing for building the building, you know, and kind of playing that game. And yeah, I don't mean we were just, we were in heavy gunfire for a really long time and we were at all of like my RWS got completely shut up, all the placards on the vehicles were shot off. Like we were just man and at the whole time. Yeah, and like you could see, you could see friendly kilos coming in like a Dapsid come in to try to support us and you see just like Tracer fire just tracing it through the sky and it's, you know, so they were, you could get a little off here. At the daytime, at that point, not at night, like what we should have been, but we got stuck in the green zone waiting for the vehicles to get fixed and never did.

48:48And so we ended up hitting hitting the target around day break or a little bit after. And so we were just in the middle of the day fighting in Sutter City, which is like worst case scenario and going back and looking at the ISR footage after the fact, it just looks like the entire city just erupted on us. And we ended up getting what we were, you know, going for the target got what we were supposed to get there and then we ex-filled and made it out of there without anyone getting shot or hurt, which is a godson itself. But we were, I don't think that's just a testament to like regiment and the adaptability and being able to come together and work teams that quickly and learn, share TTPs, all that stuff. And then just keep going is we actually got a really good type working really ship, you know, it's just like anything. Yeah, you get past everyone's you goes like this gets hands down best gets I've ever seen in my whole career for that rotation. And it was just like Ranger privates make a fun of seals sales make a front of Rangers. It was awesome.

49:48I'm surprised they let you guys do them. I know that commander's got a weary of put to it skits as the deployments ground on. Oh, no, that was great. The guys go in made a bunch of big fake mustaches and put them on and they run around like guns flagging each other in the face, pretending to be seals and you know, the guys were like pretended like, I'm going to shoot the slide out like. Go through like five magazine and just find a sheet one light and throw rocks like we can't get it to go. I don't know what to do now. Yeah, just like that. But Ranger privates be private and do cool things that they do. I end as you know these deployments are going on. Are you noticing any difference in how the conflict in Iraq is evolving? Oh, yeah, for sure. I definitely realize that you know like for all the you know the years that I was there and I'm busy. You know, it's like I want to say from probably 05 to about 2009 or so.

50:52It was all Iraq heavy, you know, and then it shifted and then everybody was getting after an Afghanistan because you know it used to be just one company with deployed Afghans and they sit in bar room and plan a mission for two months. If they had never go on and you know everybody's just like hitting the gym comes back 40 pounds heavier. Super Jack like all you guys just get back from Afghanistan. You know, and then it's shifted to Afghanistan and then it was crazy Afghanistan from like on a like 09 to 11 or so and then it started shifting back to Iraq and then we closed our rack out. So I feel the years that we were in Iraq over there because I had the majority of my deployments. I did in Iraq. I did a couple of Afghanistan, Afghanistan rotations towards a back end when things kind of shifted over that way or getting heavier in Afghanistan. But our act was awesome because we were just going out constantly and going after targets constantly and we got so good at doing you know time sensitive targets and you know the just the ability and the trust that like squad leaders had and you know like the whole ground force commander concept you know we were doing things in regimen with what we tend to some captains that you know they were doing the time commanders and the regular army.

52:06And it's just because the trust was there and we had so many repetitions doing it and we had so much you know going into 2007 2008 guys are you know there are like 10 11 deployments and you know they've got a wealth of knowledge and we never lose anything the other part of that is like as we're rotating through the tines you know if I'm in 375 175s forward I'm a tune taking this you know the same going the same outstation I'm in my office on the red line talking to the two turn who's on the ground there I know everything that's happening I'm reading their comments. We have access to the portal we can see everything that's happening so there's no loss and fidelity and you're able to keep track of everything that's going on and try to stay on top of everything that's happening at the same time so that's a smooth transition you know usually you'll send your weapons quality is forward to go do an inventory and everything and then you're high five and on the ramp you're leaving there coming in you go load up an ammo and you're going out on target you already know it's going on because your platoon has been in communication with the two minutes there for the whole last month lead nubs you're tracking everything. It's happening you're looking at the conops you know everything that's that's going on so that's another thing that you know regiment has over there you know the portal code the regular army because you know if I'm in the one seventy third and you're in the hundred first and I'm back feeling you it's this whole big thing to change over and equipment vehicles and we're just falling on port equipment and we're talking to people every day that we're going to swap out with so we just have a lot more insight to what's happening.

53:34Yeah I mean I remember that they knew well ahead of time where every single platoon in the battalion was going and preparing for that specific mission. Yeah for sure. I can say like if you're the the platoon in one seven five that I'm leaving I'm on the phone with you and we're talking on a daily basis for a communicator chat and I'm looking at your conops we know what's happening so there's really no loss of the information there. And then what came after a buy-up. I think I end up going back to a lot again. And then I want to say then we kind of started shifting towards Afghanistan and I did a few rotations Afghanistan did a ballroom I did fashion fashion was that was one of the the crap your rotations just because the sustainability was a lot of things. Sustainability wasn't necessarily there we didn't really have a Q or F. Candahar is kind of where all the magic was having they were coming in effort for that rotation which is weird because I was with Charlie company I was with three Charlie in fashion and one and two Charlie were in can are and they were kind of the main effort so I had my platoon split.

54:47You know I had all the 60 teams out but I had you know my two big gun sections so I had one with my platoon leader and Candahar and the other one with the new fashion and my guys in can are getting after the man they were students quarter addiction and isolation and climbing teams and you know all stuff and we're all just kind of sitting around and fashion we couldn't really launch because we didn't have a Q or F and I actually got into it pretty bad with the first on the ground there. Because he wanted me to bring my whole platoon to just be Q or F for that rotation and I was like I'm not doing that he's like yeah you are you work for me I'm like I don't work for you I work for the tank and I'm sure you loved hearing that. Yeah whole Craig Bishop you're counting him but yeah so we had a yes we got we got into it and it was just like a professional thing like it then day I get what you're trying to do you're trying to get your your guys out on target but I also have to look out for my guys. If I spend the entire rotation that guys down here just doing Q or F we're all going to get out of the army when we get back you know and so I've got I've got to look out for the well being but also I still have a mission you know like it wouldn't be the first time that we would be for deployed and something happens you know we still have platoons in our rack of something happens in our rack and I got to send a big gun section.

55:59I want to see what 30 to go to our rack to rack something there I have to be prepared to do that then I can't do that if I'm stuff doing Q or F for a company and so we got into it and you know I was like well if you really feel this strongly about it you know we can do a BTC with the boss and my pills and can arm we got in had a BTC with the tank manner and I laid out the reasons why I didn't think it was a good idea and he laid out the reasons why he thought was good at he's excited with us he's like that's dumb I'll just send another one of the Charlie come up to you. I'm just going to do that and you know that went over about like you would expect it. Like I'll let ballooned. Yeah. Didn't like that at all. Yeah like that wasn't it wasn't like an ego thing I was just genuinely like hey man we have a mission to say as you guys do then I'm just doing my part so as what it is. When you started doing these Afghan rotations were the mortar section able to kind of get after it and do their you know mortar job a little bit more often than they were before. Yeah for sure and we were always trying to find more ways to get the mortars on the target because a lot you know a lot of times it just comes down to like.

57:05You know you can always you move easily with 60s but with 81s and 120s and a whole other animal we're trying to figure out ways so we're outfitting the ATVs with 120s and trying to figure out how to get them out. And you know because you can you can get a get a two or three ATVs and set a 120 up on them and ammunition and put them on the back on 47 to roll out that way. We were using the faster the the centers the threads of vices you know that can I use. And we were taking 81s systems and put them inside a skedcoes and using threads devices so we could faster with the 81s trying to figure out a way to get in those and that was working well. And always just trying to find new unique ways to try to get to target with the system so we get support the way we do you know but it always comes down to like wait. You can carry it sure how you get it there you know because without trucks it's it's it's it's pretty tough to get the big guns out with. You know the equipment all the ammunition requirement you with 60s that's fine you know you can carry 60s you know the returns every give her by around they consolidate the rounds to you you know that stuff but it's a lot different when you're dealing with the guns.

58:17I was going to ask were you guys ever able to slam some targets with the 120s. Yeah for sure there was a few times we gotten gotten this stuff for the 120s out in Afghanistan and we just I would say we were really really proficient just because we did a lot a lot of we did like a lot a lot of. I'd say just Arplatoon would shoot like what a regular we do in one train like one training event would like a brigade and while location would be for like an entire cycle you know we can completely shoot the guns I was what what problems will have so many TBI's you know I mean yeah but we had. Yeah because there's I think they've got it figured out now and I know this happened kind of after my time but back then we didn't you know like the boxer called a call you you're only supposed to shoot like eight rounds a day or something like that yeah we never followed that yeah well like you know I shot like 500 120 rounds in the day yeah I mean you talk about like I mean lead night of your nose in your ears and trying to put sense is the other end of the day you know yeah yeah.

59:31You know those you know that stuff you know because we support all the chase talking out to the other part of it is we have to be ready to go support anyone at all times you know the more to put you in the really got leveraged a lot during my time after to go and support the two one organizations with that stuff we got spun up more and more once you know when I was there to to go to go do stuff like we ended up going to an underweighs with still to six guys and you know plan for for missions to go out and do things with them and that was another thing that you know we kind of had to figure out on the fly I got I got we had just finished doing between live fires I got a phone call from my first origin I had slept you know Jim Anderson calls me and I slept in three days because I've been out support between my fires and I'm like almost home and I'm like he's like I need you to come back to work I'm like and I'm I barely made it home like I don't know if I'm going to make it back to work he's like you got to come in I'm like alright man I'm going to stop and I'm a slam monster and if when I get to work when I have a real conversation like you're going to have to go fight in the courtyard you know and so I get out there and and I get back to work and he's like hey he tells me like hey I need you to get two teams

1:00:39together there's going to be some guys flying in here a mario to pick you up and you're going to get right on to what you're doing you get there I'm like okay so then I do the start calling guys my came in just meet me at the closest place you can I don't expect you to come into work and I'll just kind of give you heads up so you can go take care of your family get your stuff together and we're bugging out of here tomorrow and you know we we get our stuff back up you know come on to my life like hey I'm leaving now let's know I don't know when I'm going to call you I don't know you know the usual like I'll be in touch I don't know when but I'll figure out what I'm doing I'm getting there that still won't be able to tell you what's going on so it's just the usual and so we got some team guys flying to our to a they're filled there on for many pick us up if I happen to make and then when we get there and we get right on to what we're doing and then we start trying to figure out like okay so we got to figure out how to how to swim in with mortar systems and so we're going to have to do a beach assault you know bending in with these guys and the plan was we're taking H-sacks there's big cigar boats to a certain distance out then we're getting in the zodiacs and we're taking that to certain distance out then we're about a

1:01:47click or so off then we're finning the rest of the way in and like okay so I start going down just take me to your house and let me see what I can get my hands on and so like I got okay we can they had dive bags we can put the tubes in so that work and I was like I'm like what are you guys doing for your body armor they're like we're not taking body armor I'm like weird what can I do to put my body armor and say give us bags and I got a bunch of Alice packs for them we cut all the pouches off can't drive the crap out of them water proof them then put dive bags we took our our body armor put inside the dive bags and you can zip them up you can you know you can let air in or out to make a buoyant so basically the idea is your body armor goes inside your Rucksack you can bend behind it it gives you ballistic cover to the front they have the dive bags with you can put your guns and you can shoot through so we can patrol with ballistic covers to the front with the dive bags and fin in that way and as soon as we hit the beach then we can pull out through your kid on put your helmet on and you know start moving you're like that's going to take too much time to

1:02:51like look man if we can't keep up then we can have this conversation we're not going anywhere without body armor that's just how it's going to be and that's like okay whatever and then you know we go out in the water and they try to they try to drown this for like a week and that was the other part is I had no idea what we were what we were doing until because we didn't get right on until we got there and and they told what was going on like well this is some information we've been known like I don't know what it takes to be a strong swimmer in silte-six by going tell you what it takes to be a strong swimmer at the end of the night I got a swim across this pool like 15 meters into good you know yeah yeah I'm feeling the the swimming is a little higher level here so I think so in it having to bench a guy because like you know again he was a strong swimmer for a army but not for the Navy you know I was going to ask was this part of the like contingency planning for the hostages down in Colombia is that what this was about uh this is actually an Africa well okay for the plan for targets and in Somalia and uh we ended up

1:03:52doing all the train up for it but not actually executing because that's kind of around the time that the captain filled stuff kicked off okay that's when they kind of redirected uh going after all the pirates off shore um over a plan on really going into Somalia and hitting the target and uh so that's where everything we're trained up for and we've spent you know week out there and they're just out in the pool trying to drown us every day and uh we we managed to get through that and we started doing underways with them and you know it was middle of winter and we're out in Virginia Beach in dry suits and H-Hacks and doing all the stuff and just going out and doing training missions every day we ended up cat sizes and boats and doing all that good stuff and we actually had a pretty good training rotation with those guys spent it was actually the only time that when I was in 75 that they went to NTC it was while I was at Virginia Beach and so we we definitely got over on that as we're out in NTC and I was like hanging out at Virginia Beach you can turn the steak every night you know but uh we we did our train up I would say we were there

1:04:54for about roughly about a month and then it transitioned to times the QRF mission with the 1-7-5 and Charlie Harp was the more of a team turn out 1-7-5 at the time so I just gave him my packages everything that I had built and what we were doing and I gave it to them and they picked up the mission and just kind of ran with it from there but we were able to uh we we were able to uh kind of circle him back to the whole the original conversation is how adaptable everybody is is yeah yeah we were able to go and incorporate and just you know hit the ground run and and figure out like how do we make this mission work so if it goes okay so now we got to get you know get rucksacks and cut the pockets off of the stream line them and make them waterproof and get a dive bag to put a body armor in and you know get you know bags to put the mortar systems in and be able to patrol in and out and do those uh in the whole time we're keeping up with all these other guys and they're just out there you know basically with with their weapons and pens just and we're dragging all this other stuff we're still able to keep up with them in the water you know that's wild to me that you were swimming in with the 120's

1:05:58now we were 60's we had oh the oh's the 60's that's kind of sad I thought you said one to one to one to one to one I was like that's definitely going to be pretty crazy still with this still with the 60's I mean the the tube the base plate the bipod all the rounds for it I mean that's a lot of weight yeah and so that's the other part of it is we had to figure out a way to get that stuff in the bags with body armor and everything to get it out there so everybody had a Rucksack kind of maxed out with everything that we could carry wow and so it was good man it was a it was a great great training event I would just call it that because we ended up you know not going out and executing the mission but it was a really great cross-ranging event we got to do underways with the guys for you know basically a month and we had a lot of really cool experiences and you know it was like that one of the guys you know one of the guys who was like my swim buddy was like he'd been on the teams I don't know for like 20 years old salty you know like I we were on we were on the boat and I think I need to switch this microphone I think it's about to die

1:07:02may have switched automatically actually yeah okay I was just still picking it okay I just want to we can we can hear you okay yeah so we uh you know he was he was an old salty guy and we you know it's funny I was you know bus and chops because we get we get back to the team rooms after training all day because we we went head on to a wave and capsize a zodiac and I'm you know I'm talking trash I'm like you guys are supposed to be the most elite seals in the Navy I don't know a lot but I know you go head on to head on into a wave with a zodiac it's gonna flip it's a trash I can go back and forth at a good time uh you know I've always had good experience with with the guys when we work them in the past and I always keep that going forward I feel like I and then you did a bagworm rotation uh was that like pretty much just a training rotation or did you guys actually get shot out a bit yeah it was it really we didn't really do much of anything we just train train and train

1:08:04and that's kind of like where we worked out all those TTPs with the 120s we were just trying to find stuff to keep us busy and so we were outfitting them with uh you know taking the ATVs and setting up up the 120s and working with the Fred's devices and tower training them and getting my birds and trying to fast-rope with them so like in the event that we do it out you know we're going out and hitting original in somewhere like we can take some big guns with us out there to do them order support you end up on the launch and or do anything but that's where we were able to work a lot stuff out and during this time you worked your way up to mortar platoon sergeant yeah I was uh I was a squad leader in Patuncia and the mortar platoon there and that's okay tell us about that what's that can you tell us about that kind of stepping up and I mean that's a that's a big promotion for NCO yeah for for me it was uh it was awesome I'd love I love being a you know a squad leader section leader whatever term you want to use but I I really enjoyed it

1:09:05I really I like the flexibility I just being able to work with all the companies because I really did I got to deploy with you know I deploy with the off company would try the company with Brawba company you know there's different personalities and all those different companies and uh but I really it gave me a bigger picture of everything that was going on because you know when you're in a platoon you just kind of see what's happening you don't necessarily even see what's happening your company you really just see what's happening your platoon so it gave me the ability to see all that stuff and um Chris Cassidy was my platoon sergeant at the time and uh when he he left he ended up actually going to the unit and retiring from there um but when he was getting getting ready to leave you know I was I was the senior I was uh I was this the senior guy in the platoon left there to take over and um there was there was a few times where I ended up taking over the platoon kind of inadvertently like you know casca mono one time yeah yeah acting acting platoon sergeant yeah like I came to work one day and uh he had ended up he got sick

1:10:08out at the range and like I thought he was going to die I'm like dude you need to like see a medic we were just doing fire is out there and he just looked like he was dying and turned out he had mono and so like we were in the middle of a life fire he left and he couldn't get him back to work for like a month because yeah you know he had mono and this contagious and all that stuff so I immediately took over and ran the platoon for a month and so like I kind of got that under my belt beforehand to kind of I don't know it's it's a little nerve wrecking there's a lot more to jt yeah one there's a lot more to be in the more platoon sergeant there is the being a river platoon sergeant because you know you're managing you know 1260 teams they're going to 12 different outstations you got two big gun sections you have to worry about you have ammo allocations and all these places you got you know 15 outstations you worrying about like what what everybody has what they need um I'm also running CSR teams and doing all this other stuff and so I feel like it's it's more akin to being a you know to being a first-armed or even a CSM than it was being a

1:11:09platoon sergeant I just have so many people in so many different places doing so many different things and so it was a little nerve wrecking but luckily for me like I will say like uh Jim Anderson I learned so much from him as he was my first-armed time and uh he was really like when it came to administrative stuff he was wiretight me and I learned a lot from him uh being able to track and manage and do a lot of that stuff thanks to him um but I was I was excited I really wanted to take over the platoon and when I got the opportunity I definitely jumped at it um and I think that I always tried to leave things better than the way I found them and casted a great job but I just felt like I needed to carry the ball and do something different you know so when I took over the platoon that's kind of like when we started really incorporating the other stuff or we were getting into the squirted or diction and isolation and trying to define different ways to get the mortar systems on target and going and working with the other two or one units and that that wasn't like because I set that up obviously it just happened to be the right place the right time when we got spun up to go

1:12:11do that stuff and uh we were always really successful and and I feel like the platoons it just kept getting better even after I left you know when I went over to assessment selection and then you know like I you know like when San desi was on here he talked about a lot of that stuff on your podcast the stuff they were doing in Syria and at the end of the day the limelotines were running log back for the mortar platoon and the mortar platoon was just after it with your one guys and so like I think it's hilarious looking at it from this vantage point now because you know it's like everyone always wants to talk trash about the mortars but they're the ones out there getting after it yeah will you you'll like the the interview we did just prior to yours with uh at wardo who's a two seven five mortar guy in Syria tells of all of those stories it's pretty cool yeah and like say I love I love that man and maybe so happy to hear all that you know I'm just glad someone kept the ball moving forward after we left you know it's always about innovation and how can how can you best support the team hiking best support commander you know because

1:13:11you you mentioned that uh earlier you told me that uh Mike Edwards came and took took over after you left yeah I think he continued that track too from what I recall yeah that's great because we were trying to figure out because the the net stops was like how do we get guys to freefall and I don't know that he did but you know Mike Edwards you know he was a he was a freefall guy tandem did all that stuff and so he was definitely the perfect guy to try to figure out that package because you know when you start thinking about how are we going to incorporate these guys with the two one units if they're doing a do a hey hoe to get a target you know like how are you going to get guys with mortars you know on a hey hoe if you know having buddy yeah the same issue you had working with the seals like how how do we get mortars to a seal target yeah for sure and so you know I was really happy to hear that people were carrying the ball forward and continued to innovate and so the next stop for you is a rasp instructor yeah it took over is the last one in CIC right after the transition from rip to raspeg Tyson Crosby was was running

1:14:17was running rip and the transition to raspe and I took over shortly after him and uh that was a really a really great job but also probably the hardest job I've ever had just because as the NCYC I'm just always there you know like with the cadre you know I have you know I've got phase one cadre and phase two cadre phase one is all all the small unit tactics you know weapon systems land navigation all that stuff knowing the phase two we've got marshmanship mobility reaching um and so like when you're in phase one and you're in cycle you're you're working your butt off constantly and when that hands over to phase two then you're off you're taking it easy taking time off same thing phase two and they're handing back off to the next class you know they there's a lot of time off was into SCM just always there um I think the two years of outwork there I the only time I really got off was Christmas because we got Christmas X's we put everybody out on Christmas X's for the rest time I just there always and you know uh that's the the RCO's number one stateside priority

1:15:23is RAS because he needs people you know and uh it was really awesome working there when when Merit was the RSM it was really terrible when B.L.I.K. was the RSM you know when I was you know because B.L.I.K. was my first agent he was my yeah he was our first agent yeah you know it's like I can't get away from this guy you know what's I'm thought everybody's like finally and then he came to be the RSM like no he's back you know but he came down he would fire me constantly like he would come out there in front of the whole formation and nuke me and like I'm fired guys I'll see you all later and I'll come back to hours later I'm like okay I'm hired back then I'll do the job so I'm here again you know and you know because that's just how B.L.I.K. roles but it was it was it was really it was a really great experience I really enjoyed it um just the my biggest uh my biggest biggest obstacle there was probably trying to trying to change the culture um because we were again kind of coming from RIP and going into RASP and guys were used uh I don't want to say it but

1:16:27yeah I think in the day you there's just a lot of hazing going on and at the end of the day if if you could survive three weeks of getting haze then you could graduate and when we were going to RASP like we're trying to make this like an assessment and selection that you know we'll really give us what we need we're we're trying to get guys better trained you know it's not just about can you do hard things but can you do the right you know getting it more into advanced partnership and we want to get a guy so when he shows up to your squad in line between you can deploy them and you go forward he obviously he's going to have to incorporate in the team but you least he knows how to you know he knows how to at least handle his weapon you know collect because at the end of the day in basic training you don't really learn anything yeah and I mean going through a marksmanship at RASS they really learn how to shoot you know they're actually learning how to zero their optics during the day during night how to shoot with lasers how to you know move it in teams and do and all that stuff and we did a lot of really good you know our MO allocation for RASP 1 class was 100,000 rounds of 556 and 50,000 rounds in IML for two weeks

1:17:32of shooting you know and so we put a lot around downrange for those guys and same thing with the breaching course all assault breaching we did all of it you know mechanical explosive like everything that you could you would do or assault target outside of like master breacher doing like wall shots and that kind of stuff but all your assault breaching they got a really good grasp on it same thing with mobility they can drive home bees they get licensed they know how to learn how to break modulate how to recover vehicles do all that stuff before they ever get to the battalions you know and so we were putting a lot of effort and emphasis into making you want to think guys to be strong and hard and do all that stuff but you also want them to be able to you know make decisions at the right time be able to to do things the right way you know be safe you know when you're handling the weapons when your handling explosives all that stuff you like say we work all that out while they're at the course so like I said I think we went three years before we are fast the first rass point graduate that's it but like everything that we were doing

1:18:32because we we those guys out while they're in the course you know that the battalion CSMs didn't necessarily like it because they just want bodies I you know my biggest problem there is you know I was a sarin first class promotable just getting you know get screamed at every day by battalion CSMs by the rs and like I have a company commander first sergeant I have my own battalion CSM you guys can talk about no they're coming straight to me and just and you can meet every chance to get you know especially you come down for the rass boards you know because it rotates through the battalion change the commands coming for the rass two boards and they always make sure to swing by Bob just let me know how they feel about me and what I'm doing right or wrong every chance to get you know and so it was hard but it was it was also well worth it I had really good chain command too but I was gonna ask what was your biggest leadership challenge running that big machine the biggest thing there was just trying to make sure that the cadrie got what they need you know because it's it's also you know part of it is making sure

1:19:33guys get what they need as they're coming in and they're leaving and the amount of cadrie that had come into me that had been in battalion for like seven to ten years that never received a PCS award didn't get an NCOER never got a plaque never received anything from the battigians I'm like man we are really missing the mark here you know now I thought through that as a potenti in starting to line battalion as well you know like we never put guys in for service awards you know you can be in the same company from private to first sergeant and never PCS but everyone else in the army is getting a PCS award every two to three years we don't think Rangers need that it's not important right you can still do service awards for those guys every three years but people just aren't doing it you know just taking the time to take care of their people and so like I get a you know staff sergeant and sergeant for his class company has been in battalion for you know seven to ten years he's never gotten the service award he's never gotten you know didn't get an NCOER I'm like you have an NCOER in two years like what's going on so like that kind of stuff you know so I had started working you know we started doing dog X's and stuff like that at at coal range

1:20:38just to try to generate some funds and I made sure guys left they had a really good plaque they got a good PCS award you know if they never got one before they got one for me when they left and you know the the plaques we were getting made were really good you know what I was getting them made it Stanley's framing but when I took them to like bidding awards and asked Mike what would you charge for me to make this plaque like twelve hundred bucks Mike okay well Stanley's make them for two hundred and fifty dollars they just take some six months to get them done you know but it was an old three seven five guy too so he took care of us but I made sure that they they got what they needed but that we also use like you buy boots with them we take care of the cadre and make sure that they're getting that family you know because the other part of that is that's your break you're getting a break from yeah I go beat work at cadre but it doesn't matter if you're working sixteen hour days six days a week for two years you know like I was thanks for the break I mean you you you you hear that from the uh special forces guys that get assigned to SWIC and they'll pretty much all of them will tell you they're like I have less time at home here than I did when I was on an ODA I think that kind of like gets lost a lot of people don't

1:21:42realize how difficult it is to work one of those training jobs whether it's RASP or being a drill sergeant or you know QCore sky or whatever it is yeah it's it's it's tough to manage man and it's because you at the end of the day you still have to produce you still have to get everything done but you just have to be smart about how you rotate people and then I'll make sure people are getting taken because the other part of that is you know this might be the first time these guys have been around the wives every day for eight years you know and so you know that has its own things you have to navigate there you know like it's it's you know you guys have kind of been dating a lot over the years right really big role you know right like we're married for the first time yeah and so then you start having you know kind of family issues that we're not used to dealing with because you're never home and so like you're always kind of making up and breaking up you know in between rotations and so being home every day brings us on challenges and then you know guys start getting into the alcohol and sort of having issues there and you know it's the same problems that I've had in my you know I was going through it too you know but it's definitely

1:22:46unique problem set that you don't really think about and I don't mean I've always kind of had imposter syndrome and every every stage of my life everything I'm going through you know I never I never felt like I really belonged I was just like I felt blessed to be around giants that I never really felt like I fit in you know and part of that was maybe because I was an import and whatever but it's hard to feel like you belong to an organization when it's never okay to leave until you're told to leave you know and so like if you want to go to another selection or you want to do something different it's like you you can you can stay until you're RFS or you get told you have to go find a job but if you try to do anything outside of that it's difficult yeah I also noticed too like just how transient it all seems because the personnel rotate so quickly in Ranger battalion that you can be in a platoon and it's like oh a band of brothers and all this everything's great and you know I want to stay here forever but in reality two years down the road

1:23:50that platoon is almost unrecognizable because the personnel have changed over. One of the the other unique pressure cooker or the Ranger regiment is it's the only organization in all special operations where you have to go back through assessment and selection every single time you take a new duty position so like if you go from private to Sergeant Major you can go maybe go through assessment selection four times you know and it doesn't matter like how good you are because at the end of the day when it comes to your board performance it's the personalities in the room because everybody looks the same on paper you know everybody looks exactly the same and at the end of the day it comes down to the personalities in the room in your board performance and it doesn't matter like what you've done for the last 10 years and how good you are and how amazing you are if you have a bad for performance then it's all for nothing you know and that brings its own special pressure cooker and you know I can speak to my personally when I when I made the eight lists there was it was but as I was leaving through some five finished moped teams our time going to rasp I I made the list there was I want to say like 86 guys that were competing for

1:24:59you know 16 companies and this is over like two or three lists but I'm saying there was that many promotable Sergeant first classes assigned a regiment you know and by go okay well we only got there's only 16 companies so what are we going to do with the 86 guys and it puts a whole another pressure cooker to like you know you have to be better than everyone yeah that you know people start being cutthroat and start doing things you know so it's like it's own level of you know there's only so many petunes there's only some companies there's so many battians you know and it's yeah it brings its own level of stress to an organization that's already a pressure cooker as it is and you and I mean it ended up working out for you right you were for Sergeant at our worst company yeah so it was good for me it's I after I finished my time as an into I see you know I talked all the battalion CSMs and there were no companies opening it up for at least two years and I had already been a promotable Sergeant first class for like 22 months and I was getting ready to pin E8 and I was like dude I cannot I can't plan put you in live fires and or field seizures

1:26:03for another two years and just try to survive and then get a company you know and so I just started shop around I talked to the RSA I'm a talk science CSM I was like I'm gonna look for a job are we good and you're like yeah you're okay you can look and so I think Sean Curry was the branch manager at the time so I called him and and the the Lurse company was available and it's actually my PL when I was a petuneter on a 375 was the company commander for that Lurse company oh wow and he ready to leave and he's like yeah they're looking for somebody and I was like awesome and so he put me in touch with the battalion CSM and Colonel Cogbill was the battalion commander the way the Lurse company words then is you were in a RISTA squadron which is a cab squadron under an M.I. brigade that fell under the core headquarters just kind of the whole intel piece there so we were under M.I. Brigades initially before we went directly to HHBN core but so Colonel Cogbill was the RSA when he left and he was the squadron commander for there so

1:27:04and the brigade commander for the M.I. Brigade was an old regiment guy too I think it was a company commander I can't remember but anyways my point being that I had a they were very interested in bringing me out there and and so I had the ability to go take there and I was like man this is awesome so I can go take the Lurse company and so I went out there and as soon as I got to the Lurse company you know Colonel Cogbill was like all right and you get your free fall school I was like awesome so I finally I was like I reenlisted for this regiment twice I finally left and now I get to go to free fall school and free fall J.M. you know outside in the army so I got to go to free fall as a very senior E7 or yeah yeah I was funny while I was going through the basic courses of first sergeant and then same thing going through the free fall J.M. courses you know what you've been sitting at first I'm not here I'm like yeah man for a Lurse company I'm just happy to be here trying to build a program so yeah tell us a little bit about was this the Rista company at brag

1:28:11like where were you guys at I was at Fort Hood so Lurse companies were at Fort Bragg Fort Hood and I can't remember where the other Wabugat Ed and Washington and so it was a three core headquarters were through all that and so we were in contact with the other companies just trying to figure stuff out and that was a whole other animal that I had to try to tackle and figure out and when I talked to the battalion CSM he's like soon as he found out I was company he's like there's there's an EA running company who was terrible he's like I'm walking across the street and I'm firing this guy right now and I'm putting one of the Patunzards in charge of the company because you're in bound I was like okay and so he went and fired the guy I showed up there's one of the Patunzards in charge of the company and my handover consisted of I got an Al Forasser with names on it and Social Security Embers and so I basically had to build everything from the ground up and there's a lot of when you really start digging into the mission set and the metal tasks and everything that has to be done with the Lurse company it's pretty overwhelming you know you have got

1:29:11just the insertion instruction platforms alone requires a ton of training you know you've got you got to think about mountaineering you have to think about waterborne stuff you have to think about you know static line of free fall operations and so the way we had three Patunz at the time and the the best way we were able to get after it is I just kind of set up like one detachment was the air detachment one was mountaineering and the other was water and you guys will be the SME's at everything and then inside of each detachment there was like basically three teams and then you know you have an air team, a mountaineering team, you know waterborne team and they just base off the mission set do what they need to do with the Patunz kind of managing this and me for each of those and you know because just just managing your free fall program and itself is a lot more difficult than most people realize if you haven't been a part of that you know and know what it needs to be like a true or pro level one train up and what it takes and then once you're even once you go through a train up you're only good for six months and you're really only good for like

1:30:15four months where you really start trying to have you go amber and start trying to do another jump trip and do all this stuff to do a full mission profile. Hey, it really takes a lot to get there especially as you're still trying to figure out we were just trying to figure out guys at school you know like we can't we can't even talk to you about a full mission profile and we have people can we jump out of airplanes you know and so we built that whole program and started getting guys into free fall school and then I made friends with the the guy who managed all all the free false billets for all the guys in the pipeline because you know used to suck was kind of doing free fall for all at the time and a lot of guys were getting hurt on the way in and like one week out they would just drop off and so I got a contact I was like look I've got 15 people ready to send any day I was like so I could contact him a week out and he's like are you I got three slots you good yep and I would send like two to three people every single class because they were just people that were falling out of the pipeline that couldn't make it and started to get sent those and started getting some jams and then we were actually start actually getting some

1:31:15jump trips in and started getting guys ready to where we could actually do like you know full mission profile hey oh jumps and then at the same time we're also managing people get guys to as many like small boat courses and anything we could do any mountaineering courses we could get guys to and just trying to figure out how to get after all the insertion and extraction platforms and then you have to go through all the communications stuff you know which was great because we had an entire platoon full of communicators which was amazing and my petuncern he was like a super salty like staff sergeant but he was like the use suck commanders RTO so he knew all the systems inside and out and he was really smart on everything communications I mean he was the kind of guy that could just mega ever stuff like all right man I got this radio a pack of cigarettes and a battery and he's like all right we'll get up in here in a minute you know he'd have Netflix planned somehow you're like I don't know what you did but it's amazing and he did a really a lot of good stuff and really helped the petuncerns how to train them up on all the communication platforms

1:32:19you also have a mobility detachments actually have 88 mics in the company for for like large struck movements and then have moan rigged attachment which was amazing moan rigged attachment and we were the only unit on forthood that was jumping obviously because it's a mechanized installation so it was awesome I had had my own my own rigger shed and my own rigged so like riggers could you know they can make pouches for us and all the stuff that you you want a rigger to do when you're not jumping but they are also like all they had to do with support our company there was not like you know they're getting pulled for you know like the the riggers are dealing with the battalion worth of dudes they're like they don't have to want to help me you know like 130 people and so it was great we really were able to get a lot of cool stuff done we did we actually deploy it we deployed to but we did it like I deployed a cosmo for like a piecekeeping keeping operation for just under a year but what we did get to do while we were there was training like we got to go out and do our lurs mission like we were like we would do overseas but

1:33:23if you get compromised it's like by do you don't buy civil there's not like worried about somebody actually getting shot up I was like we're going to cosmo there's still I didn't even know we were still in cosmo to be honest because that you know everything that had been happening cosmo had been over for like 15 year and so it was great we got to go over there and we would do everything like we would do like we're gonna do a real world lurs mission and briefing up to two star with that Italian two star general and so we would do the MDMP process and everything like we were gonna do an actual mission and just brief all the way up to two star level and then just go do it but you know if you get compromised you have to worry about you getting a table so you kind of you used it as like a training event essentially for sure and we came back better trained from that rotation then ever before because that's all we had to do was focus on training all day every day and so for folks listening to this you don't know worse is a long range reconnaissance and surveillance

1:34:23were these operations you guys were training for were they sort of like the traditional six to eight man worse team digging out hide sites and keeping overwatch on targets and that sort of thing yep and we would just go out set up you know set up on the borders and stuff and just send in tell back and you know doing you know working on guys abilities to take pictures and send that back through a tough book through the radio and get imagery back real world you know like ground assets providing you know pictures and videos and things like that just working through all that stuff because you know there's a whole lot of technical stuff that you have to be good at with the communication side on that and feel expedient antennas and how you're carrying it and in placing it and you know work through all the logistics of trying to keep guys out there for certain amounts I'm because you know in the in the real admission you're supposed to be like 50 to 100 k's in front of the flat for like a real true lurs mission you know which I don't think anybody would ever buy the risk on that's why that lurs companies always go down because really the only way to really

1:35:24get guys out that is to do a hey hoe yeah because part of the link up and ones ever going to buy off on that and the only ones doing those kind of hey hoe missions are going to be with the tier one units you know so I appreciate that I got to hold the position and train up for it but also in the back of my mind you that we would never actually launch out on the real world side of it I and then your next you got promoted to Sergeant Major and that was that the next assignment Airborne. Yes I did three years as lurs coming first and then I went to Airborne school and I was feeling the bill it because the the ops are in major position that Airborne school is actually in the eight position it's just like a potent or sergeant job and I made the honestly I didn't want it I didn't want to go to the Sergeant Major Academy and I to row out of you know Roy Young but he was he was the battalion CSM and me and him are really good friends but he was he spent the majority he grew up and he was an ACO375 as well but I'm he'd probably gone to RSC by the time you got there

1:36:27he spent the majority as career at RSC and he left RSC after being the first aren't there and took the ops are major at STB but he was the battalion CSM when I got there and he's the one he talked me in it to go in the Sergeant Major Academy because I had that you had when I don't know how it works now but when when I was getting looked at you had to actually opt in to to go to be eligible to go to the Academy and I just denied it every year and he talked me into doing it and so I put my packet in I got selected not once you sasma from there but I worked as the ops are major for a little bit and then I took over as the master trainer for a jump master and pathfinder branch and was just kind of you know going to you why with those guys and you know helping fill the bill it's all throughout the the services for all those jobs and then I took the I went to the you sasma from there did Sergeant Major Academy and then I ended up going to the 101st being an ops are major but my time at Airborne school was actually really good I you know I think it was a lot of cool stuff the

1:37:29downside of it was you know to be an instructor at jump master and pathfinder you have to go back through the course and then you have to get 8% or better on everything and all the last time you got JMPI'd on the clock like you were going through as a student but you know I had been a jump master for 10 years and it was a homelining experience to go back and you know and then you have to learn all the classes and be able to like you know be able to give JMPI procedures verbatim you know you have to you know teach drop zones and do all that stuff and so I really had to buckle down and get you know re-blood on all that stuff learn it and then really have to go out and kind of as the insu I see there you have to we also validate everyone else's courses from that school you know because you know I used to saw Kaiser jump master course and we have to go out and validate their courses you know it's the other pathfinder schools and stuff like that we'd have to go out there and make sure they were doing things right and so I spent a lot of my time doing that kind of stuff before I went out to the academy you know on that note you know the army just like

1:38:32the army mistakenly shuts down worse elements and then stands them back up the army stood down the pathfinder course out there at Benning do you think that was a good idea or a bad idea was something lost in doing that I definitely do I feel like the pathfinder course was really good I mean there's so much learning there I don't you know I've done some real world sling loads and the training that I got at pathfinder courses what really like sent me up for success for that because they teach a sling load a sling load course I think at the Ritter School house and it's not anywhere near the is in that same thing as aerosol school I had the luxury of going to aerosol schools a 40-year-old sergeant major because I went to the 101st and that was a complete waste of my time but you know I was going through the course just trying to do the right thing you know but my point being is it like you learn how to do sling loads in aerosol school but you don't really learn how to do sling loads you know you learn how to build a bundle but you don't really understand

1:39:36the to the level that you really need to did you guys do bundle drops in pathfinder also yes yeah yeah I thought so yeah like DZ operations and all that stuff yep and so like it and it's set there's a lot of information and you know I think a big problem with why they want to get rid of pathfinder schools because honestly the graduation rates not great but it's because it's a really tough course you know it's not physical physically tough you go and do some stuff but it's mentally you know like a drop zones pathfinder is hard you get into a lot of like really complicated math and get into the weeds on some stuff I was like man I'm ready for like calculus and trigonometry and all this stuff we're getting into for you know I had to I work you know we were all burning the midnight oil you know uh staying up till two in the morning studying doing flashcards I had no I took no time off when I was there you know so you uh go to the sergeant major academy and get assigned to 101st

1:40:40what was that job I was good I was in third brigade the battalion I was in it was 187 and I was the sergeant major there so I took that job and it was good yeah I mean I enjoyed I had a really good relationship with the with the battalion commander was was really great we got long great the two field grades for this three in the battalion XO we all had it you know the whole top five battalion CSM we all we all got long great and it it was a good job but it was my first time ever being on staff and to be honest I can clearly hated it you know being inside of a office with no windows staring at a computer screen all day just dreaming about what it was like to go out and train again you know and uh just managing military you know borrowed military manpower and taskings and you know uh all the stuff that nobody wants to do and but I had a lot I'd like said I had a really good chain of command my commander was really leaning on me for like trying to build a martian ship program forum and you know just because

1:41:44my background the stuff I had done and uh trying trying to make things better and everything was going really good up until covid happened and that was about I don't know about a year after I had been in position and covid happened and then everything changed you know all the deployments training cycle everything came off uh came off the table and it's like covid's the new enemy and we're fighting that and we were turning the post into like an NBC environment setting up decontamination stations and worried about stuff that we didn't need to be worried about that had absolutely nothing to do with army and the other side of it is I just was like you know I got you know I'm getting the the BMM tracker for bought borrowed military manpower and I'm holding the first rn 10 I'm like hey man do you know that you've had a guy that's been out on the gate for two and a half years and he's ETSing and he's never done anything but work on the gate I'm like this rhetorical I know that you don't know that that person isn't your company but that's what we're doing here is we're

1:42:44gonna sit down and talk about this because we have people that have joined the army to be an iftryman and they came to Fort Campbell and they checked ID cards for two and a half years and they got out of the army and that's how that's our calling card from you know that's how we're getting people back in the army and you know it's like all that kind of stuff it just I don't know I it broke me to the point where I just didn't want to like it to just like set the life out of me I just was not it was like being so feeling so far removed from the man I guess after everything you did yeah for sure and you know it was fun when we finally got to go do some two in line fires I was like sweetly so I can go out there and walk the lane and set the talk up and do that kind of stuff and you know you get a little a little glimpse of like what it used to be like and then you're back in the office stuck to the computer all day and it just was kind of not for me for sure and and then you know you guys get swacked with COVID which kind of upsets and ruins everything that you guys had planned um tell us about the weed up to retirement as you are getting towards

1:43:48your 20 now yeah for sure so when uh for basically COVID happened and I had I was having a lot of issues with like I had seven surgeries two bone grafts from like a motorcycle accident I got into and um I was having issues with my nerves and so I went to get a nerve study done and the doc was telling me that um he's like hey I want to initiate a med board on you he's like if you keep doing what you're doing right now you're from now you might lose the use of your hand and I was like well I've never been more miserable than I am my entire life than I am right now and there's nothing to look forward to so I was at 21 years I'm like let's do it NMEB let's go and I went back and I told the boss I'm like hey just heads up they're initiating NMEB I'm not fighting it like I'm I was just not happy I was in a terrible place yeah yeah my mental health was in the trash I was drinking every day like I was completely miserable I felt like I had nothing to look forward to the

1:44:51stuff that I was going through like I would go to the Brigadess 3 shop and there was a there was a dude in there who was transitioning to a female that was like 64 280 look likely for ignore with a boob job and it was like this is not the army that I joined these around toner bite you're going to call me ma'am I'm like there's no amount of plastic surgery known to man that will ever make you look like a woman I'm sorry just because you're crazy doesn't mean that I am and I can't work in this kind of environment and I was just like ready to be done and so when you initiated the med board on me I just I was like let's go um you know wife got a little nervous you know as to be expected like because the other side of it is going through new meb as a starter major like you know going they put private still drag it out over 18 months like I was like out of the army in 90 days from the time they initiated the book which I you know I was fine with I'm like let's get it over with I'm ready to get out of here you know so I just went hardcore as soon as I found out I was gonna go the meb I went straight to the tb i clinic and and and did the full work up there because they have the

1:45:55intrepid center there because fifth groups there and uh so I went to the intrepid center and that was awesome it's really what helped me out the most probably on the back end as I went to the intrepid center and they do like an intake with you where they have uh doctors from every special tea you know they have like eight different doctors in there and they bring your wife in there for the intake because they know you're gonna ask questions you're not gonna be honest but they know she will be and so they ask her the hard questions that they're not gonna get the right answer from you like what's going on how are you sleeping are you sleeping you know headaches all the stuff that you're gonna lie about she's there to keep what's straight and they really helped me out a lot because I had basically nothing documented in my records anything from tbis for me and the stuff you know because you know it is overseas and you get knocked out something happens like we didn't have digital records back then sometimes it makes any records sometimes it doesn't but I think that you don't want it to be because you just want to keep doing your job yeah yeah so I basically they helped me get everything documented and uh to get everything set up and uh it's really would help you on the VA side when I went to did to do my VA physical you know I had no issues I got

1:47:01straight through you know got a hundred percent no problems and the guy actually doing my actually worked out as a guy who did my physical was uh he was an old 275 medic from like the 80s he had become a PA and got out a lot of stuff but um the intrepid center was great they did everything they they thought they could do um they you know they try to do art therapy and all that stuff and that really really worked what I most of the what I got of it was uh I got an alpha stem machine because I you know I got set up with the care coalition through uh you sock while I was there and my care coalition rep actually I was using alpha stem machine at at the tbi clinic and that was the only thing that was helping my migraines because they give me all kinds of uh migraine medication how do they know how does uh how does that machine work so it's it's it's it's got uh it's got leads the good the clip on your ears and it also has probes that you can use and they clips onto your ears and it uses a different uh wave functions that come through and it it works with different frequencies and they will if if I had if I felt a migraine coming on or something coming on if I put it on

1:48:06initially and it would completely neutralize it if I caught it beforehand but also help you sleep it help you calm down relax uh a lot of the same stuff and it just works the frequencies that it's it's basically running through your head uh through your earlobes and um it was it was awesome it was the only thing it was working because all the medication area when you're only supposed to take the medication like once a week twice a week something like that right but I was having like every single day and the migraines are related to the traumatic brain injuries yeah and I didn't you know I didn't realize how many I was having until they maybe like keep a log and you think you're like oh I don't have a couple a couple a couple three or four days and then you're like you know because it's all the same stuff you know like you're drinking all the time and you're also dehydrated and is it the migraine or is it the alcohols it's uh you know like it's you know your system's so jacked up you know you're also been a human pain cushion your whole life and you've had you know like how many you know I got smallpox and uh what's the what's the one with all the boosters uh anthrax

1:49:08yeah like five six anthrax boosters I don't know like all that stuff definitely played played a key role on it I had dysentery a couple times you know I had dystary nap Iraq and Africa my system was all jacked up and all that combined with the TBI and all the other stuff I was just trying to find a way to like like I couldn't I could not get to sleep at all without either taking meds or drinking it was the only way even if I only got a few hours of sleep it was better than no hours and so like they helped me with the alpha stem machine and I couldn't get one through garment channel so I talked to me suck rap and he was actually got used uh care coalition paid for one and got me for it and that's awesome uh and the TBI client like I say they really do they do uh they try to help but there's a lot of stuff that they just you know there's only so much medicine can can do for you until you really take the holistic approach which is more kind of like after retirement as we're I really started figuring that stuff out so after I retired then I started going to see a function medicine doctor and when I started seeing a function medicine

1:50:10doctor and getting all my blood work done and getting you know I got like my like my testosterone level had been down in the two to three hundredths for over a decade and you know a lot of it was from the TBI's had jacked my whole system up and uh the doctor I was like I will literally do anything I'll try anything just help me feel better you know and she's like yeah she's like I have a plan she put me on these crazy diets I did everything she asked me to do for a year and still couldn't get my testosterone levels up above like two thirty two forty and she's like you're a good candidate for TRT so then she put me on TRT just to get me to the normal ranges like five six like normalcy and then also got all my vitamins and minerals test done and got all my vitamins and minerals where they needed to be got my hormones and balance and then I was like after about a month I was like oh man I'm sleeping I'm feeling better like all these things you know because you're your hormones affect your sleep your immune system your you know your when you get some testosterone is off it throws off everything else it's it's weird and there's just so many things that like

1:51:16you know the army won't have any they won't touch it the VA won't touch it you know so it's just have to got to figure this stuff out on your own you know and so I started saying a function medicine doctor and she helped me start figuring all that out but that only helped part of it you know that help that helped me to get my systems running and doing what so if it didn't help what was going on between my ears you know and so like I started uh I just I was spiraling hard honestly like I had been I'd been drinking a lot and I that happened all the all the whole back into my career after I left regimen you know it's like it's easy when you're in regimen because you know you're your home where you can actually be home and do stuff like a couple months a year you know you have block leave on the front and back end but even in the train you cycle your gone you're doing stuff all the time so if you're burning it down for a couple months out of the year it's not a big deal you know like you're but you know when you stop deploying and then you're home every day and then you know like weekends and nights turns into day times and 40 weekends and then you know you're cracking a beard launch and then before you know it's breakfast

1:52:17and then you're just drinking all the time and that's exactly what happened to me and after I retired and got away from it I was just drinking every single day and it was happened earlier and earlier and I went over uh when you were in cybers you know a p-fachini yes so like p- uh I bought a house in Piznato, and I was over at P-Tangin' Out and we were hanging out over there and I ran into a ranger buddy of mine and that it was visiting and he asked me how I was doing and not like really how I was doing not like the just trying to be nice house you know I was like I'm doing terrible man like I'm like I'm adding suicidal ideations I'm drinking every single day I feel terrible like I don't I don't I will do literally anything to feel better and I just don't know how to shake you know I try to shake an alcohol but wife of gimme else made them more than once and like I'm like look I had sat down with her and I was like look I don't I'm not drinking because I want to be drunk I'm like I just want to sleep I'll do anything just to get a couple hours even if it's three

1:53:20hours it's better than no hours and I'm like I don't know another way to sleep outside it's taking sleep meds every day and ambience I need better than alcohol you know and so I saw I was talking to him and he's like dude he's like you need to go do we need to get you down to do plant medicine and I was like well what's plant medicine and he's like he's like well you know you got to you know he tried to start breaking it down to me and I was like well let me stop you right there because you know my spend a nurse you know for 20 years and she's have a lot more questions that I'm not going to be answered I was like will you be willing to come over the house and talk to Lindsay for a couple hours he's like yeah so we go back to the house and he gave her the whole spiel and everything with plant medicine stuff he put me in contact with a guy named Dr. Polanco who was a neurologist who'd been working with just soft guys for the last 15 years using ibogaine and five of me ODMT to help with TVIs and PTSD and I talked to him on the phone and kind of told him everything that I was going through and he's like your perfect candidate

1:54:20so I'll put you in touch with special operations care funder the non-for-profit it'll pay for your trip the sock-f the special operations care fund rep got a hold of me they basically just sent me a check I deposit a check on my account and then I just paid Dr. Polanco's organization's the mission within is the name of the non-for-profit that they use and then you're within a couple weeks I was down in Mexico it was me and and up five other guys and there was a two unit guys here on seven cup five guys before that and I think three seals and me and it was the same for all of us for sit we get there we fly and to like we fly into California we get we get linked up and then we drive across close to Tijuana and go to that go to the house you're inside of a it's basically a big house inside of a gated community and there's a retry there's a retired a

1:55:20stillteam six guy who like lives in the house and hails the security and does a lot of stuff and you go in there and it's the same story everyone's just like angry all the time no one can sleep everyone just wants to feel better we're all losing our families it's just like the same story um we sit around we kind of share a little bit about what we're going through not really what we're going through but like all of our symptoms like I can't sleep I've got migraines all this stuff and and when we got there they set us up they did a year analysis we did an EKG to make sure that we're having any hard issues make sure we're not anything that was going to interact with it you know because some guys are you know they're really strong with some dudes are on ketamine and cocaine and drugs and all kinds of stuff just trying to make it through the day yeah so that you just just to clear all that make sure you're not on anything and the other thing was because i have a game is a really strong stimulant and if you have heart conditions or you're already on stimulants it can be bad and so basically it's it's you know it's part of a root of a tree that grows in Africa and the

1:56:23Bolliti tribe uses it they use it for kind of those those people use it for like becoming a man ceremony is in like to go to speak with their elders and we're just trying to figure out how to live our lives and that's what we're using it for and then they grind it up and put it in jail caps you take the jail caps and you know the place that I went we're hooked up you're hooked up to an EKG you can have you poor there's neurologists and two nurses there you're basically in a hospital bed inside of a house and the the doctor and the nurses are there with you all night if you need your bed change if you need fluids you know they're there to respond to everything so it's really a clinical environment inside of a house and I took the I took the plant medicine and I was you know I was kind of freaking out to be honest because I was the last one that it really it really started to work on so like everyone is starts just kind of going under and they're breathing having it going crazy and one hour goes by and then two hours goes by and then three hours goes by and like oh man I'm freaking out because like I took the same doses everybody else

1:57:24but I'm just like I'm like I could go drive a car right now and I you know I bring them back in they're talking to me and they end up redosing me and then within like five minutes I was out and I was out with for probably 18 hours I was under oh yeah and so like I the other part of is like I start here in the next day people are getting up moving around I'm like they redose me I'm never coming out of this you know I'm being it forever which is just you know it's all part of being it's all part of being in your own head but part of the plant medicine as I say you get you get the experience that you need not the one that you want and for me it takes you directly to the trauma that causes all the issues that you're dealing with and for me that took me directly back to my childhood and I don't have any issues talking about this stuff because you know I brought a book it's actually in the process of getting edited right now and be publishing it also everyone would be out there to hear about it but for me it took me to trade to my childhood and you know when I was when I was a kid my stepdad used to get drunk high beat the brakes off me

1:58:25like every single day and I remembered all that but he was also molestimian I didn't remember any of that and it was also getting my sister and I didn't remember any I'd block all that part out so like no amount of therapy or anything ever would help me because I didn't know what happened I completely blocked it out of my head and for me what I had to do is go back and re-experience it and make peace with it and weigh the medicine works it takes you directly to that point and you have to make peace with it and if you don't it just starts twisting you inside and out you'll start throwing up you'll start crapping your pants you're just a little turn you inside out until you finally submit and then like peace kind of just like washes over you and you feel safe and clean the best way I can explain is like 30 years of therapy and one night with yourself you know because like you can you can go to any place any any taste smell thought anything you've ever seen in your entire life it's all in your brain it's just whether you have access to it but it's all there everything in

1:59:26your grow like you can remember it's just whether your brain gives you access well when you play a medicine it just removes the veil and then you can go directly like go to any point in your life and it's like watching a movie in 4k and I had to go back to those things and re-experience it and you know I hadn't cried in 30 years and then I cried for like 24 hours straight like deep body shake and soul shaking like release of just trauma just coming out and pouring out and pouring out and you know like I the other part of it is when you come out of it the next day there's a therapist there and she's also done the plant medicine so she kind of helps you deal with the things that you're going through and you know how tell her what's going on with me and she's like you're probably not she's like you may or may not like to hear this but you know if it gives you any peace 85% of the guys who come through this program all had the exact same experiences you you know and so when you realize it like you know the majority of guys is special operations they're just like hurt kids you know we learned how to compartmentalize stuff when we're grade school

2:00:28so watch your buddy die on target and you're all right back out the next night it's way easier and so that I don't know good or bad but it did make me feel a little better that was that there's a documentary on Netflix about the seals going down there and doing this and there's a guy that you interview in the documentary and he was actually a ranger as I recall and he he says something during it he says without child abuse there wouldn't be special operations and that's like a very shocking thing even for me to hear but there's a very there's a very hard truth in that I think yeah for sure because like I say it's it's you learn to compartmentalize when you're in grade school yeah and the resiliency and yeah and so doing it as an adult just comes second nature it's not a big deal you know you like I you know I was compartmentalizing stuff just to show up the class you know in elementary school so like doing it to go on target is like a sub-eatured by then you know and so that that's really what gave me my life back that moment and

2:01:32that was like January 2021 because I retired about six months before that like July and I went down the Mexico I did that experience you know it's it's the same thing for all the guys we all we all went through it and you know everybody shows up they're angry they got scales on their face and by the time we leave everybody's just hugging a lov you man it's so great you know you just feel like you get your life back in like one night you know so I began makes you deal with the problems and then the the five-o-me-o-dm-t on the back end was kind of like a warm hug you know it's like the next you go through the whole next day you process and the next the following next day you do the ceremony for that and for me it's just I had to I had to like experience the first thing I saw was like my step-dead's face and then like it I felt like complete terror and then nothing and then it felt like a the best way I can explain is it felt like a warm hug from God that came

2:02:33across my entire body that made me just feel at peace and finally safe for the first time in my whole life and I came away from that experience just a completely total changed person wow and I came back and you know my family you know my wife's a godson she stuck with me through all of it she she it's really what gave me my relationship back with God you know like I grew up in the church but I had a really bad experience because like you know my dad and my grandfather were both ministers but in my my opinion they were both false prophets and doing one thing and bonding pulpit and doing another thing in real life and and so I had a lot of church hurt and it really opened me back up to where I was able to reestablish that relationship with God and I really like just started reading the Bible on my own and really understanding it and like okay so I just had a bad experience it wasn't that you know because I I curse God a lot over the years going through all that stuff all the things I went through I just like you know if there was a god

2:03:34how could this stuff happen to me and I got my life back you know it took me all that time and I finally got my life back and I get home and I was a completely different person overnight the other thing with I began is it takes away all your addictive qualities so if you're addicted to drug if you're a heroin addict you never want to heroin again if you're an alcoholic you want alcohol if sugar all of it you want any of it as long as you come back and you do reintegration properly and you establish new habits you know like it like for me personally when I would start getting amped up well I can see it and she'd be like hey calm down just go sit in your room put your headphones on I put like spa music on and just relax do some breath work for a few minutes and then I would be good to go or before I would just be like it amped up like time to go hit the bottle you know so I can calm back down but you establish those new habits and this would really fix me you know and then I you know it's been six years and I don't drink at all I still don't crave alcohol and it's it's what what really dealt with from drinking to every single day to you know I haven't touched you really in six years and I don't crave it I don't want it like um

2:04:38but it really just helped me get my life back help me get my family back my you my boys were young and really get to experience them because I was retired and then you know went through all that I got my relationship back to God I got into church started getting my life back together and then at some point me and my wife both decided we're gonna sell everything by an RV and just travel across a country and that's what we did and we sold everything and we just lived our best life and we traveled across a country with our it was me and my wife my two sons and our two dogs when we bought an RV and we just cruised and we went to you know all the national parks and held our bucket list places and spent every single moment with each other every single day just being present experiencing everything I feel like all the time I had lost I was making back you know from all the deployments and all the time and you know all the time in my life I had just lost just from not being present just being drunk or being passed out or you know causing problems at home

2:05:40I was trying to get all those moments back and it gave me memories that I'll never forget and then through that we went on our RV trip for almost a year and we ended up selling over at now we're you know just outside of Huntsville and some are real Alabama and we found this place we're on an eight and a half acre a little homestead here we've got chickens and ducks and pigs and goats and you know just trying to live our best life here but hey man you're you're in Huntsville and you're a jujitsu guy do you know Michael case Michael case I don't these are these are three seven five guy okay yeah I know I know I'll have to talk to Mike but I think he might be involved or even own a jujitsu dojo out there okay run on yeah for sure oh wait we pull I'll pull up his info for you yeah no please um so you mentioned that you have a book um that's on the way what's the title

2:06:41people pre-order it yeah it's it's called it's called refined by fire um I've got the first six chapters back from from the editor we're working through it I just started establishing social media pages I can send that to you um but uh once the books through editing will start pre-orders and as we start the process um but it's called refined by fire and it's really about my entire my entire memoir from like childhood through present day I lost my seven year old son eight months ago to cancer and part of our like we came we settled back here in in Alabama we started living um living our best life here we we found a great church we started doing everything really everything was going perfectly and then one day my son came to to the breakfast table and eat I train both my boys there in jiu jitsu and everything in the night before we were at training he was kind of he had rolled his ankle and was kind of dragging his foot around but uh around the house and and I was like hey

2:07:42what's going on is your foot um are you dragging it because you heard it you know at jiu jitsu or is it just because you know you're having issues these are gone oh no it's fine he went back to pretending to be a dinosaur or whatever and then next morning at breakfast he reached for his glass with his right hand like always does take take a drink out and and he put his hand down and switch his other hand and start around like that's weird I'd like you not grab your glass he was having issues with it so me and my wife took him out the garage and started doing like some mobility stuff with him he couldn't keep his balance his grip strength was off he was definitely having some neurological something going on and so we know my wife took him to the ER and as she called me and uh they did like uh what they call like a dirty MRI just a quick one for a couple minutes just to see if they're something going on because he was present like he had a stroke basically and uh they found a mass in his head and then so they told us we needed to to do us a dated MRI and we left for uh St. Jude like the next day and did us a dated MRI and found out that he had a DIPG brain stem tumor which is like a fast growing fast acting uh brain tumor that there's no known cure for

2:08:49and uh they gave us a prognosis of nine to twelve months and we got six and we did uh and we went through everything within uh to try to to do things the right way and uh we can put it to change everything but everything holistically we you know we went through radiation at St. Jude for three months but um I did so many we as a family we did so many things to try to to try to to help his health we we did uh we hired a functional medicine practitioner as it were helping us that way um we did a lot of fundraising uh I got got with some donors that helped us you know I've got I've got a hyperbaric chamber in my house that uh we were using for a treatment hi we were in the hydrogen therapy pen format we were putting them on a stricchito diet um we were using cannabinoids we were like a deterium depleted water and chlorine dioxide solution is like every every everything that we were doing independently can cure cancer on its own and we were doing like

2:09:51eight or nine things all combined together once then we brought him back to almost a complete and total for recovery um and then he contracted RSV and then he crashed and within like a week or two we lost him and then uh what what is RSV uh it's uh what's RSV's to have where it's uh it's a it's a respiratory virus um like but it's a respiratory virus that he got and he has a he had a uh a gene deletion as body that didn't allow him to detox properly so he wasn't able to detox it and his uh basically he just kept he would uh he would kept getting snotty and would end up getting flim and he couldn't generate enough power to cough the flim up and we were having a suction him and uh he just just kept crashing over there then he stopped eating and then you know he was getting calories in and he had already lost a lot of weight from all the treatments that he'd been through and we had a really really hard six months um but he obviously like I say he almost made a full

2:10:53complete recovery and then we ended up for a seventh birthday we took him and uh we took him down to Florida and had awesome weekend on the beach with his brother and we went to uh to alligator alley because he loved reptiles and and spent the day there and we went and did a commoto dragon experience at the Birmingham Zoo and had awesome time there and his cousins and grandparents came up and we had that whole week of just the best week of his life and then he he crashed after that and uh we lost him and really the book is about my whole experience from all of the things that I went through childhood trauma and abandonment issues and you know really about my walk with God from the time I was a kid till present day and how he was there with me the entire time and I just I didn't realize it I had to walk through all that stuff to really find out and honestly I feel like my son he was just like my own little guardian angel here he was the one that really brought me back to God because he would he asked me all the hard questions constantly he you know he was six

2:11:56years old and prayed like a seasoned preacher he asked me all the questions that I'd have to get into the end of scripture and really dig in and to give him the answers on he would tell me when we were going to radiation he had to go under anesthesia every single day so he five days a week for six weeks he was under anesthesia doing radiation and uh every time he would go under he would tell us that he's like he was good to go he saw Jesus on the other end when he was under that and he was fine and you know it broke my heart here and that because like I'm glad you're seeing that but at the same time I'm not ready to let you go and I do feel like as we get closer to the end kind of the veil gets lifted um and we get to see more and no more but you know he he saved my life he brought me back to God and he is I'll never know the sight of heaven the amount of people he's brought back to Christ you know like Ranger buddies that I've had phone conversations with and talked to about the gospel and yeah I can remember when we were at St. Jude going through the worst of it one of my my Ranger buddies called me up and asked me um how was going and I told

2:13:01him that's terrible man he was like I was like I'll wake up before everybody wakes up and I cry for hours and then I'd deal with the day and then once everybody goes to sleep I'm crying again and like I'm doing everything I can I'm praying to God every day just just to give me what I need just to get through today and he's like well I don't know how you do it man I'd be I'd be gone I'd be drunk passed out and did somewhere and I was like I would be too man uh if it wasn't for my faith and and it's what really keeps me going every single day and he's like well I don't even believe in God but I pray for your little boy every day and I was like well you're halfway there I get you across the finish line yeah I'm sorry man I mean that's that's as bad as it gets um but it sounded like your your son made his peace with it and understood what was happening absolutely yeah did and yeah you know he you know there's multiple times through that process before we went to St. Jude our church had big thing together were they brought everybody into the church and we

2:14:02invited him with the will and prayed over him but why it thought everybody was coming in so he could pray over them and so he got up on stage and started praying over the congregation and so like he's just that was just him you know he was always a firecracker always you know he knew way more than uh he should have at his age and that and I genuinely believe it's just because you know like I say as I think as you get closer to the bill it's lifted and he just had more knowledge than I could ever retain in a lifetime wow and uh so you guys are still down in Huntsville and now you are a jujitsu instructor yeah so I coach jujitsu pretty much full time I do it every day but Friday and Sunday and I crazy bahan Huntsville so I want one of the main coaches up there and teach about you know about 15 classes a week plus you know my training days you know up there 18 to 20 classes a week or so and then when I'm out there I'm here doing the day so

2:15:08that's usually most days I teach a couple during the day but the majority of them are afternoon and tonight because that's you know most people are you know the kids classes start around three clock and they go up through the evening with adult classes and so I teach then and during the day I'm doing stuff here on the homestead I'm home school my my other son Cole and so I do homeschool with him and there's always you know like say we got a ton of pros I spend all day to day building the chicken coop you know for for animals out here so there's plenty to keep me busy around here that's great and we will we'll put some links down the description of this podcast for all the people who are listening and are interested in following up on on that and uh interested in pre-ordering your book when it's available yeah I love you amazing I appreciate that well thank you so much for sharing your story with us um from front to back I mean it's it's amazing thank you and I really appreciate the opportunity and I hope that uh the message I get across here more than anything is you know all of my experiences I've I'm just humbled to be

2:16:12to be able to walk amongst giants for the times I don't want anybody to think that I was in you know and here by any means trying to to bone horn about anything because I I don't ever felt like you know I said in post-recentrum the whole time I was a ranger I ever felt like I really belong there um there's so many amazing men there um I was just really really humbled and honored to be a part of the organization while I was there um I really I really hope that you know my story can help other people there's you know because it's not just rangers it's not special operations guys everybody we're we're all stressed to the max like across the country you know whether you're a doctor a nurse you know a high-level executive we're all facing the same struggles you know we all have in post-recentrum we're all just trying to do our best to just make it through the day um and that's really why I wrote the book is just you know whether you're a veteran who can't sleep or you're a high-level executive just trying to make it through the day or you're any

2:17:14r nurse coming off shift you know there's there's always an answer like you don't have to take your own life you don't have to drown yourself in booze you don't have to turn the alcohol on drugs like you know God's there you just have to you just have to let them into your life thank you will and um please stay in touch anything before we get going I said I just want to really say I really appreciate the time I really appreciate the opportunity um I really hope that everyone gets something out of this um and I really hope that um once my book my book should be available pretty soon uh I'll see the links to try to follow up there and I hope that I can help people with that that's that's really lonely monthly goal is to try to to share my son's story because you know his life was short but very large and uh to try to share the gospel with as many people as possible and thank you so much for the opportunity yeah thank you will thank you for reaching out and doing this and um for

2:18:15everyone else out there uh I guess that there'll be some links down in the description and thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you. Hello everyone if you're here in this uh you are not a member of the patreon you can get your hands on ad free episodes that come out early and you can ask us questions maybe we'll answer them you can also watch the team house podcast completely ad free and early and you can also watch it live as we interview our guests um and it's the best way to support the channel so if you can if you're open to it you can go to patreon.com slash the teamhouse that link is in the description uh we appreciate the supporters and we hope you would consider being one so it's patreon.com slash the teamhouse thanks guys.