Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
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Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
Tank, Trauma, and Pink Donuts: Andrew Pavlica's Journey
Andrew Pavlica takes us through his profound military journey as a tank gunner in the U.S. Army, revealing the complex human experience behind the uniform. From his early days at Fort Knox training on M1A2 tanks to the dusty streets of Iraq during two combat deployments, Andrew shares stories that few civilians ever hear.
The heart of this conversation centers on what Andrew calls "March Madness" – a horrific period during his second deployment when insurgent attacks intensified dramatically. With remarkable vulnerability, he recounts his heroic actions to save Sergeant McCoy after a Bradley Fighting Vehicle was struck by an explosively formed projectile (EFP). This life-altering moment – running 500 meters through enemy fire with only basic medical equipment and saving a critically burned soldier – would haunt him for years while simultaneously demonstrating the profound impact of his combat lifesaver training.
Beyond combat experiences, Andrew opens up about his challenging transition to civilian life. His story weaves through failed relationships, struggles with identity, attempts to find adrenaline through mountain biking, and the difficult search for meaningful work after service. With remarkable candor, he discusses how these struggles eventually led him to cybersecurity, stable family life, and finding community through programs like Michigan Warrior Hockey.
This conversation offers rare insight into how combat experiences reshape a person's perspective, relationships, and approach to civilian life. Andrew's journey from battlefield chaos to finding purpose and peace serves as both a testament to resilience and a reminder of the complex challenges our veterans face long after they take off the uniform.
Today is Thursday, march 20th 2025. We're talking with Andrew Pavlika, who served the United States Army. So good evening Andrew, good evening sir. So it's good to see you here. I'm glad you made it.
Speaker 2:Yes, excellent, all right. Glad it cleared up.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to start very yeah, no kidding. I almost called you this afternoon like hey sure you want to come here because it's snowing and all kinds of snowing and freezing, and then when I got on the highway it was bright, sunny.
Speaker 2:So welcome to Michigan.
Speaker 1:Yep, all four seasons one day, absolutely Well, we'll start out kind of easy. When and where were you born?
Speaker 2:I was born in Concord, New Hampshire, 1985. Uh, shortly after my family moved to Naperville, Illinois, a suburb outside of Chicago about 40 minutes. And then I want to say in 1999, right before I started high school, my family moved to Howell, Michigan, Started high school there and enlisted after that.
Speaker 1:Okay, what was it like growing up? Did you have brothers and sisters?
Speaker 2:Yes, All my siblings are dramatically older than me. No offense to anybody, but my youngest older sibling is 10 years older than me, so we kind of grew up in the same household, so to speak. But they moved out pretty quickly when I, well before we moved to Michigan.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for all intents and purposes you were kind of like an only child.
Speaker 2:For a little bit. Yeah, I was definitely spoiled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, it's funny you say Naperville, and here's why Because I was stationed at Great Lakes when I was in the Navy, so I'm familiar with that area. We used to go to kind of some of the smaller towns on weekends because it was quiet, but I served in the Navy with a guy from Naperville and, I swear, on like a weekly basis I meet people from Naperville. I don't know if it's like a breeding ground or what it is. Hopefully a breeding ground for success. Yes, yes, in fact, the people I know from Naperville are all very successful, so you're in good company. So what prompted the moves Was that, like your dad's work, your mom's work?
Speaker 2:So my mom worked in a pharmacy so after we moved to Michigan she just took care of the house. My dad was a 3M abrasive specialist so naturally with the big three automotive industry it was easier for us to move out to Michigan instead of him traveling mostly during the week to do calls on plants and stuff like that. Okay, just kind of made sense, I think.
Speaker 1:All right, I got it. Well, speaking of mom and dad, tell us a little bit growing up and what are some of your memories of your mom.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh. Um, I want to say a lot of them were Christmas morning type stuff where you know you had your mom in the eighties and nineties, since it was so common to smoke cigarettes in your home. She had that uh, short kind of hair, the puffy hair, and she would just sit back and watch me open gifts with the dogs running around. Um, I remember her taking me to football practice and helping me carry my gear, uh to and from the car, uh, what else. I remember her telling me to not cross certain streets when I was super little, like 75th street, I wasn't allowed to go across that in Naperville I did often but I wasn't allowed to.
Speaker 2:It was like a four lane kind of Grand River speed from what I remember and I remember her picking me up from skateboarding and rollerblading back in the day, and that's the bulk of it, I think, is stuff like that. Yeah typical mom stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great mom stuff. Yeah, exactly. Well, tell me a little bit about dad. What do you remember about him?
Speaker 2:So he was a recovering alcoholic. I didn't see, I was too young at the time when no, I don't even know if I was born when he went sober. Of course, that's something you struggle with your entire life. I never had any weird abuse or, you know, I'd see mom and dad get into fights and stuff like that, but most of the time he was traveling.
Speaker 2:And the reason I told you about the alcoholism thing is he would take me to his AA meetings on Sunday mornings because they had like the best display of donuts, oh, because they had like the best display of donuts, oh. And so that's where I got my love for pink donuts and sprinkles aside from the Simpsons, was that. So he used to take me to those. And then he would also come to the football games, baseball games. He used to help me pitch because I used to love pitching.
Speaker 2:I don't remember if I was good at it. I think I could only throw like two cool pitches and that was a fastball and a knuckleball, and, uh, he used to give me signs from the bleachers like number one or number two, what to throw, and I would try to. I would try to do something like that, but I I remember a lot of that stuff and then, um, in high school he was obviously home a lot more cause he'd go to work for 3m stuff and come home or, uh, be on calls all day, stuff like that. Um, yeah, and that was really the bulk of it is kind of similar activities, just gone, working a lot more back and forth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you think you're probably your older siblings. Probably saw him when he was drinking, but by the time you came around he'd gotten sober.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and I, from what I understand, obviously I wasn't there is that there was a little bit of, I guess, verbal abuse uh-huh um, which I can see now in his older age and seeing him progress into like alzheimer's and dementia, I can kind of see it how that would happen. But um't, yeah, that's, that's. The bulk of the memories is just him going to game practices. He used to take me skateboarding too and drop me off at the skate park and how or, I'm sorry, when we lived in how I'll drop me off at the skate parks around around the city or Nova and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wish I'd have known about your affinity with pink donuts, because we're right down the street from a place called Groovy Donuts, oh gosh, and they are like the best donuts I've ever eaten, hands down. So yeah, next time we get together I'll make sure I have some Groovy Donuts for you.
Speaker 2:Okay, have you been to Colorado Springs before? I have not. If you get the chance to travel there, there's obviously lots to do, but please go to Amy's Donuts. Okay, do, but please go to Amy's Donuts. There's two shops, I think, currently, and they have this thing called the Elvis. It's a regular donut with a hole in the middle, nutella, salty potato chips crushed up and then a little bit of bacon, and it is obnoxiously tasty. I feel like I could just gain five pounds. Talking about a donut, I feel to my thighs right now. I'm going to have to go, do I'm?
Speaker 1:going to have to go run around the block when we're done.
Speaker 2:I'm not doing any cardio.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, yeah. When I got out of the army I decided unless someone's chasing me, I'm not doing cardio. So I'm not going to run anywhere. So it sounds like a really nice kind of regular childhood growing up, um, you know, other than moving around a little bit, but uh, it sounds like it didn't really hurt you too much. So talk a little bit about school. How was school for you?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, I can remember a lot from middle school, junior high. I don't remember teachers, I just remember experiences, because that's when I started breaking rules, kind of like crossing 75th street, skateboarding on curbs that we'd get yelled at about. You know the typical stuff. Um, my first girlfriend was there and then, of course, we moved away. So you know that's kind of how the stories go. But, um, and then when I got to high school, obviously I didn't have any friends in Howell Um, the first visitation I guess the Howell high school where they show you the locker rooms where everything's at my mom came with me cause I couldn't drive yet.
Speaker 2:I was 13 or 14 and I wore this weirdest like bowling shirt, right, it was all black and had huge collar like a zoot suit, yeah, and it was short sleeve and it had a white stripe going down the middle with pearl buttons. I had my hair like bleach tipped and like gelled up. So I was thinking I was looking fly, but like nowadays I'm like, oh, that's weird looking. But um, my mom and I were going to my locker room checking out or the lockers checking out my classes and stuff, and a group of girls approached me and started talking to me and I apparently got nervous and my mom started backing away so I could talk to new friends, meet girls or whatever right, and I guess I started backing up towards her. So that's like my first memory of howell, aside from when we got there the builders and realtor were like it doesn't snow much here and we got the biggest snowfall, aside from this year, that howell's had in like 30 or 40 years.
Speaker 2:And uh, high school was fine. I mean, we did, uh I did a lot of skateboarding. Then I stopped playing football. I just stuck with skateboarding and mountain biking because that was kind of my passion. I was awful at skateboarding, so I was naturally the film and photography guy. Yeah, uh, anything from like 35 millimeter film where I'm developing, developing it under a black light in a lab with all the smelly good chemicals, or you know, walking around with a fisheye canon, uh, camera and lens, like getting this close to a skateboard, like within a few inches, trying to make everything look huge and big, travel a lot. Weekends we would spend going out to Detroit or Chicago to film skateboarding or to get cool shots or just hang out, and then during the week, occasionally I think I skipped school six or seven times at most to go to the skate parks when they're empty. Yeah, so that was a big thing, um oh, let's see.
Speaker 1:Well, did you have like a core group of people that you skateboarded with then? Was it like a yeah, like a skateboard gang or something?
Speaker 2:yeah, it was like a group, definitely wasn't a gang, unless like, uh, actually had part of the tattoo, one of my buddies that was in the group. He was a year ahead of us. His name was Kyle Monson. He died in high school when he was supposed to be graduating, and he used to draw, you know, tattoo ideas and some of us got those tattoos in memory of him because he was just, he was a cool dude. He wasn't very good at skateboarding, but everybody was friends with him and you know we wanted to remember him and but everybody is friends with them and you know we wanted to remember him and I ended up with the worst tattoo Like.
Speaker 2:I've got some really bad tattoos, but it's. Our group was called the Hessians and I'm not a neo-Nazi or anything crazy. I was dumb when I got this, but he did two S's that were similar to lightning bolts, right, and that's a typical sign with German fascists and stuff like that, which I'm not. I regret this, but um, that's his name right there, so I'll probably eventually get that covered up they did a nice job on his name, though.
Speaker 2:I mean that that looks really nice well, he, they took the exact paper and made a stencil out of it. That's why it kind of looks like pen scratch. Yeah, so, um, but I think that was that was really the majority of my time was spent going to skateboarding. Then I got older, I went to house parties uh, you know keggers and all that stuff, and I'm still lightweight, so like two or three beers and I would not be good to do anything. Yeah, so it's still pretty similar to this day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was known as one beer bill, really yes, one beer bill, cause that's all I could drink.
Speaker 2:It was terrible, but I don't know. We had some. We had some cool safe parties and if there was an adult there um, they usually took everybody's keys.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, like, if kids are going to go do nasty stuff, you know that's potentially really dangerous. I think that was the best option was to allow that to happen in somewhat of controlled environment, um, but if I saw my kids doing that, nope, not allowed, grounded forever.
Speaker 1:Right, well, I think our kids have to benefit from our mistakes, right? Absolutely, you know not that I count some of that stuff as mistakes, but some of that stuff could have really gone sideways when I was a kid, you know, and I didn't want them to have to go through that, so I understand that pretty tough on them. So you, uh, you, you make it through high school. Uh, did you go right into the service after graduation or did you hang out for a while? How did that all?
Speaker 2:evolve. Um, I was actually in the delayed entry program depth, Okay and so I signed, I think, almost all my documentation the winter that I was supposed to graduate in the spring and then I went to OSUT in September, so I had the summer to screw around, make decisions, party hang out with friends, do cool stuff, and then just like that I was off. Why the Army? I didn't inherently enjoy talking to the Marines. Pretty good with first impressions and the Marines that I've met at the time. I've met a lot of great Marines.
Speaker 2:But the Marines at the recruiting office, the ones that I used to run and do cardio with and work out with, were very egotistical and I kind of enjoyed working with the army guys more. They were seem more down to earth instead of rigid, which is a vast difference, because there's a bunch of kick-ass marines out there and there's some good kick-ass army folk. But the marines are very rigid and I was like I kind of want to just do tanker stuff, yeah. And so I enlisted to become a tanker. Even though they have tankers, I was like I don't want to be rigid, I want to be able to grow a cool mustache in the field and all sorts of stuff, yeah well, it makes sense and you know I've.
Speaker 1:I found that I used to recruit. Don't tell anyone. I was a recruiter for four years, but people who joined the marine corps were going to join the marine corps like. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like oh yeah that's just what they were going to do. They weren't going to talk, they weren't going to shop services, they weren't. They knew that that's what they wanted. Same, on the flip side, is people who don't want to be Marines know that they don't want to be Marines, absolutely yeah. So you, uh, you signed up, you made it through delayed entry, um, and then you head out to basic training, um, talk to us a little bit about, like what was that initial impression when you stepped off the bus into basic training?
Speaker 2:oh, the shark attack.
Speaker 1:Or the processing bus. Well, here's the funny thing that I've found like okay. So I went to boot camp back in the 80s. I graduated in 83 and I was in boot camp in the 80s and it was different.
Speaker 1:Um, first of all, I was in the navy to start and I ended up in the in the army long story, um, but like from the minute you got there, they were on you like the whole time. And what I keep hearing from people who are, you know, a little bit younger, from a different generation, is like when you first got there, it was pretty chill and then, all of a sudden, like the switch flipped when you, when you uh, started actual training. I'm just wondering what was your experience?
Speaker 2:So I got held up at processing with the group for I think a week and they had, I think, more of the retiring drill sergeants there and we got into learning about marching, pt, that kind of stuff, and then that was about I really want to say it was a week, but I feel like it was slightly less, like six days or something. And then we went to our actual basic training unit with our long-term drill instructors and that was vastly different, I will say off the bat, though that was, everybody was looking at it like it was detrimental to their health. They were scared. I was having a blast. I wasn't like being a smarty pants or smart ass to the drill sergeants. I wasn't being rude, nasty, condescending to anybody. I was just, I was having fun. Nobody likes having fun, getting smoked all day, but everything else I enjoyed. Right, you know, getting screamed at, getting yelled at, like I didn't laugh, I took it very seriously, but I was like this is all just, this is all training and it's all going to matter at some point. Yeah, so I I don't know if I had just had this maturity level about it, but, um, for a lot of people it was rough. We had a gentleman try to hang himself with a vacuum cord outside the window of his barracks. We were on the third floor and the vacuum hit the ground. I mean it's not funny, but it's funny, it's kind of funny, yeah, anyway, there's so many better ways to just leave. Aside from that, some of my friends I went to basic with actually deployed with. So that was. That was pretty cool, and a lot of them became long-term friends like I still talk to them. There's a few that I see every so often. Um, but it was a good experience.
Speaker 2:I had the most wicked drill sergeant. Really he was intimidating but again, I took it seriously. But he was just very intimidating in the fact that he was an old school mexican gangster and he was like, I'm not racist or anything. He was the biggest mexican dude you've ever seen in your life, sleeves rolled up. His arms were like bigger than my thighs, tattoos from the fingernails all the way up and he just had big cheeks. He always had had a big lip and a grizz and he carried around with those gas station pickles in a bag I never saw him bite it, but he would always have one.
Speaker 1:What was that?
Speaker 2:all about. I think that was just like his thing. Maybe he enjoyed it as a morning snack and we just never saw him eat it. I don't recall exactly. But he used to talk real deliberately and slow. And I'll give you an example. I tell my wife and steps on this story all the time, cause I think it's hilarious. But you know, at the end of basic, when you're turning in all your gear, you're taking the tape off your helmet and your Kevlar and you have to clean the adhesive off of it. I had turned mine in and I'm sitting in the hallway and the drill sergeant's checking everybody's gear in his office and he's talking to like a platoon leader or something I forgot what it's called, but the young basic trainee that's kind of leading the group. He's like whose helmet is this? And you know, somebody's like Private Pavlika Drill Sergeant. And so I'm listening at this point because I heard my name.
Speaker 2:Right and keep in mind. I'm, like I want to say about 30 feet from his office, in like a dorm room, so everything's quiet for me to hear it and he's like Private Pavlika. He's going to come to my office later, so I could destroy him.
Speaker 2:And you know this huge, built, muscular dude with a little mustache and a big grizz, I just instantly like put my face my hands. I was like I ended up not getting destroyed, clearly, but he could have done it if he wanted to. Oh yeah, it could have wrecked my night, yeah. But, uh, basic training, man, I had so much fun, to be honest, and the like. The rappelling wall, gosh, the ruck marches sucked. But you know, as tankers we need to learn to, I guess, walk once in a while, right. But um, yeah, the Mount site training I really took to heart. Um, not because I watched a lot of navy seal movies or anything crazy like that, but I really enjoyed, like cqb stuff which comes to play later on. Um, but that was my most enjoyable part was the mount site training with the paintball guns. They didn't have simunition at the time and the rappelling tower was a blast actually.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think I said F? You to a drill sergeant on the rappelling tower. I was getting up there and I was roped in. I was getting into my like L position kind of and uh, I started to say to myself I was like I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. And then this little drill sergeant. He was like barely 5'4" but he could scream and he starts to go push me. He's like you could do a private you could do. I was like don't you touch me. And then I roped down. But I'm sweating to this day because I feel like I should not have gotten away with that.
Speaker 1:I probably should have been shoved off. It sounds like you absorbed this whole thing. You just took it all in. I love the attitude that this may seem ridiculous now, but it's going to mean something later on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really does, and that's what some people don't get, and that's why you got people who try and hang themselves with a vacuum cleaner, because they take it personally or they don't understand the whole basic premise behind what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yep, and one more thing about basic. We had a drill sergeant that was on the verge of retiring and he wore his Freemason rings and he must've been a pastor singer because he could call cadence. I would give you goosebumps. It was like going to church, it was ridiculously good and, uh, I could still like hear him to this day. I can't remember his name but, like his ability to call cadence and sing was incredibly good. It was nice to listen to, especially in days of chaos like that it could, it can.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, if someone's doing it right, it could be a like, a like art or like music definitely agree.
Speaker 2:You could have. You could have put a piano to it. It was so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes when I uh when I'm out walking because again I don't uh when I'm out walking cause again, I don't run but when I'm out walking, I'll throw on cadence uh, cause you can get it on. You know, apple music or wherever you want to get it, they have cadence Uh, and it reminds me of all that. I think that's one thing I do miss from basic training. Was that piece of it. Cause you're marching, no one's messing with you and you're hearing this, or you're running and no one's messing with you and you're hearing this, or you're running and no one's messing with you, and you're hearing this.
Speaker 2:Everybody's singing it with you too, so you have that weird audio camaraderie going on, yeah, and all of a sudden you're seven miles in, you didn't even know it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wish, maybe you didn't know it.
Speaker 2:I'm sure my self was cramping up somewhere yeah.
Speaker 1:So you make it through basic. Now, where did you go to basic?
Speaker 2:Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then your AIT. Where was that?
Speaker 2:Well, we didn't have AIT. It was all one station unit training, so it was basic combined with AIT.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I'm not sure how long they were running like OSUT groups, but it was. I think my first day was September 10th and my last day was towards the end of January. And then they put me on an extra two weeks of training for the M1A2 tanks and the M1A2 SEPs that were coming out or being utilized more often. So I got to stick around for that, but it wasn't like basic, it was like an extra two weeks where you would kind of go to college class and get hands-on trading with the new tanks and stuff like that. It wasn't like we were getting marched and smoked everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean we had babysitters, but yeah, well, sometimes ait can be like an extension of basic training. That's kind of why I asked that. So you, you make it through all of that and then you go to your first duty station after yeah, uh.
Speaker 2:So I went, went to 3rd ACR, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, when it was still at Fort Carson, colorado Amazing base Again. That's where I started establishing a relationship with Colorado Springs mountain biking and donuts more so. And then I deployed really quickly after that. I deployed in February of 2005 now, and I got to the unit right when they were starting their tank gunnery qualifications. And so for tankers and I think Cav Scouts as well, when they qualify at the Bradley they have to go through specific gunnery qualifications and those are called tables table 5, 6, 7, 8. Now, there's something way different. And those are called tables table 5, 6, 7, 8. Now there's something way different.
Speaker 2:But I got to the gunnery and I'd been in a main gun, or I hadn't been in one, but I'd been in the turret when it was firing. I was able to load rounds and do different tasks and basic training. But this was really important to the tanker crew as a qualification to get a Q1, qualify first try. And we did not qualify first time because of me. Oh so, brand new guy in a tanker unit. My buddy Durker, who I'll talk about later, was a driver at the time. I forgot who my gunner was, but I was the loader and Staff Sergeant Kreiling was the tank commander. They all did really well, I did not.
Speaker 2:So as a tank loader, you have a machine gun up on the outside of the turret M240, bravo or Charlie, whatever they're calling it and then down in the turret you have a little knee switch and an ammo door. Your only job is to listen to the call for the ammo, in case it's sabot versus heat versus something else for different types of targets, and hit the knee switch with your knee. You literally stand there and you tap it. It's hydraulic. The door whips open and you hit a button. You take the round, you flip it over and you shove it in there close fist so your fingers don't get caught anywhere. And then you arm the gun and you kind of lean back and sit back away from the breech because that's going to come right by you.
Speaker 2:And I was in full panic mode like a I don't know, I want to say like a fifth grader. I was so nervous that after they fired one of the main rounds they said load heat, and so we just fired a sabot and so I hit the ammo door and that's it. And then I froze and I'm looking at staff, sergeant kreiling, who's probably a foot away from me, and just looking at me with rage like why are you not loading? And I'm like there's already a round in there, sergeant, and of course there's not. It's not an auto loaded cannon like some of the russian tanks or anything like that. And anyway, that delayed q1 because we failed that engagement because of me. So, aside from getting smacked really hard a few times in the head, um, we ended up q2ing the next round because I did not make that mistake again, right, right?
Speaker 2:Um, any tanker will tell you that when they're qualifying, the only goal aside from safety is to q1 everything and they want the highest score possible. They want to look good. They want to hold a plaque or an aft cap, which is the bottom of the main gun round. That's when it's fired. It's kind of like brass for a firearm. Yeah, is to get their plaque or whatever the award is and just take a picture with it, like that's all they're focused on. They don't care about what's going on at home, they don't care that they're deploying in 30 days or 60 days or a couple months. They want that key one Right, couple months. They want that q1 right.
Speaker 2:And I screwed it up so badly. But I can remember getting smacked. I've never been smacked so hard in my life by a man, especially when I couldn't smack him back. But I didn't make that mistake again. I think we. I think we q2'd. So if somebody hears this and says something different, I hope it wasn't a q3 either way, it wasn't going to be your fault right, I hope I didn't screw anything else up that I can't remember yeah, yeah, it sounds like you learned something from that.
Speaker 1:It's uh, it's interesting that someone smacked you because that's like so not what they allowed to happen today. But I think that there's some value sometimes in those things happening, because you haven't forgotten it and, quite frankly, in the field when it's really going down, you can't afford to freeze up like that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not, because then people die.
Speaker 1:That's the importance of the Q1, right. Absolutely there's no Q2 when you're deployed, correct, yeah, yeah. So how long were you guys doing this train up before deployment?
Speaker 2:I want to say qualifications in tank gunnery was only about two weeks, uh-huh, because I believe I deployed sometime in February. Okay, obviously going to Kuwait first, like many units do, then, after about 20 days, moving up north to Iraq.
Speaker 1:Now did you go to Bering?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was so cool the food there was so good yeah.
Speaker 1:It was so hot at Bering. I don't know if you experienced this. When we were there, it rained. You could hear the rain hitting the Quonset hut that we were in, but when you walked outside, the rain wasn't hitting the ground.
Speaker 2:I did not experience that it was evaporating before.
Speaker 1:I think it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:I remember getting off the C-17 or C-130. I can't remember which and it just being blasted. It felt like an exhaust of a vehicle just hitting you in the face.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what it felt like. I don't remember rain at all.
Speaker 1:I remember the awful hot tents that we were all piled in. But yep, absolutely. And if one more person says, well, at least it was a dry heat, I'm gonna punch him in the nose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at least it was a dry heat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, right, it's like I tell them yeah, dry heat, like you stuck your head in the oven and then someone turned on a hair dryer.
Speaker 2:That's how hot it was. Yeah, I used to powder coat in my free time, which is kind of painting metal. You paint something with the powder and you bake it so it melts. It's usually, um, pretty firm, but anyway, uh, that's what it reminds me of when I was. Powder coating is working in and out of an oven, whether it be a big one or a walk-in oven.
Speaker 1:It was exactly like quake yeah yeah well, I remember the education lady, so they I don't know if they had it when I was there in 06 so they had like an education trailer where you could go like sign up for classes and stuff, if you wanted to okay, anyway, there was a lady that worked there and she actually baked cookies in her car during the day that's a real thing that's a real thing.
Speaker 1:That actually happened when I was there. I saw it, otherwise I just would not it, but I saw it with my own two eyes. But uh, yeah, so. So you're in Kuwait for what? About two weeks for acclimation?
Speaker 2:I want to say it was two or three weeks. It's hard to remember exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you make the jump to Iraq. Um, where'd you go? Where were you at?
Speaker 2:first, um, we were around baghdad somewhere, okay, and we staged there for a week or two because I think our unit was moving fully up north by the syrian border, which is where we ended up, and at the time the tanks were on the huts, which, to anybody that's listening, it's a big truck that can haul that kind of weight and they load the tank up on the back of it just like a semi truck and but you have to crew it and so, uh, that was, that was pretty intimidating because those are strapped down pretty well, chains everything and we went down route Irish, which anybody that's been deployed in Iraq knows that route Irish is the most deadly road in the world and I'm thankful I did not experience anything bad on there.
Speaker 2:But knowing that, um, they had to be crude. So I was sitting up in the hatch with my machine gun popping in and out of the hatch and our kiowa pilots from the cav which I think I was are some of the coolest helicopters ever. They would kind of fly. I swear I could almost grab part of the coolest helicopters ever. They would kind of fly. I swear I could almost grab part of the Kiowa, but they would fly so close to us for, like I want to say, 30 seconds. I felt like it was an hour. It was the coolest thing and they'd fly off. But I think we moved from Baghdad to Tal Afar and then Sinjar, which is Northern Iraq, and after about 20 or 30 days of that we moved to the syrian border in a town called rubia okay, and then that's where you were at for the rest of your deployment pretty much.
Speaker 2:Um, we had 10th group special forces out there which, um we got to work with on some really cool things. Um, I'm not one of those military folks that associates my self with like a proximity of people, like I'm not like I worked with special forces really cool like that.
Speaker 2:those guys were really cool, um, but we worked with them up in the syrian border, obviously mostly worried about the traffic in and out of Syria, and then that was mostly Rabia, and then I went on leave. I want to say right around the six-month time. It was perfectly timed in the 13 months I was going to be there and almost the whole unit went to Tal Afar and there was like major operations going on there and I came back from leave and I was like completely dumbfounded, I forgot how to drive a tank. I was a driver. I got promoted, quote unquote, to a driver position at the time and in a tank you kind of lay back and you have something similar to motorcycle handlebars.
Speaker 2:And it's a rolling throttle, you know you have your position. Selector for drive, neutral, reverse, pivot, steer, all that stuff like right in the middle of the T-bars is what we call them and I was hitting barriers like a total jackass. My tank man did the same one that I already made very upset, was not happy with me when we got back, when I got back, but a lot of the major operations had been cooling down. A lot of our guys worked with 10th Group and a Navy SEAL group I forgot which, but I didn't work with them. I met like a few of them but major telephar operations were going on and shortly after we moved back up north to Rivia.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, interestingly enough, when I got there in 2006, they had pulled all the tanks out when at I was, in Fahmirez, up in mozul so okay, so the whole minnewan province, um, but when we got there, like we had mark 19s, they took them away from us.
Speaker 1:We couldn't use mark 19s. Um, there were no tanks allowed in the city. They had, really, like they didn't want us blowing things up anymore. It was was very strange. So we didn't get, we didn't get the benefit. I mean, when we got there it was the uh, the first cab was there and so, um, you know, we had all of that, but we didn't. There were no tanks. They had long since sent them away.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, we were fortunate to be on tanks or Humvees the entire time. Thankfully, we even got to drive the tanks up the Sinjar Mountains, which is incredibly scary, and because those roads are just like mountain roads. If you go to a real mountain town like Virginia or, I'm sorry, state Virginia, pennsylvania, and you see those tight, winding roads where people say it's only three miles but it takes 45 minutes, right, that's what it was like without the woods and driving those tanks up there. Everything's hot, overheating, you'd have to take breaks so your brakes wouldn't fail.
Speaker 2:Um, but parking I. This is one of the times I wish I had taken more pictures, because you would see the agriculture difference from Kuwait, baghdad, and then you see the Sinjar Mountains, which you know you're getting into Kurdish population area and those folks were a lot more civilized. They would have agriculture, farming crops, and it was like green yards in the middle of Rocky Mountain Desert, like that loose shale stuff that's in the hills and it just looks super cool. I know somebody's got pictures of it somewhere, but it was one of the cooler experiences of being in iraq is seeing that so.
Speaker 1:So when you're I, I want to ask this when you're driving the tank, how are you seeing? Is that on a like a monitor? How's the periscope? Okay?
Speaker 2:um so uh, for daytime driving you have three periscopes a big long one in the front that you're kind of leaning back on and a little mirror, and then you have two side mirrors that are probably two-thirds of the length, maybe a half um. At night you still have those two basic side mirrors, but you have your night vision periscope, which nowadays, if you're looking at night vision this looks like something almost from the 1800s, like a long time ago. But it fits up in the periscope. It's a little uh, kind of like a little screen of night vision and it's got a big rubber ring around it because tank brakes are really good. So if you step too hard on the brakes you're gonna hit your face against something. At least it's padded, um, but that's how you typically see as a driver.
Speaker 2:Obviously you know if you're in the turret the gunner, the loader or the tank commander. A lot of them have periscopes. If they're closed hatch, the gunner is obviously looking out the sights the whole time, but the loader and tank commander have hatches that come down and usually periscopes around. I know the first point we spent a lot of time with the hatches open.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we were in the Kurdish area, so a lot of it was so chill. A lot of our missions or patrol presence patrols and stuff like that we would sit on top of the turrets and just let the driver do their thing. It was almost like the wild west, without the gunfire and explosions yeah, the Kurds had it locked down.
Speaker 1:We did a little bit of work with them. When you say they're civilized, they know how to do it.
Speaker 2:They're a different group of reliable, good people. They are For sure, absolutely.
Speaker 1:We used to go up to Erbil in the Kurdish areas up there to get equipment and parts and things like that. Anyway, yeah, you would get up there, you'd take your stuff off.
Speaker 2:Yep exactly.
Speaker 1:It was like being in a city almost.
Speaker 2:Yep, it was almost like, obviously you're in a different country, but a different friendly country instead of a war zone, right. And instead of kids coming up to you asking for candy and Pepsi I've got to tell you about the cute little three-year-old girl that would always ask for that but, um, they would be offering you like real chai out of the little glasses oh, that was so good. And they'd be offering you, uh, goat lamb, you know anything you can think of, and you're like just enjoying it. Like they were such good people.
Speaker 2:And we got to work with the Peshmerga people a little bit and we were actually there for one of the big first election sequences, I would say, because there's obviously lots of them because of all the corruption going on in the country. Right, we were there and watching. We didn't know this was happening right away. Our 10th group guys told us after it already started happening. But the peshmerga people were actually executing, um, known bad actors. They were trying to infiltrate the government and scare people. They were executing them and booting them off rooftops. And that was like my second experience with like violence, yeah, like real violence, because I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like this first deployment was just kind of chill, even though you're in a war zone. I mean you're doing some kind of cool stuff, although I'm still trying to wrap my head around driving a tank up a mountain without having like a windshield in a car. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:It's scary yeah terrifying, and the worst worst going back to the worst part about it, I think was the tank commander and the loader had to be out of the hatches because the road's so narrow. They don't want you going off if you're steering off right, so they're exposed. Um, granted it, thankfully it was a more friendly-ish area, just, uh, just north of sinjar, the city where v-bids were going off all the time. We had find, um, something similar to the Phantom of the opera mask of people's faces getting blown up at the gate for VBIDs and stuff like that, and then all of a sudden you go North of that and it's way different.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was definitely. It was definitely scary. I think I only did that once. There was a couple of platoons or groups of tanks that had to go up there once or twice or just move to go get maintenance done from Rabia to Sinjar instead of going south to Tal Afar and then over to Sinjar. I think they made that trip once or twice, but I think I only had to drive once for that and that was enough.
Speaker 1:Okay, and this is a 13 deployment.
Speaker 2:you said yeah, it was right around 13 months and I had to go a little bit longer because, as a new private, I got put on wash rack. Detail so that's for people listening that's when all the vehicles are done with their deployments and they have to go back to kuwait get cleaned up so that way there's no dirt or anything going through customs, no oil leaking, no gas and stuff like that. So I got stuck on a wash rack with like I think for two or three weeks and thankfully I had some humorous people with me because that was miserable 12, 16 hours of washing vehicles.
Speaker 2:Your hands would be destroyed, even though you have gloves and wet weather gear on. Everything got soaked Because customs you'd have to pull a pack, what we call the engine of the tank. You'd have to get under the engine and clean up all the grease, all the oil and dirt that's been caked in there for almost a year. That was like very miserable time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from my understanding. So when I deployed we just fell in on equipment. We didn't bring our own home Vs or anything. It was already there. But I've heard those stories Like not even a freaking grain of sand could be in that vehicle anywhere, customs would go through with gloves. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like almost white glove detail. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And anybody that's been in that area of the world. It's not like sand at Lake Michigan either. It's like talcum powder.
Speaker 2:So it gets in everything and it grips. Yeah, it does not come off easy. No, lots of chiseling yeah, I've just tried.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how many hard drives on computers and things like that because of that stupid saying so yeah, not an easy task awful yeah, is there anything else about that deployment you wanted to talk about?
Speaker 2:Well, aside from what I mentioned, I think being on wash rack with one of the Cav Scout buddies I think he had just gotten promoted or was just about to be promoted. His name was Reggie Sergeant Regalado. He's one of my buddies that passed away, but he was another cool Spanish dude that was hilarious. He was kind of in charge of us and we had this super redneck like from I don't want to say the mud of Alabama, but something close to that. And you know, we busted him lying a couple times on the deployment, like he'd be on the phone with his family and he'd be like well, it's not about when the rounds come zipping over you, it's when you get hit like you have not been shot at at all. You know he's one of those guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah and uh, regalado with his southern accent would be like imitating him. And so the spanish guy with the accent making fun of the redneck with a hardcore accent in english. And I remember we were sitting at breakfast chow and the redneck I forgot what his name was, um, but he's like man, I love corn dogs, I love mountain dew too. And we're like yeah, that's pretty good stuff usually, you know. And Reggie was just like oh, yeah, I love corn dogs, I love Mountain Dew and would just imitate him with all the accent possibilities. It was just one of the funnier things, but I tell you later about that.
Speaker 2:But he ended up passing away from gunfire. Okay, he was just like a gosh. He was probably what held me together the last two, three weeks in wash rack with his humor. He was just. He was so damn funny all the time and he I don't know, he had like this sense of looking out for you I feel like sometimes we're put together with people like that to help get us through those hard times absolutely yeah, even if it's just like a couple minutes or a couple months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything happens for a reason, right, absolutely so. You were going to tell me, though, about this three-year-old girl. Was that the next appointment, or was that this? That was the first appointment.
Speaker 2:Okay, so while we were at Urbia I could send you the link to Google earth one day and you could check it out. But we had this 13 floor greenery right the border and there was train tracks there, so obviously they were shipping greenery or some kind of agricultural thing at some point and, like I said, so it was. I want to say it was on like six acres of barricaded fence and the 13-floor greenery, which didn't take up much more than a half acre of actual square, uh, land, I guess, and the 10th group guys live there, and the only thing we had at the gates were the tanks. At the time there wasn't an actual gate. So when somebody is coming in and out, we'd have to start the tank, which takes two minutes about to actually start the tank and back it up and then put it back, and so we'd kind of sit up there on guard, um, being ready to move the tanks, knowing right, knowing on the radio, if people were coming in and out.
Speaker 2:And we had this cute little iraqi girl who had, like she must have had the best experience because she would come right up to us and she wasn't scared of anything and she was just adorable, and I hate to say this, but she had a lazy eye and that made her even more cute. Yeah, because it was like way gone and she'd come up to us at the gate and she'd like throw her arms up, like to hug us. But we'd be up in the tank and she'd be like pepsi, pepsi, chocolate. And we knew we, of course we'd give her that stuff and she'd bring it home to her family or go around the corner, eat.
Speaker 2:We don't know right but she was just like I don't know, adorable and like not scared, and her older brothers, who were just a couple years old and her, wouldn't come around the gate. So at some point I knew the parents knew, but she kept coming all year so I assumed that they were okay with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you know, a little brother would rat out a little girl talking to a foreign military any day, but she was just like super cute, super nice, and of course we gave her that Pepsi and chocolate that she deserved all the time. So again, that was more around the Kurdish population too. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. What more around the Kurdish population too? Yeah, that's a girl. What a great experience. She was so cool. I can't say I would have been as brave at all.
Speaker 1:No, not that age. But you know what? I think it's interesting what you get used to, right Even that year of deployment. You get used to things that when you come home you're like, oh, that isn't normal, but those kids probably grew up with all of this stuff happening they grew up in some kind of violence, either tribal or military, at some point absolutely but so you, uh, you finish your sentence at the uh, at the wash rack yeah I'm assuming, at some point you get stateside again.
Speaker 2:Yep, uh. So I fly back to Fort Carson, colorado. Um, I didn't have an exact date of when I'd be back so I didn't. My family wasn't there or anything, but my buddy Durker, who was the driver and then the gunner that I decided to bring up. He's the only one to see me off the plane and he, you know, and he, you know, I was obviously one of my best friends now and all I have is a uniform because all our stuff is in storage, right, and I'm like, can you take me to the mall so I can get some clothes? And, of course, you know, I just get home from deployment. I have this money, I'm going to buy some cool stuff. And I remember going to the mall and the perfume and the cologne from those stands made my eyes water. And Dirk was like are you crying, dude? And I'm like no man, it's hurting my eyes. I was like I'm just going to get a couple of shirts and pants and leave. And then he dropped me off at the barracks and he got me a case of beer because I was too young. He got me a six-pack.
Speaker 2:I think I was 20 at the time and I sat in my barracks room. I made some phone calls I had, went and got a phone as well, and then I just hung out until I bought a car a few days later, my first ever dream car. And then, you know, went home on leave, drove that 96 Nissan 240 SX all the way from Colorado Springs to Michigan. See my family On the way back saw a tornado, I think in Nebraska. That was scary, oh but but yeah. I got home and, you know, did the normal thing, which was, you know, cookouts, making new friends, having parties. There was lots of streaking. There was lots of that going on.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Huh, yeah, you know a lot of service members, I think, especially like those that are deployed together. Yeah, like that just becomes a sign of or a thing of humor. Right, it's never been anything weird and sexual, it's like it's just funny. Like you're partying one day and then you see your buddy riding a bicycle naked down the street at like 2 AM having a beer, and then he falls over, gets road rash, like that's just humorous to so many people and my wife has a hard time sometimes with my sense of humor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, it's funny, my, my son served as well. He was in the infantry and when he comes up, so he, so I deployed and came back and then, not too long after that, he actually deployed at the same time that my wife deployed not my current wife, but my ex-wife um, they deployed, they both deployed to iraq. But when we get together, there are things that we think are funny, and they're they're funny. I don't care who you are, but everyone looks at you a little sideways like there is something wrong with you because you change. Yeah, deployment will change you and change how you look at things and change what you laugh at. I remember when I first came home laughing at something that was clearly not funny, but it was funny to me, and people just looked at me like I was crazy. So, yeah, I mean I get it. Riding a bike naked, that's funny.
Speaker 2:That's happened so many times. I don't do that stuff anymore. Yeah, because obviously that involves jail time.
Speaker 1:At some point you're gonna get caught doing something stupid, right, so I stopped while I was ahead. But, um, yeah, were you married like, were you married during this, so you didn't get married till like after your long after okay, first appointment.
Speaker 2:Actually I don't know if this is tmi, but I actually lost my virginity after my first appointment. People are like how could you go to war without doing that? I was like I just I've never made that a priority. Like even high school I was skateboarding. I made out with some high school chicks, but like I was skateboarding, doing cool stuff, that's how my mentality has always been like, even to this day. Like I know guys that would go and pick up girls all the time. Uh, to this day, I think I've only been with six or seven girls my entire life. Yeah, so I've never been that kind of person to go out to the club and try to slay bodies and bring girls home or party too much like I'm. I want to wake up the next morning, go ride mountain bikes or go slide my car around the drift track or I don't know, just not get in trouble just different priorities, that's all, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean, here's the thing, when you go back to when you got back, your friend had to buy you beer because you couldn't buy beer. So here you are, you're 20 years old, a virgin. You've served your country.
Speaker 2:It sounds so bad, Doesn't it though?
Speaker 1:You've served your country. You come and you can't even buy a beer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's nuts. Sometimes I think young men and women that do stuff like that should totally be able to buy a beer, and sometimes I think we're better off not being able to.
Speaker 1:Right, there's that balance, right yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it's not up to me. Me like we're not a country that was raised like uh places in europe where wine and uh liquor or anything is common in a dinner table, like that's kind of looked at as a problem because we haven't grown up in that right so, but I definitely know some young guns that would. If, if they could drink back, then they would have ended up like wrapping their car around a tree or uh, doing something awful and stupid. Yeah, so just not me, because three beers and, like I said, I'm laying down going to sleep, yeah, your party's over yeah, no naked bike riding for you, well later, yeah, okay so, so, yeah, so you go home, um, and then, uh, it's time to pack up and go back to Fort Carson, right?
Speaker 1:So you pack up and go back. And so what's happening between now and that next deployment?
Speaker 2:I think we kind of we had leave obviously when you got home. Kind of we had leave obviously right when you got home. And then I want to say the first month or two months, like work was a joke, mainly because we didn't have our tank equipment back yet, yeah, um, so we couldn't go sweep tank motor pool messes or anything like that. It was even pt in the morning. Guys would be showing up with those energy drinks that actually have alcohol in them and they get us sick for accountability and then they dismiss us, you know. And I was thinking to myself. I was like we get paid for this. This is amazing. And I was making like pennies being a private right but but it was the most money you'd made, right.
Speaker 1:Of course, yeah, I was a.
Speaker 2:Bob Evans cook in high school. So like way different. But I want to say, after a few months we started doing tanker stuff again, going to training, and then everybody started receiving their orders and, like I said before, a lot of the guys I went to basic with had deployed with and three or four of those guys were actually like in my troop and even more of them were in the regiment. So if I didn't see them in Rubia, I would see them at Tal Afar or Sinjar or something like that. And then next I know we're all just packing stuff up and I blew up my Nissan 240 SX, drifting it and left it there, unfortunately, which I regret to this day. Oh yeah, I took a bus 19, 19 hours, I think, on a bus to go to Fort Stewart, georgia, the third ID.
Speaker 1:Okay, I got orders from. Georgia Awful.
Speaker 2:It's just hot there. It's hot, it's sticky. When you get out of the shower in the winter you're sweating again already. It's not a fun time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And did you did you deploy out of there?
Speaker 2:then yeah, so I was with a cyclone four, six, four, armor, a third ID and obviously a little bit different than the cav. Um, there's no weird stetsons and spurs, right and third id, which is fine. A lot of folks make fun of the stetsons and spurs, which I don't know, I didn't really care that much. But, um, third id has a big history and we're in four, six, four armor, which was tus, and their unit insignia is a black elephant with two white tusks. And the history of that strange but authentic, is it was an entire black unit of African-American males and two white lieutenants and they were the armor unit. Wow, pretty interesting. But you know, going back down to Georgia, you almost have that again, there's lots of great folks down in Georgia. You almost have that again, there's lots of, uh, lots of great folks down in Georgia, but it is very Southern.
Speaker 2:Um, again, for my Hessian's tattoo, I got looked at hard. My first drill or, I'm sorry, my first, first Sergeant down in third ID, uh, first Sergeant Anderson, who had cancer and later passed away, which was awful, cause he was one of those guys that you could believe, he could convince you to believe in yourself, believe in the mission, like at the drop of a dime. He was just either a really good car salesman or he had been doing it for a long time. And he was a bigger, huge, built black dude. And he looks at my tattoo and he's like what is that, pavlka? And I explained it to him. And he's like what is that, pavlka? And I explained it to him. And then, of course, all the other guys, all the staff, sergeants, jumped in and I'm like thinking to myself I was like this is the worst mistake I've ever made.
Speaker 1:So I had to explain this tattoo a few times. Yeah, and for people out there who want to get a tattoo, be careful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't do stupid stuff.
Speaker 1:No, I subscribe to a. Yeah, don't do stupid stuff. No, I, I. I subscribed to a couple of things. Don't ever get one when you've been drinking. Yeah, you don't buy one off the wall. Yep, right, you design your tattoo and it should have some sort of meaning to you. Yeah, and that does have meaning to you. It was just a design, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I didn. I again, I wasn't brought up in that kind of weird household Like my siblings used to go to like rock shows and punk rock shows and beat up actual Nazis and skinheads Like I'm talking with bats, with wood like, and I used to, I've seen some of it, so like this didn't mean that to me in the slightest. But, um, so I get down to third ID and I'm starting to get promoted and going to these really great classes, great medical classes, cls like combat, life-saving classes, and getting really good in PT. I was in excellent shape, pounds with only like 13% body fat, running like, I think, a 1332 mile, which isn't great, but for being 230 pounds it was, it was pretty good, and so I was in like the best shape of my life. Um, I got promoted, I believe, to specialist and they started putting me in the trainers and stuff for gunner positions.
Speaker 2:So, that way, your tank commander and your gunner work with each other and learn to mitigate problems, develop solutions while doing live fire exercises. But it's all in training Right, and I really enjoyed that. I think that was cool. It's like a giant video game with really awful graphics.
Speaker 1:I feel like this was almost the height of that virtual training, though I remember like it was a big deal right in that kind of era. I'm sure that's how they do it now. I don't know, I've been out for a while, but I feel like that that's when it really started becoming a thing Like you weren't doing live fire out on the range anymore, you were doing a lot of stuff in a trainer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did so much stuff in trainers on Fort Stewart. Um, we also did a little bit of M 16, uh, electronic range training, which was so boring. Gosh, it was so boring. But the you coughed, I think it was. You coughed or just coughed, I can't remember, but it was, but it was.
Speaker 2:You know, a tank simulator. You sit in a fake turret and you looked at like a tanker. What looks to the viewfinders they put their face up against and it's the screen. It's a computer screen, yeah, but, um, you know. And then you go through the calls like load, sabo, and then you'd make your selector switch from whatever it was to sabo, and then you'd laze it and after you do all that, you repeat, 790 yards, and the tank commander would say like fire, and you're like firing voom, and it made the noise. It even had, I think, a weird pressure, or at least a big thump from a base system that made you think that there was pressure to simulate the breach coming right back by the gunner. It was really cool and I think it was one of the more beneficial things.
Speaker 1:Plus, honestly, it saves the us tax dollars a lot of money so sending rounds down range is winging it yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a substitute for shooting the real thing, but you don't have to shoot the real thing all the time, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely so. How long were you at, uh, fort stewart before you deployed again?
Speaker 2:let's see, I deployed again oct October 07 to December 08. So I want to say I got a little bit more than a year and a half of training.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because I believe I got to 3rd ID, if I'm not mistaken, right when the unit was coming back from a deployment. So it wasn't worth it to send me out to Iraq to come back in 30 days or whatever it was. But yeah, I deployed with uh cyclone company four, six, four armor still, um, and I was deployed. Originally I was a driver and a loader when it was needed and uh eventually worked my way up to that gunner position and when the tank commander goes on leave, I became the tank commander for a little bit. That was super cool being like a tank commander for like those short few days until another staff sergeant came in like stole your thunder, right, right but you get to tell people you were a tank commander at least at one point.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, you don't have to tell them how long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just that you were a tank commander, that's it oh man, sergeant durst is, and he's going to be like you weren't shit. Pav, shut up, you're going to get a phone call when this goes out? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it happens. So where did you deploy this time?
Speaker 2:Way different space. This was strictly Baghdad Cop 851, which is called when we got there. It was called Cop Norris, like chuck norris, and it was kind of at a 90 degree angle going south from baghdad international airport, and on the other end of the 90 degree angle was fob falcon, I think okay, or something pretty close to that and uh, that was, the whole place was hell.
Speaker 2:It was awful, but it was way different than the first granary type building that we were in right. Um, it was kind of like two-story apartments that were police barracks and all we had were, uh, some 14 foot jersey barriers protecting us. So and even on the balconies of the second floor, like you couldn't hang outside for too long Cause somebody would get a beat on you and send around at the wall, wow. So like we had uh, our occasional uh infantry guys that were like long range qualified I don't think they were sniper qualified, but they were uh capable of shooting longer ranges. They would occasionally go on the rooftop and just be like it's not safe. Rangers they would occasionally go on the rooftop and just be like it's not safe and they you know, like the guys that are meant to do that kind of stuff don't want to go up there, like I'm not going to go up there and smoke a cigarette or anything.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. I want to ask a question, though this is really kind of off topic, but you said, norris, when I was there it was like this is a big deal, like every single port-a-shitter had chuck norris jokes in it oh yeah, like it was a thing you know, and if you could think of one that wasn't on the wall, like that was really cool because you could write it on the wall. Was that kind of a thing when you were there at all?
Speaker 2:oh boy I feel like. I feel like it was all weird sexual things oh okay, I'm pretty sure I don't.
Speaker 2:I've seen the chuck norris stuff, but it's that stuff. But that was an experience. This damn port-a-potties, 130 degrees in there, you had all your stuff on. Oh gross, I know I didn't get to say this, but the first appointment we had to build our own bathrooms and pull the metal pot out and burn our poo and pee. But this second deployment, thankfully the retired police barracks that we were using had uh showers and a bathroom, because the first appointment we didn't even have phones or internet for like uh first six or eight months. And this deployment we had at least showers and toilets and I think a lot of the guys got those uh cell phones the local populace that were like way expensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we'd call and say we're okay, and then after a little bit we got internet. So somehow we got lucky.
Speaker 1:It's amazing the things that become important. Yeah, you know, like a shower and a bathroom.
Speaker 2:At this time too. I just started my now ex-wife, michelle, and I had met her, I want to say, a few months before the second deployment, and of course we were at a bar in Savannah, georgia, and I was hammered thinking I was going home with her and she took me home to base, thankfully, yeah, but she was very nice about it and we ended up dating and dating throughout the deployment. But, yeah, this deployment was way different than than anything else, for sure. Yeah. So walk me through a day.
Speaker 2:Uh. So a typical day was a lot of we did a lot of presence patrols, um, a lot of tankers typically do a lot of outer cordon security. Yeah, so when high value targets come up or there's intelligence on uh local munition stock and stuff like that, uh, the infantry guys uh would typically get tasked out with dealing with it. So we would pull inner or outer cordon security because you know, I think the tank is the biggest, baddest bitch on the block, um, especially with thermal capabilities and stuff like that. Um, if we weren't doing that kind of stuff, we were running to fob falcon for, um, mail, food and uh maintenance parts, stuff like that or whatever we would need and bring back as much as we could for other people, or bring, like I forgot what they called them the big, not a semi-truck, but like something similar to like a five-ton truck with two doors. But anyway, supply runs and tanks would always be. There would always be one in the front and one in the back because, more than likely, the IED if there's's one there they're going to go for the tank because at the time, uh, the local really bad group was jay shalmati militia, which is pretty equivalent to isis, but a little bit more savvy in their bomb making abilities. Um, more than likely than one of the tanks would get hit, because if they hit the one in the front, they would get paid a ton of money. If they hit one of the back, that still get paid good money, but the one in the front, uh, would stop.
Speaker 2:Typically the column right. You know cause, although we're trained to continue to keep going, um, a lot of people we stopped, which was, you know, unfortunate, but that's like a human, human thing to do is want to stop and make sure people are okay. See if you can move your tank, blah, blah, blah. But, um, that was the typical day. Um, at one point we were getting shot at and in so much engagements, I ordered boxes of cigars from the US to get shipped over there and I think I went through like $680 worth of cigars in like two months. That's a lot of cigars. Yeah, I wasn't even like an avid smoker, like I'd, of course, give them something to the guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we, I love the acid cigars which, if you're a cigar smoker, I don't know like at what level, like of premium enjoyment that is, but it's all sugar coated so it tasted really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they had lemon taper, lemon tea flavored ones and all sorts of stuff. But, um, I want to say this month ironically I was telling my wife earlier it's ironic I'm doing this today but march was what we called, uh, march madness. Right, winter's dying down, it's getting warmer in iraq, so, like all the scumbags are coming out jay shalmati militia, um, some extreme shiites, whoever didn't like us that time, we're coming out of their, coming out out of their holes trying to blow us up, shooting at us randomly, et cetera. And we were uh wrapping up a right seat ride, which is when one unit is working, is getting ready to leave and the other units kind of coming in and I would ride with a different unit. So we get a lay of the land, lay the area, and uh, march 15th, uh, one of our last right sea ride patrols we got called just south of us, I think, and I was on the tank and one of the right seat guide was one of the right seat ride guys I was with, was on his you know Humvee and a gunner, which a lot of gunners are super exposed, especially in Baghdad, cause there's so many buildings that are two, three, four stories tall, versus something that's six feet tall and, uh, his name is uh O'Brien. He got promoted after he passed away. But corporal O'Brien got shot in the head, um, while I was out there with him on a different vehicle and a call came over the radio that one of our guys was shot, and so I think after a second we hightailed it back to cop eight five one and I'd learned that he passed away and I was so like saddened by this Cause, like we didn't hang out in the same room and play like board games or anything we worked out together.
Speaker 2:You know we talk shit like we do, like, oh, you can only curl 75 pounds. Like 75 pounds it's a lot, bro Shut up. And then he'd go and curl like 135. Like it's nothing Right, like that's the kind break down in front of the tank because he was like just turning 20 and getting ready to go home and so, yeah, but that was the beginning, I think, of march madness, and I actually think one of our tanks and our units took a uh ied shortly before. So it was getting really chaotic and I believe it was shortly before that. It was staff Sergeant Martin and he happened to be doing what we talked about earlier kind of leaning out of the tank making sure that we the driver was going to hit anything and an explore uh IED went off and he took shrapnel like to his dome. And you know tankers, they typically don't wear Kevlar's in the tanks, cbc it's like a soft show with earmuffs on it, because you know when stuff gets loud you want to be able to talk to each other in the tank and so he got hurt.
Speaker 2:I think right around that time. He wasn't in my platoon but I of course, basically roomed on a different level than him and his platoon and, um, so March madness was just kicking off and I want to say March 23rd, march 25th, um, again, with all the, we were getting shot at way more frequently, more ids going off, and I think march 25th was like the most important day of my life. Um, I'll preface this with saying like all those advanced medical classes I was trying to go to, or going to get as much training as I could like, happened again for a reason, and we had just come back to COP 851, which from one of those supply runs to FOB Falcon, and we got called right back out because a Bradley got hit with an EFP which anybody listening is an explosively formed projectile and basically it's a big copper bowl on the end of something similar to like a shape charge Right and it's convex at the time. So when it gets blown up it becomes I'm sorry, it's con concave at the time. When it blows up, either way, the bowl comes outward, so basically the round part concave at the time. When it blows up, either way, the bolt comes outward. So basically the round part would be hitting the vehicle and because it's copper, the more force that it receives, the sharper it gets. So it ends up being more like a cone going through your vehicle a sharp end first and unfortunately that goes through tank armor like butter.
Speaker 2:And so Bradley got hit and we were called down there to just help secure the area. At the time we were short on staff. Either people were on leave or we just didn't have the people. So we didn't have a loader. It was just me, sergeant Runner, who was a recruiter, never been deployed before, so this is like his fourth week there. This is like after we've already been blown up once, and so he's getting his cherry busted real hard and we get there and the Bradley's just on fire and we're working up comms to talk to the guys on the ground because there's other Bradley's around seeing like what's needed? Is there medical needed? Do we need to tow this thing? Do we need to try to put this fire out? Cause anybody that knows, um military vehicles that when it actually starts on fire, aside from fuel or oil, it's not going to stop because that metal gets so hot, just melts and burns forever, including all the rubber and uh, I don't remember the exact conversation, but they were like we need a medic on the ground.
Speaker 2:And so I love medical stuff. I'm genuinely curious. I'm if I could say I was, a smart nerd that's how I describe myself is I love medical stuff, even if it's gruesome, gory stuff. I'm not looking up the gross stuff on the Internet all the time, but mostly what I'm curious. But that was stuff when I was into. So I remember looking back. It was like tight quarters. I remember looking back at Sergeant Renner and he gave me the thumbs up and in the tanks we didn't wear like plated armor, you know cause it's so tight, and I was a bigger dude. Um, I had a chicken vest on which basically stops like 22, maybe nine mil, and a t-shirt cause it's hot, as has balls and tank Right. And so I take off my CVC and I put on my helmet I didn't even bring nods, and it was starting to get cvc. And I put on my helmet, I didn't even bring nods, and it was starting to get.
Speaker 2:It was right around getting dark time, like I want to say like six or seven pm ish, and I grabbed the walk kit, which is a wounded aid and litter kit. It comes with it's a tall bag that comes with a foldable litter, a bunch of iv bags, israeli bandages, nasal, pharyngeal airways, anything you could think of that a medic would have was in there. And I'd prepped it all, like I'm talking, taped open the seals, so if my hands are bloody I could still rip everything open. And I was like I got to do something. That is going to be, it's going to make a big difference. And so I grabbed my walk kit.
Speaker 2:And jumping off the tank is no small feat. I'm not jumping from the turret, thank God, I would have died. But I jumped down to the hull, which is the lower part of the tank, and then jumped off and I had my M4, my helmet, no nods, walk kit, half out of uniform, chicken vest, and I realize all this because when I land my magazine out of my M4 falls, so I didn't seat it correctly and I go to grab another one. It's not there because I don't have the right vest on. So I'm like shit and I'm like I can't go back up there, you know. And so I grabbed my magazine off and I took off running and I swear it was like 500 meters, it was probably like less than a hundred, felt like forever, though huh, yeah, it did.
Speaker 2:And I remember running and there's an Iraqi police truck like halfway between our tank and the Bradley. And I remember running I was like I hope these guys don't shoot me, cause I'm, I have a rifle, I'm out of uniform, there's no radio comms, we're getting shot at from like a building. I want to say probably like 60 meters away, but it was like four or five stories. I get to look at it on Google earth, um, but they're like doing those weird shots where they're just, I think, slinging a rifle over the rooftop and just hoping that they hit somebody. And I didn't realize that they were doing that until I stopped behind the recce police truck and they're all looking at me and shit's on fire, you know. So everything's kind of lit up and I'm like, yes, yes, yes. And they're like, okay, and that was it, and I took off running to the Bradley.
Speaker 2:But I remember that was my first, that was the only time I was actually scared is getting shot by either recce police or from the rooftop, you know, lease, or from the rooftop, you know, I could have been mistaken for anybody running at them in the dark with a full bag, right you know, after something just got blown up. I mean, the bag is like three feet tall, it is huge. And, um, I remember going around the bradley because I'm sorry to go back a little bit, but this is on a canal road, so in between the east west directions there's like a wadi in between it, and so I had to go a little bit up past the bradley and over this like land bridge kind of thing, and then go back to the bradley. But, um, I remember looking, I'm like all the, all the doors are closed and I look over to my right now I'm facing my tank way off in the distance because I did about a 180 and there's a guy on the ground, flashlights and, uh, two americans and some iraqi police. They're trying to figure out, like, what to do. And I rolled up and I was I don't even remember being winded, um, but I'm sure I was having trouble talking and the two guys on the ground working on this guy were like his best friends. So they were I don't I'm not trying to call them out, obviously, but they were uh, one of them, I think at least, was an actual medic and he was just like clicked off. He was fumbling, he didn't know what to do and I looked at it from a logical perspective as much as I could, like there's somebody here that needs help. I'm gonna start with an ivy. And so I go on my knees next to him. My walk gets just thrown in the ground because that shit is so heavy after a little bit and I'm like, okay, like hold the light. Here the iraqi police guy holds his rifle with the light on, like in my general area at this point I don't even care if it's loaded or not, right, and um, we hoist him up on the litter first that we took out of my bag and he is completely burnt, naked, like there's no hair on his body, um, there's no eyelids, so he can't close his eyes and the only thing that's left and I don't want this to sound like weird and cliche, but the only thing that was left was like a partially burnt american flag patch on his shoulder and like part of his belt, but that was like burnt onto him as a part of him and, um, his medic friend. There's two us people I don't know if both of them are medics, but uh, they were freaking out and understandably. So that's their buddy, right, that's down there, right.
Speaker 2:And uh, I start, you know, hooking up all IV kit, the bag, and I'm getting ready to go in for a flash, uh, which is when you stick somebody with an iv to get them fluids, uh, the needle, you should see a little bit of blood come back up once you get a good vein. Yeah, and as soon as I went to go do that, the iraqi accidentally uh either got his leg wrapped around the iv cable or stepped on the bag. Something happened. So I was like, if I save this dude, I I'm not going to let him get sick. So I started in a different IV, completely different kit, and, um, the first thing that I tried to do was uh going in his elbow and I could not find a vein. This is all within. I want to say like a minute. It was not long and I tried to go into his his thigh, where I could see a vein. You know, definitely nothing crazy.
Speaker 2:But um, when I went to go attempt to get a flash, the needle actually kind of bent and because his skin was like leather hard Right, and once his friends saw that they were like in in disbelief and obviously they were so shocked so I was like, fuck this. I was like let's load him up in the Bradley and take him to the green zone. I'll try to give him another IV when we get in there. So the Bradley backs up and the big door drops and they're still all homies in the back and they haven't seen anything. And so, like we're bringing in this litter with this, with Sergeant McCoy, who everybody is shocked to see, like I'm trying to make the descriptive for importance, but he was burnt naked to the point where he couldn't close his eyes Right, and so all his friends are seeing that and we sit him kind of diagonally in the back but on all of our laps because that's all there's room for the litter, and I ended up getting a good IV and I remember like uh, holding his hand and the haka tomb.
Speaker 1:Sorry man, oh shit. So he's conscious through all of this yeah yeah, take a breather, but oh man we, uh.
Speaker 2:So I get the third IV and this Bradley is just hauling ass screaming all the way to the green zone and you know, they get a mountain surgery. And then, uh, and then uh, they bring me back to cop 851 and somehow I didn't have a radio, so somehow, uh, part of my platoon came up to get me yeah and I got a ride back and I'm going to say at like, I want to say the sun was rising at this point.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we get back to Cop A51, and it turns out my platoon sergeant, the other uh section of my tanks, were uh sent out after we left to help uh-huh and uh. After that we have to like, uh give up our uniforms so they can burn it and stuff or, you know, get rid of it, because I had blood and and stuff all over me, but uh, you take a break?
Speaker 1:yeah, probably, okay, take a break, okay, ready, yeah, okay, so you're, you're back at at your your.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, cop a five one back at your cop.
Speaker 2:And yeah, all my uh, all my uniform is, I think, bagged up cause it needs to be either destroyed or whatever it is. And, uh, my platoon Sergeant, sergeant Canute, um, he obviously came up, talked to me to see if I was okay and stuff. And he's like I'm pretty sure he said something along the lines of did you hear me on the radio? And or something like that. I feel like he was trying to reach me at some point, but I was like no, sergeant, I didn't have radio, I didn't have anything and I didn't even have a spare mag. And he's, he goes on to tell me and I think he did this deliberately so that way I could process it Um, but he goes on to tell me, like, like, sergeant McCoy was not the only victim, that everybody else was still trapped inside, and so obviously all those, uh, all those people passed away but that's why all the doors were still closed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean they were welded shut. Pretty much is what I was told. I didn't go back to the site, but the other sections and the rest of the platoon did yeah, because they didn't want the. I think it was a different company, the other companies like friends, basically picking up their bodies, right, but I guess. So on the Bradley the front hatch opens up and that's typically how the driver gets in and out with ease.
Speaker 2:I guess that was welded shut almost immediately or had a malfunction on the locking mechanism of some kind, and I guess he was alive, like flicking the lights on and off, trying to get attention because it had become nighttime at that point, right, and I was on the side of the bradley, about 30 feet off and a little bit behind it. So obviously I didn't see any of that, and so sergeant mccoy was the only one to make it up and out. Everybody else was uh, trapped inside, but uh, anyway, um, from the drop off to the green zone he got medevaced somewhere. I'm pretty sure there was a helicopter either landing or taking him or something, but I think he got moved to a different surgical zone. Maybe the helicopter wasn't even for him. Now I think about it, but he ended up living for another six months and then, from the wounds sustained, he passed away in uh june 2008 and so yeah, his family got to see him then before he passed away, do you know?
Speaker 2:so I believe there's not much information about this and it's hard to it's hard to really find even the history of the incident, because it actually was the incident that brought our death toll over 2 000 or over 3 000 I forget which number uh in iraq. So I'm sure made like headlines. But then you know, you could Google this stuff and it's hard to find. But from what I've read, I think he was stable. They moved him to Germany and then I believe they moved him to a medical center in the US, but he did eventually pass away, like I want to say, four months later or so in June. But I believe his wife got to hang out with him, uh, in that timeframe. So so you did some good uh, I'd like to think so. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely that whole CLS thing saves lives.
Speaker 2:It was, I felt, so necessary, it was so necessary to take like that kind of training before I left, because it wasn't just like how to pack an israeli bandage, you know. They were showing us how to do like, uh, the sternum ivs and all that the crazy stuff. Like I don't know anybody like this, but like if you were an sf medic, this is probably like a very baseline of medical training for them, and I was like I need to know all this stuff, like I'm interested in and I feel like because it had come in handy and you know it did, yeah, and uh, after like a day or two, um, uh, specialist bell was his name. He was a medic. He was like our badass in shape, five foot five medic. That would just, he was like cut from stone. He was amazing, incredibly intelligent dude and, uh, he would always hop in our tanks in the loader position because we were always short on people. He'd be like y'all need a medic on this mission, right. And you'd be like hell, yeah, come on, he would be the guy in a gunfight that you could totally count on. Of all the weird gunfights and stuff like that, that that's the guy I would want to have like right next to me, aside from being medic, to fix me up.
Speaker 2:But you know, he just I don't even know if he was a good shot, but he was like right there with you in the shit and uh, I talked to him and I was like, is there anything else like I could have done? Like immediately, like again two days later after this, I think about this a lot, but uh, analytically, I was asking two days later after this, I think about this a lot, but uh, analytically I was asking two days later after this ordeal, like is there something I should have done differently or better? And he's like the only thing you could have done was put petroleum gauze on his wounds and he wasn't really bleeding. You said, and there's not much else that could have been done. Like I don't think there was any type of I've always IO or something like that type of Ivy that I don't think that was in our walk kits, cause that's a little bit high of a level for some dumb grunt tankers to carry around, you know, cause we'd probably just end up messing with it at some point. Somebody would get hurt. Yeah, or have a lot of fun. Yeah, or both. Fun, yeah or both, but, um, there's really nothing else that could have been done.
Speaker 2:And, um, aside from that last part, um, also keep in mind this is this is, while I was dating, uh, my former now former, uh, ex-wife at the time, um, we went to the military ball. Know, when we got back and I listened to his wife talk and I don't know, there wasn't. Uh, everybody's looking at me on the table like waiting for a reaction. I'm just sitting there and, uh, I don't know if I said her name, I don't know if I should, but my now ex-wife at the time she's like what is everybody looking at you for? She's like whispering it to me Well, sergeant McCoy's wife is talking and the lieutenant at the time turned around and he's like that's the guy Sergeant Pavlicka rescued, as if I wasn't like at the table, right, like he's telling everybody. It's like everybody knows her Shut up, like let her talk. And yeah, she didn't. I obviously didn't like go home and divulge everything to her, right, because you know it's scary, it's hard to talk about and like I don't know if you're not there, it's hard to understand, like the experience.
Speaker 1:Well, it's it. I think it's a difficult when you've lived through those sorts of things, and people who don't understand ask questions, and then they don't understand when you tell them, and so you really just get to the point where you just don't talk about it, or you talk about it with people who will understand it, which are few and far between the longer that you're out of the military. I want to go back a little bit, though. How much longer did you have on deployment?
Speaker 2:after that, I was there until December 08, and this is March. Okay, so you're about even halfway through.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then with the continuing March madness stuff, um, I think we got hit with our second EFP. I wish I could remember the dates of the EFPs, but it was just March madness. It was insane. Um, we were extra cautious and we were going down, I think, route Ash by copy five, one which was black. You weren't supposed to go down it unless EOD recently cleared it type of thing, and I think they did or I think a unit just went through. So we were, we were okayed to go down there and I think we were doing a presence patrol and the iraqi army is there, the iraqi police, and no civilians were allowed to be on the rooftops, you know, because they're they could be watching for a good time to set off their ied it could be sniper fire, whatever right and they weren't supposed to be up there.
Speaker 2:And it was the second, it was after the second efp, um, so we're patrolling this area and our tank just got hit, like recently. So we got a new tank because the other one's getting fixed, yeah, and so my coaxial machine gun, which is right next to main gun tomb and I'm the gunner um was not zeroed. We just went out into a war zone with like an unproven gun. Like it's like a ghost of darkness quote. Like you went into battle with an unproven rifle. I don't know if you've seen that movie. I've not. I'm gonna have to check it out. Though it's you need to watch it, like tonight. It's so good, but anyway. Um, so my coaxial machine gun wasn't zeroed. Nobody's supposed to be on rooftops. There's a guy at a rooftop and it looks like he's smoking and on a phone, which is pretty standard for like your 30 to 40 to 50, 50-year-old male in the Iraqi household.
Speaker 2:He's on the rooftop and I got the go-ahead, I guess, to engage him and I remember the conversation was something like is he doing anything suspicious? And I was like I don't think so, Like I don't know, Like I had, you know, I had some zoom in the gunner sites, but nothing crazy. He wouldn't look at us. So it's not like he was like dodging around corners, like looking at us, and I remember it feels like a bloodlust thing because we had just gotten so fucked up and blown up and shot up and I just wanted to like lay lead and uh, you know, I engaged him but I was like I don't wanna, I don't wanna kill this dude. So, knowing my coaxial wasn't zero, this is about probably 80 yards away, um, so the gun tube probably looked like it was pointing up in the air, almost, yeah, and I was like I'm gonna shoot at the bottom of the steps and scare them. I'm not going to tell anybody, that's what I'm doing, you know, Because I was angry and I was frustrated. But then it clicked. I was like this guy's probably just going up for a morning prayer smoking a cigarette, Like what the fuck am I doing? And I engaged the stairs and was doing it for a couple of rounds. I was like like that, probably like a two second hold on that, uh gunner, uh controls.
Speaker 2:And I got a runaway gun, which is when the machine gun continues to fire even after you deliberately let go of a trigger Right and um, the rounds actually started going up and then went into his legs, into his hip and into his ribs. At that point I finally realized what was happening. That was probably like 15 rounds within five or six seconds. I grabbed the charging cable and held it down so it stopped firing. Because it's kind of awkward You're in this tight little spot and then you've got to reach up and try to grab the cable so it stops firing. But they called it a good engagement or whatever. And I remember I looked at Sergeant Renner. I was like that's not what was supposed to happen. And Sergeant Renner was like don't look Sergeant, or don't look Pavlika.
Speaker 1:I don't think I was a sergeant yet, or don't look, pavlika.
Speaker 2:I don't think I was a Sergeant yet, but like, don't look, pavlika and I looked and his wife and daughter are like dragging his body off a rooftop Right and it was just like it didn't click then, Like that wasn't the first time I had killed somebody, but it was the first time I had zoomed in and inspected the damage that I had done and it wasn't deliberate in the slightest. Yeah, I was angry, I was probably bloodlusty, I probably wanted to hurt somebody after the last couple weeks, but I deliberately aimed low and that's that's what happened. And like, to this day, that's like uh, something I think about. But um, yeah, that happened, I want to say, right after uh, sergeant mccoy had been evac'd out and that whole incident. But again, that was like March madness and it was just, it wasn't even a month, it was like six now probably like 50 days of just insane, like other tanks getting blown up. Jay Shalmati is filming it like from far away, Like they would put cameras up on mopeds, zoomed all the way in, and I think a couple of my friends have videos of their tanks getting blown up and uh, there's, I have one, two of us getting blown up. That was filmed from behind, um, just North of Routash.
Speaker 2:Um, that was another EFP, um, and I want to say, right around that time, at that time my tank commander was Sergeant Renner. Sergeant Durst was on White 3. He was the tank commander. I was on White 2, so a different section, excuse me. And again he was rolling out the gate and kind of leaning over because he had been a tanker forever. He was like a hardcore dusty tanker dude. He's such a fucking good dude he still is his day um, but he was leaning out of the tank making sure that like nothing weird was gonna get ran over, you know, because we weren't there to destroy everything. But right, um, you want to make sure that tank wasn't running over constantine wire or barrier or something. And I don't know if it was just a ID or EFP, but it went off right by that front gate and I remember I was up in my room and I think the barracks was about 50 feet from the front gate and so it was loud.
Speaker 2:So we all got our shit on, we ran outside and the tanks are rolling in and we're like, oh, they got lucky and you see them back was loud. So we all got our shit on, we ran outside and the tanks are rolling in. We're like, oh, they got lucky. And you see them back the tanks up, which you know if there's an emergency. They're just going to stop the tank and back in the little cop and they're all going to get off and dismount, call the medics and stuff. That wasn't what's happening.
Speaker 2:They moved the tanks and they backed it up into their spots and then you see serge Sergeant Durst, who, keep in mind, is again that dusty, crusty tanker that's been a tanker forever and he loved most of what he was doing, like the big, gnarly shit, everybody loves that. But he got off the tank with the CVC and his head is bleeding and there's blood running down his face and he's just shaking like this and he's trying to let a cigarette, hop me off the tank and I'm like sergeant durst, he's like you need to come down. And then another platoon sergeant from a different platoon, not sergeant canute, our platoon sergeant, but I think it was the infantry platoon. No, no, he's sergeant smith was the other tanker platoon sergeant. He's like come on, durst, I'll help you down or whatever. He's like, leave the fuck alone, give me a lighter. And like he's bleeding and he just wanted to smoke a cigarette. So I was like, oh my god, at least he's talking, wanting to smoke, so I don't think there's that much wrong with him. And you know, it turns out the shrapnel uh really skin part of his head and kind of got lodged, I think not even in the skull part, but like in the skin and stuff. So the medics were working on him upstairs but I just remember him like shaking his hand so profusely the one the cigarette was in he couldn't let his cigarette because it was so violently shaking from getting blown up and the deployment or two before that he lost, like one of his best friends to an ied and uh, he had gotten shrapnel or no, I'm sorry he got shrapnel this time and I watched him get his purple heart and he was just bawling, so but yeah, and then, uh, god i't.
Speaker 2:I think we did some more like basic presence patrols and stuff like that. We did a lot of uh stuff for the local community, like we uh did security while the engineers built like soccer fields um school buildings and put up a HESCO barriers around the schools and stuff so kids could go to school um and play soccer and stuff, cause of course that's, that's a big thing over there soccer or football, um. But that was really the bulk of that deployment, like it was just like two months or so of just insane, insane stuff. And years later something clicked and my first appointment, um, there was this young Sergeant when I was a private and I was walking Blackhawk down Right and he came up to me and he's like you know, private Pavlka, like nothing like that is ever going to happen to you, because this war is boring. And it turned out to be like the exact opposite.
Speaker 2:My second appointment and there's been so many times where I wanted to I'm friends with them, obviously still around so many times I wanted to message him and be like that's never going to happen. You know that kind of thing, yeah, like be a total smart ass to him. But I don't even think he'd remember that. But like weird things click, like that after so many years. Um, but the rest of the appointment I don't want to say it was chill, but it was definitely not like, not like March Madness.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, you know, I came home and was still dating my now ex wife at the time and uh went to that military ball where I heard Sergeant McCoy's wife talk and we tried to party. I've never been a drinker Like I tried to party and it just was not fun to me and like for probably like an hour or two of drinking it was probably fun, but like not afterwards. And then shortly after that again we all split up and got different orders to go do something else, which I think is the worst. I don't know if it's the worst, but I've never been in a command situation. But like splitting up your guys to go do other stuff after you have gone through so much is, I don't know, like an awful, awful choice to think. I think to do it's like losing all your best friends at once.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's like you never know what they're going to do, if they're going to deploy again, get hurt or, you know, have a pogass job where they're checking receipts at the PX or something you know ridiculous like that, which I would totally make fun of them for. But, um, you know, I think that's, that's a part of the military and, granted, you get to train new soldiers, you get to meet new great leadership NCOs, maybe some LTs that don't look like a bag of smashed assholes. Um, you know, meet some great people, train with great people and do that kind of stuff. But in going back to that second appointment, you know you mentioned you had a young, a really young soldier. Yeah, my second appointment.
Speaker 2:I had a soldier. His last name's John. So I'm not afraid to say that because there's millions of them. But when we went to NTC in California, he was 17. I had to buy him cigarettes and I ended up bunking with him. And we went to NTC in California, he was 17. I had to buy him cigarettes and I ended up bunking with him and we went to war together. And it's just the craziest thing to think about is this young kid I just deployed with him, went through all this crazy shit with, and now he's a teacher somewhere in Kansas, so it's cool to think about. But he was so young I had to buy his cigarettes.
Speaker 1:It's funny to see those guys now too, because they're adults. We had a guy, one of our medics, kaziki, and loved him. He's a great medic. He was always on it. He's one of those guys you wanted to be around you.
Speaker 1:And I went to a party a couple years ago and he was there. I didn't recognize him. I didn't know who he was Cause he, you know, he was 17, 18 when I knew him, and he's a man now and he's completely changed. He got so mad at me cause I didn't know who he was. Yeah, I mean, the minute he said who he was, you know, and started talking, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, but you, yeah, they all grow up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they all become adults. Thankfully the soldier I was just referring to, john, he did not change. Yeah, he looks gosh. He looks like he's like maybe 19 now, but really he's like got to be 29 or 30 or something now.
Speaker 1:Good for him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you still have to buy him cigarettes. Wait until you. Something now, yeah, but good for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you still have to buy him cigarettes. Wait till you're 35, bro. Yeah, it'll all hit you. So you um after you. So after you got back, did you actually get orders to go someplace else done? Yeah, um, did that. Did that cause you to get married, or yes?
Speaker 2:okay, that's, that's the next, not as uh upset, but we got married shortly after I got back from deployment. We were going through some rough patches and you know, when you're young, you're like maybe marriage will fix this. You know, I love you. I'm only talking to you. I'm not seeing. I haven't talked to anybody else. I don't know if you have um, but I've been gone you know, and anybody that's in the military knows those stories.
Speaker 2:So I'm not going to go through that. But, um, we thought it would fix things. We got married at the courthouse in Savannah, georgia, move up to Fort Knox and I ended up in a uh, in 16 Cav which is like a total Pogas unit, like training lieutenants, supporting lieutenants, all that stuff they're going through like Bullock army, recon cabadas, all that stuff. Anything from Navy uh, not really Navy, but we had Marine Corps officers and army officers obviously, and uh, it was total, it was a joke. But um, but um, we, uh, I found myself mountain biking a lot more, which I still ride to this day. I've been riding since I was 13 and I started racing and I I used to race downhill mountain bikes and that's when they're like riffing down a ski resort mountain on trails like rock gardens, big drops, road gaps, like the scariest shit.
Speaker 1:That's how I broken all my bones, but it was mountain biking yeah, the most dangerous thing you did was get on a mountain bike yeah, yeah, I got this cool scar right here my left clavicle. It goes right through my tattoo I've got a big bar right here, yeah that was the easiest one to deal with.
Speaker 2:But, um, I found myself like meeting these mountain bikers uh je, his wife, nikki, a couple other locals, and it was like five minutes from Fort Knox.
Speaker 2:So I was always, you know, like, hey, I'm gonna go ride to the wife and my friend Mike and Takara, who are actually from Michigan. I met through another random Michigan person while I was deployed. They were really cool, great people. I love them, they're like family. They came to stay in my apartment with my now ex-wife for a couple days until they get all their stuff shipped and get moved in.
Speaker 2:And during that time frame we were going through another rough patch and I started talking to a random girl. Like I totally got what they call catfished. This girl was in another state. I was just like stupid and I was really disrespectful about it. But I was like I don't like you anymore. I know we're married, but I'm going to talk to this girl. It's just the most scumbag thing you could do and I would never wish that on anybody, because shortly after and later down the years, the same thing happened to me. But roles are reversed, Right, anyway, and that couple I was just talking about, mike and Takara.
Speaker 2:They recalled last time, when I just saw them, like a year or two ago, no, probably two years ago, um, down in georgia, they're like do you remember when she was getting pissed and throwing plates and breaking them in front of us because you wanted to go ride mountain bikes? I was like, no, was she doing that? And I was shocked and they had like an like they remembered where things were in my apartment so I knew like they didn't mix me up with anybody else, right? And she was throwing tantrums because I wanted to go ride bikes once or twice a week for an hour or two at a time or build some sweet jumps and stuff. And she wanted to do coffee shopping, which was fun once in a while, and do other shopping-type activities. And she was getting mad because I didn't, because I wanted to ride bikes and I wanted to do something that wasn't sit there with her all day, every day, sitting at home. And so you know, right after that is when I started talking to that girl we ended up getting divorced because I was being stupid about it, but I helped move all her stuff back down to savannah, georgia, and then after that the divorce came and after the divorce. She stopped by to see me and she got pregnant with my child.
Speaker 2:Oh so, another poor decision you make sometimes when you're dumb. Um, but, like, I'm really thankful my daughter and her actually live in Mason, so when things are not bad I get to see my daughter. Unfortunately, I got a lot of the paperwork when I was out in the field at Fort Knox training lieutenants I think it was an army recon class I got paperwork and I was just like F it, I'm just going to sign this Basically, didn't read it, didn go to jag with it and gave away all my rights to see my daughter. Like the stupidest thing I think I've ever done. And, uh, that was that I popped home when I could on leave to see her and hang out with her and missed most of her growth Cause she's uh, she's going to be turning 15 in June and she's this like gorgeous little blonde girl who, just like when I do get to hang out with her, she.
Speaker 2:I see all this resemblance from me, my attitude, the same facial expressions and I'm like God, I've been missed. I've missed so much stuff, so stupid. But um, I was was having a hard time at first when I'd come home and she was around the age of one-ish. I'd have a hard time hanging out with her because I remember that daughter carrying her dad from the rooftop.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is click, Like when I parked the car in the driveway type of thing. It wasn't even when I saw her. It was during that moment where you have a time to click, like when I parked the car in the driveway type of thing, was even when I saw her. It was like during that moment where, like, you have a time to take a deep breath, like only when I parked the car or when I knocked on the door, and there's that weird moment of silence where nothing's happening. It would click and then I'd want to just hang out with her for like an hour or two and then I leave. And it was, I'm sure. I'm actually I'm positive.
Speaker 2:Michelle thought I was like avoiding the daughter thing and maybe sometimes I was, but it was like, uh, it was hard to deal with. Um, one of the things that happened during the divorce is she called the chaplain's office and I was really good with the chaplain. In my unit I actually tattooed his finger. He was a weird dude but he was super cool and we got on like a three-way call and it's like 9 o'clock at night and I have to be to work the next morning, so I'm like ready to shower, get my uniform ready. I got to be to work to draw weapons or something for these lieutenants at like 4.30 in the morning or 5.
Speaker 2:And the first thing we started talking about is chaplains. Like she says you're a changed man. And I was like, well, she dated me for like three months and he's like, yeah, but like the stuff you've went through. And I was like I know, like I know what I went through, Like have I tried to talk to her about that kind of stuff? I don't think so. But like that, of course I got defensive, I'm sure at some point I was like you know, if, if you want to know what it was like, you should have been there with me. But of course you know that's everybody has a choice. You know, like it's kind of a fucked up thing to say, but, um, that's a lot of how I thought about some of that stuff. And um, anyway, uh, after the divorce and after missing some of my child's uh growing pains and opportunities, um, I started coming home more and trying to spend more time with her. Um, but that weird vision, I guess would always click and it's only like a fraction of a second, but it's enough to ruin everything.
Speaker 2:Like ruin dinner, birthday parties. I wouldn't like freak out and walk out or anything like that, but it would just click and, um, my now ex-wife's family would be like what are you okay? Cause I would be stone faced, right Like just thinking about it for a second and um, I'd be like, oh yeah, oh yeah, it's totally fine. You know, like they didn't know anything about that either. So you know, they might really think I'm a disgusting person and which is fine. Like I totally get it from both ankles.
Speaker 1:I think that people don't realize something about military people, and that is we're really good at lying, yeah, we're fine. I'm fine, there's nothing wrong, I'm good. You know, in in the meantime you're wanting to jump off a building, right, but we're really good, like if we were just honest, which we can't be, because the things that we know and the things that we've done are so painful that we don't want to share them with other people.
Speaker 2:But if we just did go a long way in explaining how we are, who we are and maybe some of the stupid shit we've done, um, it's not an excuse, yeah, um, but certainly it sheds some light on on how we are, but we're really good about lying about how we feel about things, absolutely yeah, yeah, like, uh, speaking of that before I go back in a topic, my now wife, who's amazing um, when we first started dating, um, we're like doing the 21 questions all the time, like we've been dating for a year and I'm still like so, what's your favorite kind of cake? You know just cute, weird shit like that. And we always got to the point. It's like, how do you handle disagreements and arguments? And until I met her, it was always let it roll for the night and if it really bothers me the next day, I'll bring it up with her. I want to fix immediately, let's talk about.
Speaker 1:It's not like that right.
Speaker 2:So she's more on that playing field that I was before. But me like if we get into a fight or an argument, like I know she's never gonna cheat on me yeah the only time I would um be that angry at you is if you did cheat on me. So I'm always wanting to hammer shit out right away and fix it right away.
Speaker 1:So I go back to loving you, or you love me, or whatever it is, and um so you don't, you don't understand that fighting has something to do with whether you love the person or not, right?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I get that, but it's just like it's more volatile when you have a large amount of disdain towards somebody, which I did with my now ex-wife.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But like, anyway, back to the. We're going to get to her lovely life in a little bit. Where were we Riding bikes? She was breaking stuff.
Speaker 1:You're divorced. So yeah, you're divorced. You're kind of hanging out with your daughter now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more so like around 2012 or so Uh-huh and around, I think, at the end of 2011, I got more orders to go back down to Georgia. I think at the end of 2011, I got more orders to go back down to Georgia and I was like I wonder if I'm doing something cool, because before I got to help train rangers not in like a major way, like I wasn't a ranger or anything.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But I got to help them do combatives training. I got to help them set up for RAS, which was like pre-ranger training. I would be, you know, in the field, like watching their instructors talk, and I picked up so much stuff. Just those guys are just amazing groups of people. But I was able to contribute a support element to that time era. And gosh, where are we going with that? You got orders to Georgia, oh yeah, and no, no, I'm staying with 16 cav training lieutenants. I'm like, okay, well, this first time fort knox was a cakewalk like my lunch. I would take two hours and go ride mountain bikes, you know. And um, right before we moved to knox, uh, I got a new staff sergeant in a time I'd been promoted Dang, I forgot to tell that story too. But his name was Staff Sergeant Perez Happiest dude ever, just like Reggie was like happy, but when something bad happened and it's your fault, he was like your dad. He was like I'm'm not angry, I'm just really disappointed in you, sergeant pavlika, you know and it's more.
Speaker 2:I'd rather have somebody be angry at me than disappointed.
Speaker 2:It was so bad because you knew how happy he was and how caring of nancy. I've never met a more caring leader in my life. And so I met him. We moved down to fort knox or whatever, I'm sorry, fort uh bedning, georgia, from Fort Knox and he knew I was in a mountain biking racing. I was picking up sponsor deals with like bike teams. At one point I was on Billy Go Bikes, which was sponsored by Smith Optics, rocky Mountain Bicycles, later Da Vinci Cycles, poc and a bunch of I'd get huge discounts on like Top Gear dude. It was the coolest experience. And he, you could talk to him about that and he'd be like why don't you take off? I'd be like what do you mean starter? And he's like you got your bike and your truck, man Go. You know he's a Mexican dude too.
Speaker 1:So he had an accent yeah.
Speaker 2:But like he'd be like you don't have to wait till midnight to sign out on Thursday. He's like I'll sign you out on Friday morning. I come to PT or something weird like that, and I would already skip out and be where I needed to be by Friday evening, instead of be there by like Thursday night, like ready to go. He, he genuinely cared and was like everything's taken care of. I got this like go ride your bike, pavlika, and that's what he would say. And Like go ride your bike, pavlika, and that's what he would say. And oh man, he used to get me out of so much stuff to go ride bikes. Like, if there's some shitty detail, he'd be like Sergeant Pavlika, I've got him doing this, and he'd just be like scoot you know, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:He was a great dude, yeah, and going back real quick on that second appointment shortly, um, going back real quick, um, on that second appointment shortly, like I want to say a month or two after working on Sergeant McCoy, um, the story's going to come back around with Sergeant Perez, but, um, they had us. They had me, uh, drawn up for a bronze star with a V device or something like that, and I can't remember the exact awards, like what they put me in for versus what I got, and they downgraded it to just an ARCOM because I didn't have my proper gear on, and so they brought me onto Fab Falcon and General Portreus was there and everybody's like look, sharp, dress in a good uniform. And I just got promoted, sergeant Pavko, are you going to go in formation? I was like I don't want to do that. You know, I was still in the March Madness mode, so I was like I don't give a fuck who this guy is. And he was a huge dude. Obviously he's a very important guy back then. And a huge dude, obviously he's a very important guy back then.
Speaker 2:And um, so I went up in this formation against my will and again, this is during march madness, so forgive my uh, I guess arrogance at this time. But, um, they're give jumper trace, giving everybody coins and some colonel is reading off what that soldier or Lieutenant did to earn that coin, you know. And so I'm in formation with like 16 people or something, and not one of those stories other than mine was combat related. It was all like a maintenance supply. These four Humvees were fixed in 48 hours and these MRAPs were delivered to FOB I don't know whatever, or Anaconda or something, within two days, and I was angry that I was in the same realm as these people that are just doing their job.
Speaker 2:And so I was again. That's the arrogance part on my on my end. Um, as soon as I got out of formation, I tossed the coin and the certificate in the trash and I got my ass chewed by, I think, a full bird Colonel and somebody else shortly after. And our CO at the time was like I'll handle it, sergeant Pavel. He's like just stand by for a minute, and that was it. But I was like you know, there's too much going on, dude. There was just to put me in formation and to give me anything.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like even a handshake I don't want that dude and like how about some clean drinking water, bro? You know? How about something that doesn't taste like diesel? Yeah, yeah, but anyway. So back to start, perez.
Speaker 1:somebody had told him what I did because I didn't go around, like you don't go around with an ARCOM and be like I got this, you know so the difference between a personal opinion here, the difference between soldiers who have really done something and soldiers who are not, have not really done something, is the stories they tell. Yeah, the guys who don't talk very, very frequently, infrequently, are the guys who've really seen something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like I feel like we could have probably hung out for a couple of weeks if we weren't doing this right now. I wouldn't know all that about you. Yeah, we'd have to be friends for a while before you would share any of that.
Speaker 2:I think Micas. Oh gosh, I don't know if I should say that, if I should say a name on on this.
Speaker 1:That's okay. Everyone knows who Micas is Okay.
Speaker 2:We love our Micas. He knows, he knows like part of the story like not not the in-depth stuff. I, I think, with Ben that you're meeting this upcoming weekend. Him and I were joking around about who had more badass jobs. So I just sent him a screenshot of that R-Com and he's like, oh, you just carry that around with you. And I was like no dude, like three people have seen it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, Well I mean, but if you're at the local VFW and there's that guy talking about all the oh, there I was in the shit you know, immediately.
Speaker 2:It's all bullshit. You can spot those guys before you talk to them absolutely. But uh, anyway, I digress I kept it in my like uh google drive because I was applying at the time for uh contracting positions overseas. I was like these guys only hire like retired cag operators, delta guys. I was like this is my only cool shit that I have on paper to slide in there. Maybe I'll get a job.
Speaker 2:That's the only reason it's there I don't have it printed out on a wall or anything but um, going back to the uh coin, sergeant perez had heard about it and uh, he had asked me uh, sergeant pavlicka, what'd you do with that? And and he already knew, cause I told him and he's like, is that really what happened? And I'm like, yes, sergeant, and he's like, good on you, sergeant Pavlika. Like he's like, don't take no crap from no one, like and he was just that joyful dude. And well, so we're back at Benning and training all these lieutenants again.
Speaker 2:I got to go to some cool, cool training. I wish I would have gone to more dude, because it's government money and they had so many cool training opportunities. I got to go to Escape Innovation Training in California, not SEER, but where they drop you off with a group dude in a simulated Black Hawk crash in Death Valley and you have to survive and evade the enemy for like three, four, five days or something like that. They were kind of testing this, from what I remember, and we got to do all sorts of cool stuff evading the enemy. And then, like I got to help with pre-ranger school which god dude, just like listening those guys talk and watching them shoot on the range and rock and do land.
Speaker 2:Now, if I'm like that shit is so cool, but I paid as much attention as I could as long as I was welcome in the classroom, didn't disrupt and I helped when I could. Um, because you know everybody has those thoughts about wanting to go more or wanting to go to be group guy and stuff like that, and so I was trying to pay attention. I was like this is my excuse. I know I want to get out, but I'm going to hang out here and, um, god, army recon rasp, um, aerosol airborne. I got to assist and support like so many cool classes and then do additional cool training, so I knew how to support and, uh, I guess I don't know stuff to look for like shitty garbage, ass equipment you don't want to.
Speaker 2:You also don't want to send like a brand new spanking m4 the ranger that's going to go swimming in the swamp with it right, you know right, but like I was able to learn so much cool stuff in those few years that was stationed around Fort Benning and going to different schools during that time frame and then I broke my clavicle four weeks after I broke my hip on the same race course on the same hill in Snowshoe, west Virginia. So obviously I'm mountain biking a lot more, so I'm impressed it's getting me out of work. I'm. I have a little key. I just strap my bikes to the back to you. That thing kicks ass on gas. I'm going all the way up to virginia from georgia. I'm going to new york, everywhere to race bikes and um.
Speaker 2:So on the race course I broke hip. I was pedaling into like a super uh floaty jump. It wasn't like anything huge, it was like two or three feet, but the landing was like 15 feet that way past the jump and if you were pedaling harder you could launch even further and I'd been hitting all day, just fine, and I pedaled into it real hard and when my pedal stroke came down the pedal hit a rock and my bike turned sideways. I went hip first into the jump on my left hip and cartwheeled off and smoked the back of my helmet. Thank god I had a full face on um, I didn't find that out till later, but, um, I guess I was laying there and people were riding by. I I asked if I was okay Cause I hadn't enough sense to move my bike and myself off the race course Right. And, um, I guess I, from what I understand, I was laying there smoking a cigarette, like paint me like one of your French girls laying and I get the reference Like I was just laying there in the dirt, like and I didn't think anything was wrong. And ski patrol or bike patrol same thing uh, from my understanding was looking for me and they found me hiking my bike on my shoulder up the hill through like the soft grass, and I don't remember any of that. And they were yelling at me on the lift to stop, like we're coming to help you, and I don't remember any of that. I was just smoking cigarettes and carrying like a 50 pound bike with a broken hip up the hill and a 45 minute, you know, hospital ride. Later, um, they gave me, uh, an IV bag with some hardcore pain meds and with their every human emotion like on the spectrum, like sadness, happiness. I was flirting with the EMT chick in front of her husband. They were laughing. I was depressed, everything that you could imagine.
Speaker 2:I went through in that 45 minute hospital, which again was like 10 miles, but up in the mountains it's longer and the doctor was like, did you hit your head? I'm like, I don't think so. Like they just gave me x-rays. I knew my hip was broken. The doctor was reviewing stuff with me and there was a spot in the back of my helmet that was about four inches long and about two inches wide, that looked like it had sat on the back of somebody's exhaust on their motorcycle. I hit the back of my head and my helmet that hard on a rock that had made that mark. Wow. And so if I hadn't been wearing it I would have died if I'd been wearing a different helmet. And so you know, I have like a hairline fracture on my left hip.
Speaker 2:I end up doing two practice runs on saturday and sore hot tub in and out swimming pool, in and out motrin and tylenol three, which made me sick. That's why I I guess I'm not a big drinker, I'm not a big pill popper either, right, but tylenol three like got me through the day. And then my race run. I crashed again, but didn't get hurt, got back up and finished fifth place somehow in like a tier two race, like with seasoned racers. And then four weeks later on almost the identical racetrack on a different jump, what we call a step down. So it's like a jump, but instead of the landing being on an equal, uh, horizontal area, this is sloped down way more and the landing is way further out. I was like I sent this all week a couple weeks ago and I sent it and when I landed my bike bounced and my back tire kind of threw me over the handlebars and I landed like with my arms out and broke my clavicle. And yeah, that was a 10 hour drive back on Motrin from Snowshoe to Georgia with my dog, who was scared shitless of riding the truck so I couldn't like tell her to hop in there. I had to like hoist her off with one arm.
Speaker 2:But, um, shortly after that my first Sergeant uh found out that I was racing mountain bikes and he was an incoming first Sergeant. He'd only been part of the unit for like two or three months, so he was very angry with me and uh, I want to say that happened around fall-ish and in spring I was totally healed up and it was 2012-ish, I think. At this point in the spring, um, I raced in Clemson, south Carolina, and I qualified for like a U S national championship, which is sometimes easy to do from my understanding, sometimes really incredibly hard to do. But barely anybody showed up that race, so I was kind of like a shoo-in and I was like I've qualified 13th place according to the time of us nationals. I was like the big race is in angel fire, new mexico. And I was going to drive there, georgia, put in my leave paperwork and everything, had my bike on the back of my little kia and then the commander tells First, sergeant Stewart, isn't that the sergeant that's breaking stuff, mountain biking? Why is he going to New Mexico? And so, right then, and there they rip up my leave paperwork literally in front of me, like a dramatic movie, and from then on I resented him, which we're friends now, yeah, and he was like I'm sorry, I was such an asshole type of thing.
Speaker 2:But, um, after that I was like man, this is definitely time for me to get out. And, um, I kept having like small injuries with my clavicle to the point where it didn't heal Right and, uh, they ended up med medically retiring me. They were like, do you want to medically retire? And I was like, yes, absolutely Get me out better If you get me out with a pay, yeah, so, um, man, that was a weird experience getting out to. Um. I want to say I was fully ETS by April, but I had enough leaves saved up that I left in March. Ets by april, but I had enough leaves saved up that I left in march and, uh, I didn't get a coin, a plaque or anything from anybody like I barely got like something like similar to that from the fake signature from obama, you know when you get out yeah, what do they call?
Speaker 1:that, thing, the fake signature writer, thing, I guess the auto pen.
Speaker 2:It's like a the auto pen. Oh, that's auto pen. Okay and uh. Anyway, they uh gave me like a U S army retired bumper sticker and I slapped it on my Kia and I left, went and raced more mountain bikes on the way home.
Speaker 1:Uh huh.
Speaker 2:And, uh, I I kind of am jealous and resentful of a lot of people I see getting out now, because they're getting like pictures with all their, their platoon and like these nice plaques with like fake revolvers or spurs and stuff. I'm like I didn't get shit. Dude, like this, you know, is awful. They just waved yeah, they know I mean, they didn't even wave, I did forget to mention, uh, the january. Before I got out, uh, sgt perez was coming home from leave and got into a car accident.
Speaker 2:He passed away oh which, like I don't know how I skimmed over that, but that was like I remember a first sergeant called us in a formation and somebody had already told me. So I was like in the back, like just teared up, like completely teared up, like completely teared up, um, and he had died in his minivan they drove like a maniac, but, um, that he had passed away on his way home from leave, from Christmas leave or something like that from Texas. And like, uh, one of the other staff sergeants that wasn't really in charge of me, but we knew each other with certain Perez, he like pulled me aside and like was talking to me while formation was getting announced and stuff like that, that he had passed away. And uh, yeah, right after that I ETS and came back home to Michigan.
Speaker 2:Um was dating another girl at the time. Uh, she's never going to see this, so her name's Aaron. I'm not going to put her last name out there. Obviously it's changed so many times now she's seeing all these dudes. Um, anyway, uh, we dated for like eight months, moved in together, or eight months from when I got out.
Speaker 2:I would have been dating for like a year prior to that, but, um, we ended up splitting up cause we just weren't, we weren't feeling it. Yeah, I moved out and moved back to my folks who were from Howell for a few months, or yeah, it was like four months to get back on my feet and I super struggled getting out. Like the first couple months I was like, oh, I'm retired now I can go to school and just make bank, you know. And like I think it was like less than two months after I got out, all I wanted to do was get back in, cause I didn't know, like, what to do. Like what do I do? Now I feel like I've already done like something significant in my life, like do I just get old and die? Am I going to be in a car accident a couple of years? Cause my job's done, like what is it, you know?
Speaker 2:And so, like I was rapid firing applying to police departments. I had a couple of ends with DPD and the DEA, which I thought would have been cool, cause I would love to shoot and kill heroin dealers. I still would like to do this to this day. But um, they also found out that I said that on social media, so I got denied, of course, right right, that's gonna keep you from stupid. But, um, you know, I was rapid firing any type of uh, dangerous job that I could find, right, and it wasn't because I like danger. It's like I like the grind, I like being valuable, I like knowing I can count on people and they can count on me to do stuff.
Speaker 1:And it's hard in the civilian world, when in the military what you do really matters, like the fact that you were where you were at when sergeant mccoy was injured that mattered. What did mattered, and I feel like when you get out and you go to some office job it might matter to the CEO, but in the bigger picture it just doesn't matter Like this is stupid. Why does this block on this Excel spreadsheet mean so much to somebody? Fucking? People are dying overseas. You know that, right yeah, so it's hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I was trying so hard to get back on a grind of some kind. I was jealous. One of my best buddies, william I'll say his first name, since he's still in, I think he's with 10th Group now but he went the SF route and he was again ripped like in shape, incredibly intelligent. Like you could not argue with this dude. You could be like my watch is black and he would convince you that it's bright red and make you look stupid saying it. He was so he's still as smart. I talked to him every like, maybe once a year now, but, um, I was, was like, what's it like? Like? Should I like try to drop my paperwork and re-enlist, you know? And he's like man, everything has changed. He's like I wouldn't even bother, I'd stay out and that was not okay with me. Like we went back and forth for a couple phone calls right and I was like I want to do something worthwhile again.
Speaker 2:But, um, after that whole thought got nixed and I started being more thankful for, like, where I was at maybe not what was going on at the time, but thankful I was medically retired. I think I came out rated at like 60 or no, I came out rated at 80% and I was like that's a lot, cause I had, you know, tbi, short-term memory loss, uh, clavicle hip, um, I've had knee surgeries and you know all that weird stuff where they go and they make little nicks and they remove stuff and then they call you good Um.
Speaker 2:But I was really thankful and so I was like I need to like chill out and do something local. My daughter's here, I don't need to go, you know right, it's me back overseas or try to go overseas. So I I got my first ever like my first personal handgun I've ever owned.
Speaker 2:And it was the stupidest handgun. It was a bread, a PX, four Storm and 40 Cal, which is like now that I understand basic ballistics, it's just like an awful round, awful gun, Anyway. So I started getting more firearms training and about the time I moved back in with my folks. So a few months, and then I started dating this girl that I had a crush on in high school and I hope she never hears this, but um, she was, she was pretty, she was cute and um, she was a model and she was in hustler stuff, Not like, uh, you know, strip, pornographic stuff, but nudity stuff, not participating in activities.
Speaker 1:If you catch my drift like solo stuff we're going to call it.
Speaker 2:And so I was like, oh, this is sweet, we started dating, all this other stuff, we got engaged, blah, blah, blah. But she was a heavy drinker. Heavy drinker Like she's probably the most drinking person I've ever met. And uh, she's probably the most drinking person I've ever met. And she had a real problem. She also had diabetes type 2. So when her sugar would get super low she would act like she was blackout drunk. When it got super high, she just got irritated and she got insulin fixed it. But she was so careless and reckless she almost died in the bed twice next to me because she would seize when her sugar got so low. I've had to call EMTs or I'm sorry, none won a couple of times and they would send the EMTs and paramedics to the house. Um, didn't know if she would make it type of stuff. Uh, a couple of times, like the blood sugar reader wasn't even getting a reading, it was so low. And so you know that's gotta be below the 20s or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:That's super low yeah and uh.
Speaker 2:you know, I enjoyed my sobriety more so at that time, like when she, when we would go out drinking, I would have like a beer and see how she's acting and I'd be like I don't want to act like this, you know. And you know I found out she had been first. I found out she had been first. I found out she had been kissing dudes. Then I found out she had been kissing chicks when she's drinking with me at the bar and I found out she was banging local sheriff deputies and all this other stuff. And we got into it and we tried to smooth stuff out. And one day her blood sugar got really low and, uh, she tried to leave the house in bra and panties, sober as a bird just really bad low sugar and I had to call the cops. I was like I'm not going to jail if I restrain you, right, you know? And she sprayed me in the eye with hairspray when the cops were there and she they were like do you want to press charges? And I was like no, like I just want to probably leave, you know. And we tried to iron stuff out. And then I want to say 2014, 2015, um, it was around winter time and I was putting up that plastic stuff that they put over windows to keep the heat in. More so, right, and she's like you're doing it wrong. She got low blood sugar. She started screaming at me and then we got into like a verbal altercation and then she spit on me and shoved me and I shoved her back. I went to jail for that Cause I admitted it. Like we got into a shoving match and I didn't realize what I say would be used like that, right, and she didn't want to press charges, but they had to take somebody away at the time, yeah, and so I had to go to jail for that and spent the night. It was Sunday, so I had to spend. This was at noon, so I wasn't even seen for almost 24 hours and uh, yeah, uh, obviously we broke it off after that. We're still friends, or not really friends, but we've openly communicated after that.
Speaker 2:And then I did my probation and luckily my probation officer at the time, diane I forgot her I can't say her last name because she was interviewing with DEA, previously law enforcement, and she's like I know you don't do drugs because I've tested you like weekly, randomly and you've never popped off or anything. I was like I know, like she's like just check in with me once a month and you know, I did the probation stuff. And then I was like I need to do something like physically active and violent, it's not going to hurt anybody. So I got more into firearms training and learning all that stuff I did in the military, especially at the Mount site stuff, the CQB or CQC now whatever you want to call it breach entry, like that was my I. I love doing it.
Speaker 2:And, um, I found a group of dudes that also like doing it. Most of them were civilians. Well, they turned out to be like a militia group, but not like a psycho group, right, just like young folks that want to learn to not depend on government. They want to shoot, do cool stuff. They also want to learn medical stuff. They want to learn radios. They want to learn, uh, farming and crop growing, like cool, like cool stuff. We'd also um volunteer, uh, we helped bring like box trucks of water up to flint, like 40 or 50 of us carrying it up like five or six flights of stairs type of stuff. Like we were out, like not trying to be psychos, but like to become that valuable person again is what I felt like we were doing.
Speaker 1:Serve people.
Speaker 2:Yeah and uh. You know I got to do a lot of the cool training again, cause people had land and we built like a 60 foot rappel tower, we built 360 degree shoot houses. I was teaching all the breach and entry stuff and all. I would only teach it to certain people that were noticeably safe and able to do so, like we would have tryouts, right kind of thing, and basically it's class time but much more strenuous. And uh, then I want to say within a short period of time I got contacted by the FBI and you know, just like a cop that is behind you that's going to pull you over or not, you get nervous.
Speaker 1:Oh, of course.
Speaker 2:And so this guy's first name is Rich, he's with the FBI and he was at an office somewhere close to me I don't know if he's still doing stuff, so I don't give out every information but they were like we just want to talk to local militia groups and I was putting out cool video edits on youtube yeah, you know, of course, like guys sliding and engaging targets, like all the cool stuff and uh, they're like we found your videos, you know you want to talk to you. And I was like, okay, I was like do I need a lawyer present? And they're like did you do anything illegal? Like no, clearly not. Like I wouldn't tell you anyway, bud, but anyway. So they interview me and I actually got to the guys I trained in the bar restaurant that they interviewed me at in Cleary's in downtown Howell and uh, I had been training these guys on. They were like my advanced friends. I was training them with stalking, counter-stalking, surveillance, counter-surveillance uh, mid-range shooting definitely not long range, cause I'm not cool like that Um and breach and entry stuff, like all the guys that did really well, and they were literally able to take pictures of all of us while I was being interviewed so I could have that for my records. And the fbi had no idea like that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Um, shortly after that, um, you know, I I had uh, I had met my now wife, melissa, because her and her boyfriend at the time were in the same little group. We were training and stuff like that and I had met her then and we didn't hang out or do much. We helped with veteran ruck march and a couple other things like that. But I decided to start my own tactics training company called sledgehammer tactical and I was like you know what, fuck all this, I'm gonna move back to colorado, ride mountain bikes. And my buddy was like, apply for my police department. So I did that and they were like, yeah, we'll take you, cool, moved out there and like five months, five months in. They're like you don't have any college. And I was like, well, I just started college and you guys said you'd take a military experience in lieu of lack of college. Right, like yeah, we're not doing that anymore. And so I'm like shook up trying to run my tactical company and stuff is almost double the price as it is in Michigan and Colorado Springs. So like the apartment was expensive and I'm like what do I do now. So you know, I'm running my own range.
Speaker 2:I'm training people a couple of times a month, anything from EMTs to like Colorado Springs SWAT guys, and they're just volunteering and it's not like I'm making like major bank off of it. I'm working at, like the air force, px, which was a mistake Cause I was supposed to be put on the gun counter, and they're like, well, we need help unloading gardening soil, and so I was doing that a lot and after a month I quit that and moved on and worked at a bike shop out there of and you know, all this time I had made a couple cool friends ben I was. I was a dental assistant, really, yeah, um, I worked at a pharmacy before that too, but I had all these weird jobs right, and I ended up meeting like two really really good people. I was there, ben, who's like 15 years younger than me. He was a dental assistant too, like this super rad Utah hippie that liked riding bikes and shooting guns and we're still friends obviously to this day but hung out with him a lot riding bikes and shooting and was teaching him to shoot like mid-range stuff with a bolt gun, bolt action. And then I randomly met this super tall again, why I've run into these intelligent people like once every couple of years, the super tall, intelligent guy that likes to argue, bike riding veteran, I'm like are we like best friends, like so, and he got me to where I am now, which is wild to think about, but uh, anyway, I spent time with them out there for about a year and he's getting me into like a computer stuff, network security, cybersecurity stuff, and I'm like, you know, I miss my friends, my daughter, my daughter um, I can't fly madeline my daughter, madeline out here to colorado because her mom doesn't like me, understandably, and you know I miss her and I miss my family, my mom and dad and seeing them.
Speaker 2:So I'm like I'm moving back to michigan and I took my dog and like my tv and, I think, a couch and I just left Cause I was like I was talking to Brady and I think I was talking to Ben too. I was like I'm so like upset all the time. I just miss everybody. Uh, I think I'm just going to go and my best friend, brandon Anderson, who I deployed at the first time I lived with them for a couple months, him is now Psycho X, so I can say that. But you know, I talked to them multiple times over the course of hours and beers of like trying to figure life out, and I just moved back to Michigan, kept training people, eventually got a job at a gun store I don't want to say where it's at, cause it's pretty obvious but uh, after a few months, I started designing uh, training requirements, uh, classroom time, slides, whatever. And after a few months I became the director of training and I was able to teach almost whatever I wanted in in the ranges, like anything from vehicles, close quarter combat, like how to exit a vehicle when you're in a gunfight, uh, shooting around a vehicle, uh, we were able to use like sim munition and so, like chalk rounds, uh, they feel a little pinch when you get hit, but we would set up like hallways in the range and stuff like that it was. I got to shoot like probably 6,000 rounds a month almost for free, but I want to say around August of 2018. Yeah, okay, yeah, in August, about 2018,.
Speaker 2:My now wife, wonderful Melissa, messaged me on Instagram who I'd met before training with the militia group and she was like do you have any brass? Cause she was wanting to make jewelry with like crystals and like brass was cool, cause some crystals would fit in the spent brass. And she's looking for 50 Cal brass. I'm like nobody's shooting that and leaving their breasts because that's expensive. They probably reload it. It's like $7 a round. And she's like what do you have?
Speaker 2:And I gave her some options. She didn't understand the sizes, so to speak. She would if I had handed it to her, but it's hard to explain over text. So I was like you want to get a beer sometime? And she's like yeah. And so I was like you want to get a beer sometime? And you know she's like yeah, and just a heads up like so-and-so.
Speaker 2:Her now ex is out of the picture, he's working on moving out. And I was like okay, because that'd be weird if we like went and hung out and he was still in your life, because I don't like doing that, right. But anyway, we hit it off like so hardcore, like the first night on a date we went, uh, to pizza and a beer and we just had a nice like romantic night. And she knows I'm hard of hearing and it was kind of loud, and so she was sitting to the right of me and she was like trying to talk to me in my ear and I was like, can you speak up? And she went to go like pull my ear and I like spun real quick and kissed her and that was like my sneaky little, I'm deaf, disabled and cute type of kiss and totally like snuck it in there and like, since then you know we were dating for a while oh man and there's a lot of weird drama.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that she does not want out there, but um, her ex had said to the same fbi agents that I previously kind of worked with um, that I was making machine guns, silencers and I was going to kidnap a senator.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:And which, like I, was going to gunsmithing school previously too.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I knew how to make the silencers. I never made one. I had no clue how to make a machine gun, but I'm sure I could figure it out. But I wasn't doing any of that. I definitely wasn't going to kidnap anybody, right. And so word got to the agents I was working with and they're like we know you're not doing this, but there's been a formal complaints, we need to investigate you. And at the time I was getting ready to do my secret clearance to go overseas, going to try to contract, and because I was being federally investigated I can't hold the clearance ever. Now I can't get a job with any police department now or anything that requires any kind of clearance. Really, I'm lucky I have the job I have now. Um, so I was like, oh, that's out the window. And you know she feels god awful about that.
Speaker 2:But it's not like her fault obviously. Um, if anything, it's kind of like nobody's fault. Like the psycho X was angry and thought like they were still together in some format, even though she was trying to evict him and there was just a bunch of weird drama and went through court for years. So I'd been federally investigated now at this point and we just continued pushing on. We kept it what we call PAF, which is professionals F? Um because they were taking screenshots from my Facebook, all sorts of stuff of me shooting firearms Cause I had been around so much cool stuff right that they were using that against me in court, saying like I'm a PTSD brittle veteran, I'm going to hurt their child, cause now I have a stepson, their child that they had together, and they were just trying to use all that against me and drag me through the mud, drag her name to the mud too, and there was probably six days a week for months, for probably over a year actually, where she would call me crying about the stuff that went on in court, because it was almost weekly and communication that happens between that would get her upset and we just tried to keep it professional and in the end we obviously came out on top and with that drama he ended up going to prison because he put a GPS tracker on her car and hardwired it in and it went across state lines so it became a felony because she was going down to head to all the stress from the ordeal onto her.
Speaker 2:She had a really bad cancer in her back. She was constantly going down to Ohio for treatment. Cancer in her back. She was constantly going down to Ohio for treatment and so you know, the mechanics that were looking at her Jeep found it and she called me immediately because I was like he was giving hints that he knew where she was and I was like he either has like your Gmail access or something else, and I was like like I guarantee it's a gps.
Speaker 2:We couldn't find it before. But anyway, he went to jail or prison for that for a while and, uh, he's been out and he's seen his, his son, which is cool, and it seems like he mellowed out a little bit because I don't know, I think he just had a traumatic time with the breakup. Not saying it's justified or any excuse, but it was deeply psychotic and I don't want to put all that information out there, but it was. It was scary. Like one example was he showed up at my parents' house with a gun, so like that's all documented, obviously, but it sounds like maybe he's got it figured out now, though I I mean, we can, we can hope so for sure, cause like I think he had just a mental breakdown and I think he didn't know who to talk to about it and how to deal with it, you know, and uh, so that's that's probably the end of the court drama stuff. During this court drama, brady, the guy in Colorado, the tall guy, that was just super great dude.
Speaker 2:Um, I dipped my toes into cybersecurity because previously he had hacked into my computer and changed the background and the time I was like that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I want to do hacking stuff. Anybody that gets into computer stuff is immediately like I want to do hacking, you know. And then they phase out and do something else. But, um, I got into it and I'm wrapping up my bachelor's soon, but I'd been doing like all the hacking labs from try hack me, hack the box, try hack me, hack the box. Like all these badass cool labs that you learn how to break into stuff, you also learn how to protect your stuff. So it's called like red team is the penetration, testing or hacking team, blue team is your defenders. That worked like secure company or an asset or whatever. Um, there's many different things that contribute to all that. But, but I got into it and found myself at a job where I was monitoring for companies like probably multiple companies a night and night shift and I was investigating when alerts would pop up and seeing if they're worth calling the client over at 3 AM or not, and from there just spiraled into insane cyber security stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, after the court stuff, I started working with our, with that company's hacking team because I showed great interest in it and I had pretty good knowledge. I wasn't like by no means am I an expert like in any level. I was really green and they took me on, showed me some stuff. But then they kind of stopped letting me shadow and at the time I had been promoted so much, so quickly. I was managing not just watching, I was managing five or six clients, networks like their entire cybersecurity network, while I was learning all this hacking stuff.
Speaker 2:And it was hard to the point where I was having crying fit breakdowns in the office with my door closed because I couldn't handle it. And eventually I told one of the managers I was like I'm not going to the penetration testing team, I'm going to stick with the sock. It's too much right now and I go. Okay, glad to have you back.
Speaker 2:So I kept managing my clients over here and to show you how big one of these clients are, one's a major gas company that operates in the US that was hacked before I took over. That's how big and important these companies were. I mean, they were paying us like $170,000 a month to monitor their stuff and I was in charge of it. But, um, eventually some leadership guys switched over and this guy that used to help me a lot, became a total asshole, micromanaging what I was doing. He was saying I was not putting enough information here or there where they keep records and I was like, but these are your tickets. Look at your notes. My notes are even more detailed than yours and they still found a way to try to keep me on a uh kind of like a review plan.
Speaker 1:Oh, like a performance improvement plan.
Speaker 2:Yes A pip.
Speaker 2:Oh man, very familiar with those view plan. Oh, like a performance improvement plan. Yes, a PIP? Oh man, I've heard that in forever. But like I was having a hard time with it, um, because I was still going to school and my clients were happy and the people that I had one more step. I needed to go to climb that ladder. It's called a sock lead. I was a sock to the sock leads that would knew way more technical stuff than I did about securing the environment. They were happy with, like, what I was doing, and one of the sock leads I had to pass away from cancer. She was amazing, carlissa, and they were all happy with what I was doing.
Speaker 2:It was this one dude that made a big deal out of the smallest things. Like, none of my clients ever got breached. Um, none of my clients ever complained, even the most difficult ones. A major medical company in the Midwest I would say, um, I had some difficult clients. None of them ever complained, really, or they, no, they did not complain. But um, that pushed me to the point where I always started applying for other jobs and I appreciated the salary I was on there because I was able to take an extended lunch and go play hockey and then work an extra hour or two later, and they were cool with that, except for this one guy that had a problem with me that was in charge of stuff. Except for this one guy had a problem with me that was in charge of stuff. And so in October, while house shopping, while on this pip, while fixing my credit thanks to my wife guiding me in the right path for all that, getting our lives squared away, everything we got a house in October and I got picked up for this new cyber security job, making like 40% more, 35% more than I was at the other job, with kind of more relaxed responsibility but a little bit more technical, and there's a lot of guidance from this new company. And it was the greatest couple months of my life, dude. Everything happened at once.
Speaker 2:Like my stepson is playing football. He's making friends because he had trouble making friends when he was younger. He was picked on, he's almost six foot and he's 12. Wow, he's a big kid, yeah, and he's like the nicest kid ever. Like he has an incredible sense of humor, loves Pokemon. He's a nerd, but he also, like played football. So we he's starting to play football make friends. They moved all the way out from St Clair shores to Brighton so we could all live together. And we got this house. This new job is kicked off. Uh, you know, my wife's doing some technical qa stuff too, and so that's really like all this experience and hard work that I've talked about like came down to like a few months of just insane, like bliss, and like being so like thankful for like everything, like, uh, just being like happier, even though there's so like little dumb problems, like we're trying to fix drywall and stuff right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But, like God, we have a house, we have land that backs up to this other cool land that's not ours, but we can wander in New job just making bank. My rating was bumped up to like 100%, so that's like incredible, I don't know. It's just been like lots of weird experiences amounting to like two or three months of like insane, insanely good things like to be thankful for, to appreciate, and after all that started happening. I started like volunteering, more so than I was before, or at least donating if I couldn't volunteer and stuff like that. And that's kind of where I am now.
Speaker 2:Like when Micah said mentioned doing this months ago, after I think he was filmed, I was like I don't know man. I was like I have so much to talk about and like I don't know if, like he didn't know, like he's going to know now, but he didn't know like the in-depth parts of like the Sarah McCoy story and stuff like that, and I don't think my wife knows either. But, um, you know, it's just been insanely, insanely good like and having great friends, like I've got two or three really good friends and I've got some associates, you know, and I've, of course, met some people that you want to break their face, you know. But like stuff, like the hockey program I'm a part of with Miccas the way I met Miccas.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I can mention that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can.
Speaker 2:Michigan Warrior Hockey Program I found a few years ago when I was just learning how to ice skate, like this past October. I've been ice skating for three years, skated once or twice before, but like they push you, like some of these guys push you and coach you, like Micah's, dougie, ben, other people, they just they. They coach you and they give you little tips and they're encouraging. So you find, like you kind of find your tribe again. There's always like one or two assholes, you know wherever.
Speaker 1:I think that's wherever you go right, it's the 80, 20 rule, right. There's always gonna be a 20% that drive you nuts and it doesn't. It doesn't matter where you go, but you're right, like I think it's important as a especially as a veteran, to find that again, it's hard to find.
Speaker 2:It is Cause when you, when you like it out, whether it's on good terms or not, like I heard it best from like a podcast video, like a Ted talk, this guy's like when he was in the military and he's like when service members get out, they don't know who to trust, who to look for, um, because he would die for you, you would die for him, type of thing, right, and that's just not found anywhere. And so you go kind of you might go full circle, but you hopefully eventually find your tribe or you enjoy your life of solitude, whatever it may be, and like that's how I met Micas and Micas is over at my house checking out drywall and then he's letting me use his trailer that I bent up a little bit. So friends are for, yeah, and like I don't know, like they're just a lot of them are just good people, and like it's not easy Oops, it's not easy to find in the slightest anywhere.
Speaker 1:It's not, it's not, it's. It sounds like, though you've, you've come full circle. I mean, you know all the stuff that you've been through, all the stuff that you've done, the people that you've lost, the friends that you've made, the relationships that have come and gone, because that's how life works. Sometimes it sounds like you're on that even footing now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to enjoy it and just be thankful.
Speaker 1:Enjoy the hell out of it Be thankful and like like doing cool stuff.
Speaker 2:Like I volunteered for some of micas's events with veterans connected and stuff like that. Haven't been able to as much recently, um, but just like trying to spend time volunteering. And the company I work for now doing cyber security um, believes very much in volunteering, which I don't know if I should say their name, but they're very pro volunteering to the point where they give you paid time off to volunteer to do stuff you know and you could sneak by and do like four hours and like a homeless shelter and they'd write you off for eight, but they like encourage you to just be out. You don't even have to wear like the shirts that they give you. They just love being in the community. So like, like the shirts that they give you, they just love being in the community.
Speaker 2:So like I went from a total opposite cybersecurity career to like this place that I understand, like I've only been there for four or five months but like I'm not dreading anything, you know and I super appreciate being able to work remote and Bob in the office. And like they just sponsored one of our warriors games because I put the uh president of the company like on the spot. I was like, would you consider donating like that kind of thing in front of like 10 or 12 people? Who's gonna say no?
Speaker 2:yeah, not me but uh, I mean they just, they have that their core values like really well established.
Speaker 2:And it's not just written in a pamphlet, it's like the fact that a company gives you time off to do that kind of stuff and they actually contribute to like stuff you want to do. Like even my boss, who is, again, more technically intelligent than I am, he's like every couple of weeks we have a one-on-one and he's like what can I do for you? Like, not in like a general sense, like write it down on a paper what I can do for you, but like how's school going? Do you want to take any additional certs, any classes? Like, do you need time off? Like that kind of stuff? Like like finding all these people like at once is God rare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you have to enjoy it. I mean, we know, especially you and I know, that we're not guaranteed tomorrow, so might as well enjoy what we've got going on today, right yeah, that's why I'm almost 40 and trying to play ice hockey and ride mountain bikes still gotta do it.
Speaker 1:My son, my son's right around the same age and he's playing hockey and and doing all kinds of fun stuff. So well, you know, we've been at it for almost three hours, oh, wow. So, uh, yeah, you know, at this point, unless there's something else that we need to talk about, um, we can start wrapping up the conversation. Um, I don't know if we've missed anything, um, but uh, as we, as we wind down, I always ask everyone the same question, and that is you know, years from now, when you and I aren't here and someone's listening to this, what would you like them to take away from how you've lived your life? What message do you have for people?
Speaker 2:This is the message for people, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the hard part.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I had paragraphs for this written down, but I would say, first part is to take as many pictures and videos of everything as you can and then, oh, let's see, even when you're older than you think you should be, continue education in some way College certificates, welding classes, EM welding classes, emt classes, firearm classes, whatever it is just like. Continue like, continue growing as a person, I would say, and, uh, along with that, I think one of the most valuable things that we have is time. Um, so you got to donate some time to somebody that can't pay you back. I think is the most important stuff.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you so much for taking time out tonight to talk with me. Um, I appreciate it and uh hope to see you again soon, all right, thank you.
