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.
Veterans Archives is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information. www.veteransarchives.org
Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
From Detroit to Afghanistan: A Ben Annarino's Journey of Resilience and Growth
What happens when your entire childhood is defined by constant change? Ben Annarino takes us on a remarkable journey from his unstable early years—where he attended 13 different schools in 13 years—to finding structure and purpose in the United States Marine Corps.
Ben's story is a masterclass in resilience. As a child, he quickly learned to be a "chameleon," adapting to each new environment as his family moved repeatedly throughout Michigan and beyond. This adaptability served him well when he joined the Marines at 19, seeking to forge his own path after years of putting family needs first.
Through vivid storytelling, Ben shares his transformation at Parris Island boot camp, his unexpected assignment as a truck driver rather than infantry, and his deployment to Afghanistan as a lead vehicle mine roller operator. With unflinching honesty, he recounts discovering 20 IEDs during his deployment—potentially saving countless lives—while witnessing the harsh realities of war and its impact on both military personnel and civilians.
The conversation takes an introspective turn as Ben reflects on his evolution as a leader. He reveals how his leadership philosophy transformed from the traditional military model of "instant obedience to orders" to a more nuanced approach focused on explaining the "why" behind directives—a lesson that continues to serve him in civilian life.
After nearly twelve years of service, Ben made the difficult decision to leave the military in March 2020—just as the world shut down due to COVID-19. Despite these challenges, he found love, started a family, pursued higher education, and built a successful civilian career.
Ben's guiding philosophy emerges clearly throughout our conversation: "Everything happens for a reason." This isn't passive acceptance but rather an active approach to finding meaning and growth in life's obstacles—a perspective that will leave listeners reconsidering their own challenges and the purpose they might serve.
Today is Sunday, March 23rd 2025. We're speaking with Ben Annarino, who served the United States Marine Corps. So good morning, Ben, and welcome Good morning. Thank you for having me. All right, Great to see you. We'll start out simple and the questions will just get harder as we go along Not that it's a quiz. I get a lifeline. Yes, yeah, you can phone a friend or whatever you need to do. That's good, All right. So let's just start out with when and where were you born?
Speaker 2:So I was born in Detroit, michigan, in 1990, november.
Speaker 1:Okay, did you grow up in Detroit, or was that just where you were born?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a very unique story. So I moved around a lot growing up, but I've lived pretty much everywhere around Metro Detroit.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what are some of your earliest memories of growing up? Then you know, uh, we had a very unique childhood. Um, I have one sibling, a sister, younger sisters, three and a half years younger than me. Um, Gina.
Speaker 2:And, uh, you know, mainly we had a single parent growing up, um, and in being a single parent, my mom worked really hard and trying to provide for us and put us in the best position possible, and that usually meant starting over, trying to find a new spot to. You know that's better than trying to level up to where we were previously. At A lot of times that meant staying with family. You know we stayed on a lot of people's couches and whatnot.
Speaker 2:So you know a lot of my early memories were my mom working and you know, having to support us and her doing everything she could to give us, you know, a good childhood.
Speaker 1:It was her.
Speaker 2:It's typical mom stuff you know, taking us, you know, to what she can and you know making pancakes for dinner types, you know cause, when we didn't have much, you know that kind of stuff that was. Those are my earliest memories.
Speaker 1:Okay, hey, there's nothing wrong with breakfast.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong.
Speaker 1:That's a serious treat in our house. So you are. You just had one sister then, yeah, okay, and you're the oldest or the youngest.
Speaker 2:I'm the oldest. She's three and a half years younger.
Speaker 1:Okay, With all that going on then did you find yourself kind of in that parenting position a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without a doubt. So I I definitely know I was. I matured very fast and I was very um, very aware at a young age about what's going on around me. Um, it's funny, you know, usually when you're six, seven, eight, you're not really paying attention to, like, what's happening with mom and dad or what's happening why are they arguing, what is that going to mean for us next week? You know that those are the things I thought about at a young age and I think that that helped me being in that role at a young age. I think it helped me throughout my the rest of my life in different aspects, and you know there's pros and cons to it, but I think it was a net positive. You know you miss out on some things as a kid when you are aware of those types of things in life, but you end up really benefiting from that as an adult.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I joke that my brother and sister and I were feral children when we were younger, but we took care of each other. Yeah, and same thing, you know. I want to go back a little bit. Your sister's name is Gina, right? So my wife is, is Greek, okay, and there are probably 600 people in her family named Nick.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's big Nick, little Nick, little Nikki, big Nikki, all that, but all of my friends that are Italian there's a Gina in the family too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of funny, a little side story. So my dad, he wanted to Amy Tito. So can you imagine my last name, tito Anarino. He wanted me to be a professional hockey player and he thought that would be a that would roll off the tongue. Well, so you know, obviously he lost that. My mama won the bet there as far as naming me. But yeah, my sister got the Italian name. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say Ben doesn't seem very Italian to me. It's absolutely not.
Speaker 1:I guess my mom wanted to name a son Ben, like for years.
Speaker 2:So she's like no, this is what we're naming him. That's a good, strong name, Kind of kind of thankful that I'm Ben than Tito. I don't know if Tito would really work.
Speaker 1:I think I almost like, when you said Tito and Reno, I was thinking professional wrestler, but I guess something.
Speaker 2:I guess hockey player would work something you know that rolls off an announcer's tongue. Yeah, yeah definitely so.
Speaker 1:you're, you're growing up, you're kind of bouncing around. Talk to me a little bit about what school is like for you, then you know, imagine being the new kid in school every year.
Speaker 2:So I went to a new school every single year, um, from kindergarten to senior year. So you know, you can imagine what goes with that. From kindergarten to senior year. So you know you can imagine what goes with that. It's you know, don't have friends.
Speaker 2:You don't you're always the new kid, so you're, you're different than everyone. You don't really know what's you know in when you're that age. You know you don't know what everyone's talking about. You know there's no every every click. You're never a part of one because you can't fit in. That was very hard. That's something I struggled with for years, trying to fit in. I think in doing that I became like a chameleon. I could blend in wherever. Because of survivability In school when you're young, find a way to survive. That was something I had to do. Um, but yeah it's. You know it was really difficult, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And kids can be mean. Oh yeah, Especially especially those in middle school.
Speaker 2:Oh, they're awful. I truly think middle school is worse than high school as far as like cause. Kids are really starting to like they're really starting to try to be adults, but they're, they have no idea. You know, at least high school you kind of start looking like an adult a little bit. But yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's true. What are, what are your, uh, some of your memories of your sister then, during this time as well?
Speaker 2:You know my sister. She's the opposite of me in a lot of ways, I think. Um, I was very aware to what was going on. My sister, she kind of had more of a more of a childhood experience. So she didn't really have to worry too much about what's going to happen, she just kind of lived in the moment. So she kind of had a normalish childhood. When it came to high school, my mom was able to keep her in the same high school her whole time, so she was able to make friends and have that whole high school experience. Um, by the time I was a senior, we my her my last year she was going into freshman year um the next year. So she got to stay in the same high school, which kind of sucks.
Speaker 2:but you know, I'm I'm glad she got to experience that. But you know, things kind of came together a little bit for our family right as soon as I joined.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it seems like everything always works out for that baby child, right? No?
Speaker 2:you know it's. You know there's a lot of experiences growing up that she kind of was oblivious to, which is truly a good thing. You know she didn't have to, you know, deal with, you know those issues down the road, but you know she definitely had a different experience than I did. Yeah, yeah, I'll bet.
Speaker 1:Now, with all of that going on, were you ever into playing sports or any any teams or clubs or stuff like that during school?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, you know, I was always. You know, I was a huge hockey fan growing up. My, my dad you know, he's not with, he's not a part of our family at all, but when he was, um, he uh, you know, really diehard hockey fan, red Wing fans. So I grew up loving hockey and all sports. I was always outside. You know, obviously you don't have friends to hang out with, you just go outside and play sports. So, you know, I had the roller hockey net out in the street. You know, I'm just playing by myself. You know you can do that all day you know's, I always had a net, um and rollerblades.
Speaker 2:So you know that was one thing I was always doing, um. But you know, as far as like in school trying to play sports, it's, it's really hard when you're the new kid and trying to join a sports team and you know you're not, you're always in a different school. It's really hard to transition and do that.
Speaker 2:So I tried football. You know I loved it, but you know it just wasn't really for me. Um soccer, I was played that for a while, but hockey is something that we couldn't afford growing up right. So I did a lot of roller hockey like the ymca and stuff like that, so that was like my one way of playing okay, you um have mentioned a couple of times that your dad was sort of out of the picture.
Speaker 1:How, how old were you when, when all that kind of went down? If you don't mind talking about that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, so my mom and dad, they, um, they got divorced when I was about, I think, five uh, it was about four or five, cause my sister was around and then they got divorced right after, like shortly after she came around. So they got divorced like shortly after she came around. So they got divorced. Um, I, I was really young, obviously, you know, four or five years old. I remember they got remarried. They tried it again. Um, when I was about seven and we moved out to Utah for one year, my dad got a job out there. Uh, we moved the whole family from Michigan out to Utah. Yeah, so we lived in Ogden, utah. It's kind of outside of Salt Lake, I think. Last time I looked, last time I checked, I think it was like 30 minutes to an hour outside of Salt Lake. Very different if you've ever been out to Utah Beautiful state, but very different.
Speaker 1:It's not Michigan, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. So we moved out there, um, we were there for, like I said, for a year. I was I believe that was kindergarten for me or right around there Um and uh, we ended up having to move back the next year when something fell through with the job and shortly after that they got divorced. You know, they said this isn't going to work. So you know, by the time I was seven, I've already been through two divorces. Right, you know, and you know, as a kid deal going through that it's hard to understand why his mom and dad not together, type of thing, and there was a lot of, you know, fighting, arguing. You know, just, dad just was not, um, not a very cool head, you know if that makes, makes sense. So, yeah, so you know, it just didn't work out. And my sister, she was very, she's three and a half years younger, so she was three or four. She kind of was oblivious to that at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is probably kind of good for her, great for her. So when they split, your dad just sort of disappeared after that.
Speaker 2:You know they tried the whole um weekend thing. We did that for a couple of years, um, and then he just, you know, we ended up moving. Like I said, we moved a lot. My mom ended up um meeting someone when I was about 10 or 11. Uh, they ended up getting married and we moved down to Florida. So we moved to Florida and we were there, um, for a few years. We lived like central Florida, like right outside of it's, in Leesburg, florida. It's where we moved to.
Speaker 2:My dad just stopped communicating with us. So you know there's that one hurt, you know, when you, because I still wanted to be with my dad, you know, and like see him, and I think every child wants to have both parents. Right, you get pros and cons for having a mom and a dad. There's different things each offer and you know, when you're a young man, you want to be able to have your dad around. So we didn't uh that one hurt, especially now she's with a new guy. That's, you know, at the time was good for us. But, um, you know they ended up having some issues and we ended up moving back to Michigan. So we moved back to Michigan when I was about 13 14.
Speaker 1:Good lord, I mean that's. I'm just kind of wrapping my head around. It's a lot of movement. You know, I thought we moved around a lot, but man, you, you, you beat me hands down. That's wow, that's just incredible.
Speaker 2:In Florida. When we were there. We moved to different schools while we were there because he got into real estate so he was working on we would live in these housing complexes that he would be selling houses in. We would live in one of the show houses basically while he was doing it, so that would be in a different school district. So now I'm starting a new middle school and stuff like that, so it was very challenging, um, and then when they had their issues, we moved back to Michigan and I was in a new high school or a new school up in Michigan and then following year we moved back down to Florida into a different area. Um, and that's so they're still together. They're still together. They had kind of separated for a little bit.
Speaker 2:Um, they ended up working things out and, uh, we moved back to Florida for another couple of years. Wow, yeah, and that's uh when we were down there the second time. This is when I was, um, this is when I was about 14 or 15. Uh, it's like my sophomore year.
Speaker 2:My mom, she had a restaurant. So my mom was a waitress for years. Her dream was to open up her own restaurant. So they had a restaurant in Mount Dora, florida, and it's like a tiny, tiny town that has a train like old locomotive that goes from Mount Dora and a bunch of other small towns into Orlando. So a lot of people do it as kind of like a fun trip. You can see a lot of like these old quaint towns in Florida. And she had a restaurant called the Choo Choo Express and it was like called C-H-E-W, c-h-e-w kind of a play off the train. A lot of our business came off of tourists or on the train. So you know it was like a small little you know one-stop shop for like hot dogs, brats, you know sandwiches, ice cream, parlor stuff, like that Easy food for someone to get.
Speaker 2:And I worked there when I was young, like 12. You know I was always working. You know, my mom put that in me You're always going to work, you're not going to complain, you're just going to do it. So I had that work ethic at a young age and, uh, you know, we were there for a couple of years and, um, my mom uh had me, like I said, I was standing on a crate serving soft drinks, you know, you know, when I couldn't even see over the counter. So, you know, we were there for a while, um, and it ended up uh falling through, uh through, when, I think I was in 2011, 2012, when the stock market kind of crashed, we lost everything in that, we lost the restaurant. That was tough. I think that was one of the main reasons why we ended up having to move back. There was a lot of things happening at that time Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of moving parts at a very, very young age yeah so did you at some point. You ended up back in michigan semi-permanently yeah.
Speaker 2:So, uh, long story short, uh, just to kind of cut through a couple years. They ended up getting divorced. So you know, we moved from florida, we wanted to start from scratch. My mom moved us to t Tennessee, so we're in Brentwood, tennessee, right outside of Nashville.
Speaker 2:Why? So she had a friend, so we had a. We had a great. She had a really good friend, longtime friend, that said like hey, you know what? This is a great area to live and we tried Michigan just was it's always like we ended up in the same hole type of thing. We're going to start from scratch again. So we moved to Brentwood, tennessee, and uh, it was a really ritzy area. You had to be very wealthy to live in that area, but there's like there was apartments around the brink, the edge of Brentwood that we could afford. So we ended up moving there and, uh, in order to afford, you know that my mom had to work a lot, so she had a while we were there.
Speaker 2:I was in my junior year of high school and, uh, we had some issues with her job, um, and kind of let her go or something like that. So we couldn't afford it. So I knew at that age, like 15, 16, I think I knew, like you know, we're going to have to move again. My sister's starting to like school. So I told my mom, um, what if I? Cause I was working at target at the time as a 16 year old and you can only work like 32 hours or something like that. Yeah, it's all very special. You have to get a little good permit and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in order to, I couldn't work full time right.
Speaker 1:You know I had to be under that and I had no problem working.
Speaker 2:I worked after school, I worked on the. If I was homeschooled, I can make my own schedule, and I remember hearing this from a couple of friends I can make my own schedule and work as many hours as I want. There's no limit. So I told my mom, let's, I want to do that, had to convince her but ended up convincing her. So I dropped out of high school, homeschooled myself my second half of my junior year and I was working 50, 60 hours a week it was. It was kind of nice because I was making enough to help pay the bills and had a little bit of cash myself. But you know, I just gave basically my check my mom and you know we helped her pay the bills for us to stay there, um, but uh, yeah, you know, after that we said you know we need to, we can't maintain this. You know you need to have normal school life.
Speaker 1:So we moved back to Michigan my senior year. It's cool that you could do that and support your family. It's a lot of pressure on someone that age. It is. I think it probably helped you become who you are today, just like we talked about earlier. But that's a lot of responsibility on a high school kid. Yeah, it is. So where did you end up back in Michigan?
Speaker 2:So we moved um in with my aunt and uncle. Um they were in, uh, in the Bonya, so we lived um, basically um right at Heinz and Ann Arbor trail, like it was right there.
Speaker 2:So around this time I started thinking like what do I want to do after high school? You know, I most of my family's blue collar and they didn't really do it right. They're more like kind of contractors, like I'll do some work for someone who has some jobs here and there, and I knew I did not want to do that. Right there's. I saw where they were at in their lives and I'm I don't want to fall down that same path. I want to pave my own path. And I knew I was very heavily relied upon at home and I knew I needed to do something for myself. I was very unselfish as a person growing up to this point and I told myself I kind of had a long conversation with myself I need to do something for me. I have not done anything for me at this point, right? So I was always fat, you know, infatuated with the military.
Speaker 2:Now, I loved you know. You know it's like war movies. I just love the idea that I love metal jacket. Yeah, you know, I didn't see that until after I joined, but you know it's. You know I was infatuated with that, you know I loved stories and the camaraderie and all that.
Speaker 2:So I started looking into joining the military and the way I ended up picking my branch of service was with Google. I did not. I literally technically it was Reddit, but I Googled which is better, army or Marines? You know. No offense to Navy, I did not even consider the Navy or the Air Force.
Speaker 1:But you know, it's all good man, I googled army and marines.
Speaker 2:Which is better? And of course you go into one of those. You know, google takes you to like a reddit. Like you know, a battle serious rabbit holes. What you just went down, yeah, you know I'm 17 right, and it's just people bashing each branch you know, and I ended up going down and I'm like making ticks like army Marines, army, like who's saying army Marines and it was like 80%.
Speaker 2:Marines were the best you know so in this Reddit channel. So I was like, well, maybe I should look into it. So I Googled. You know Marine recruiters and I was a recruiter at one point, so now I understand how it happened. But when you request information, they say, hey, you get a free t-shirt. You know, request information. So I'm like, oh, that'd be kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Here's my address and phone number.
Speaker 2:Exactly Well that that submits a little ping to their website and the nearest recruiter goes and talks to you. So you know I'm 17. I'm waiting for my package to come in the mail, get some information and you know, a few nights later I get someone to knock on my door when we're having a family party Me and my cousin I still remember this vividly Me and my cousin are in the basement. We're playing Guitar Hero and he's on the drums, I'm on the guitar. We're jamming out, we're sweating. If you ever played that game, you end up working up a sweat.
Speaker 1:Oh, you do.
Speaker 2:So we're playing and my mom comes downstairs like Ben, you have a visitor. I'm like, I have a visitor, I'm 17. What kind of visitor do I have? I don't have any friends around here.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, yeah, I have no friends.
Speaker 2:Who's knocking on my? And I see two Marines in dress blues. They're dress blue Alphas, they're medals, and they're standing there like what's your name, Ben? And I'm like yeah, I'm thinking I'm in trouble.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm being arrested for something.
Speaker 2:I messed up. So they're like yeah, I was wondering if you had a minute to talk about the United States Marine Corps. I saw you're interested and my entire family is there. I have aunts, uncles. We had like a big family dinner, so dinner's on the stove, we're ready to eat pretty much.
Speaker 2:And we sat down for an hour and a half in front of my family and all around the table and just watch, like them give their spiel and like why the Marines are the best and yeah, so you know, that's kind of sold me. You know, like, seeing them in uniform, I was like, yeah, that's, that's it, that's what I want. So you know, my mom, I don't think, was really, she was shocked, she didn't know. I requested information but you know, I think she was kind of sold to. I think my whole family was like, man, they, you know they look good, they, they sold it pretty well and this would be a great option. Mind you, this is 2008. Um, um, so there's a lot happening in the world at that time. So picking, you know, the marines at that point, it's a very unique decision, you know, for a young person.
Speaker 1:So absolutely yeah, yeah and um, so I'm gonna ask like so the whole, the whole, the whole family eating dinner together? That's not an uncommon thing, right, I mean?
Speaker 2:at the time? No, it wasn't. Yeah, you know, we always, we always ate dinner together as best as possible, like even the three of us my mom, my sister and I. You know that's one thing my mom did very good. She kept us, you know, very tight as much as she could. Um, she never, you know, we were not the family to just eat on the couch. You know, we had a formal dinner. My mom always was, you know, likes to entertain with food and you know she's in the restaurant business, so she likes to entertain wine and dine type of thing. But you know, when we were living with my aunt and uncle, we had, you know, their kids over, we had, you know, everyone over. So that was just one of those nights where it's like, wow, of all nights, this is the one to pick.
Speaker 1:Well and lucky for those two guys. They were very convincing, because that could have gone one way or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I could have been. It's amazing. You know I truly believe everything happens for a reason, everything. And you know, with that happening it's it's funny. You know that I ended up being the recruiter that's doing that years later.
Speaker 1:You know, it's.
Speaker 2:It's really interesting.
Speaker 1:It is I in a recruiter for four years. So when you were talking about that, I'm like, oh, I know where this t-shirt thing's going. Oh yeah, I know exactly how a lot of young, a lot of young people ended up in the military because they wanted a t-shirt.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, or a Camaro, or something Right, right, exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and so you, um, you, decide on the Marine Corps. Did you go into, like the delayed entry program? I did so.
Speaker 2:I was in a unique spot because in Brentwood, tennessee, they do trimesters in school and if you're familiar with that, it's instead of having one credit hour in school, like how normal semesters are, trimesters, you get like 0.8 or something like that. It's like 0.6, 0.7. So it's like a little over half a credit that you get for each class because there's three semesters in the year. So in switching there you have to have a certain amount of credits to graduate high school. And I wasn't behind at all. It's just when you transfer over you kind of have to make up a couple credits because you're lacking one. I was half a credit short from graduating if I went to traditional high school, so I would have to do like one summer class, and not because of my fault, just because of the way it's structured it's just math, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the math didn't math. So, uh, you know, I wanted to join as soon as possible. I didn't want to wait and you had to join the delayed entry program. So I was able to join Um. However, I needed to have a diploma in order to ship to boot camp, which makes sense. So when I tried to weigh my options, I didn't want to wait through the summer because the way the delayed entry program for the Marine Corps worked at the time, there was an eight, nine, 10 month wait at some points to go. So when I was talking to my recruiter, there was an alternative education school that was in Plymouth. So I went there Starkweather Alternative Ed. So if you're familiar with alternative education high schools, which I'm sure you are as a recruiter- Every good recruiter knows where the alternative ed high school is.
Speaker 2:Yes, being a student that was like an AB student and then going to an alternative high school where they have smoke breaks and you have people that have their kids. You know their moms and their kids drop them off to go to school. It's a very unique place. You know a lot of people that are older trying to get their diploma and me, just an AB student just trying to join the Marine Corps early. You know I was able to do a year of school basically in about six months.
Speaker 1:That's all self-paced, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause you can take as many courses as you want there. So my recruiter gave me that option. We checked it out and I told my mom I was like I can walk here from where we were living. I'm going to do it. I'll do two night classes a week and we'll do a full-time schedule and I'll do it. So I knocked it out.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so you were really good for their stats. Yeah, that was great. That was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you know, in um, when I, when I joined, one of the things that was important is, when I joined, I wanted to be infantry. That was the one thing I told them. Like, I want to be a door kicker, I want to be the person that's the trigger puller.
Speaker 1:You know, that's what I wanted.
Speaker 2:So being a good recruiter as they were, you know, I don't know if you were. I don't know if you were a recruiter for the army no, I recruited for the navy.
Speaker 1:I didn't get into the army until a couple years later, after I got out of the navy got it.
Speaker 2:So, like the navy, I don't know if they did it, but they did like they would bundle job groups together. So the marine corps did like a b6 ground option as a like, a bulk there's like 12 mls's oh we don't, we don't pick our mls right until or you pick your field. You don't get your exact mls until after you graduate okay so I told him I wanted to be infantry and there was no infantry spots, which that's, that's the most shocking to me, it's the most popular um m mos for people to want when they join so they it fills up fast.
Speaker 2:So I I get that. But I was sold on the b6 ground option which had two infantry mos's in it and it's like lab crewman, it's like an armor personnel carrier um, but you're in the infantry um. So I was sold on it because apparently that was the one that you're basically a shoe in to get. It doesn't matter like which one you pick. Most of the time they end up here. That was not the case. So I went into bootcamp thinking I'm going to be in the infantry, so when it's, you know, we fast forwarding a little bit. But I graduate bootcamp when they're assigning you to go to combat school and everything, I'm thinking going to SOI School of Infantry East and over Camp Lejeune or Camp Geiger and they're like oh no, you're going to MCT.
Speaker 2:I'm supposed to be in the infantry, sir, they laughed at me in my face. No, you're not, you're motor T. I was like motor T, what's that? You drive trucks, good luck.
Speaker 1:Oh man, that's how I found, that's how I found out my MOS with motor T, so that's beautiful. Yeah, I did not talk to my recruiter much after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah pretty, yeah pretty sour.
Speaker 1:But yeah, well, let's back up a little bit then, because I want to.
Speaker 2:I know I jumped forward a little oh no, no, this is perfectly okay.
Speaker 1:Um, let's talk about that boot camp experience, right? What was it like? Um, it seems to me that every boot camp story you get there, like in the middle of the night on a bus Was that your experience?
Speaker 2:Yep, you get there. I think we got there. Obviously, you don't have a watch. We didn't have phones back then. You couldn't bring anything with you envelope that you ship there with and the clothes on your back. You had to have a collared shirt, you had to have jeans and a belt like slacks, and a belt you know, pants are your shoes that are presentable.
Speaker 2:Can't wear flip-flops, um, but yeah, you get there. You get to the uh airport and I believe it's at uh, north Carolina, I believe you fly in there and then they take you on a bus. About an hour and a half. Bus blacked out windows, put your head down. Bus driver yells you know, get your heads down, they want to catch you, type of thing. And you're nervous Like I'm not looking anywhere. I'm doing exactly what I'm told. Mind you, I was raised by my mom the whole time, so I have not experienced this ever Like this type of stern, like your face kind of you know yelling. I wasn't able to be on too many sports teams because of how often I moved, so I was not used to this you're being introduced to testosterone?
Speaker 2:yes, like full-on you know like this is me just trying to branch out on my own, like this is my first time. I want to just do something for me and this is what I pick good choice yeah, so trial by fire.
Speaker 2:So I get there and, yeah, it's about 1 am, pitch black. You have a couple streetlights above the bus and you get a drill instructor that's jacked and his sleeves are about his arms are about to rip out of his sleeves and he just starts screaming. Lists off his spiel. You can look it up online, and they do the same spiel every time. Lists off his spiel that you can look it up online and they do the same the same spiel every time. It's, you know, recited and then you know we will make you Marines, you know we're not going to let you fail on yourself, type of thing. And uh, like, get off my bus. You know he starts screaming at you and I'm just, I'm just like, oh my God, what did I do?
Speaker 2:You're questioning your own judgment at this point. Oh, absolutely. So you know, we get on the yellow footprints.
Speaker 2:They have yellow footprints at a 45-degree angle, you know, and you put your feet on them and you see the big silver doors in the front of the building. That's your entrance to Parasilon is right there and you will enter those doors as a civilian and you'll exit as a Marine. So you know we get in there and you have in-doc. You know you're just getting administratively. You know we get in there and you have in doc. You know you're just getting administratively. You know checked in and the whole time you're just, you don't even know what's going on. Yeah, it's hard to even remember Cause you're just, it's a blur.
Speaker 1:You're licking a fog right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's. You know it's the fog of war at that point you have no idea. On those crappy phones, dial your number. Hopefully you remember it. You're just like God forbid. You have someone screaming at you to dial your number. You're screaming this recited little card. It's like I have made it to Parris Island. I am safe. I will contact you in one to two weeks with a letter. Please do not send any care packages. You know something like that.
Speaker 2:So you know, get your head shaved, you start, start getting all your gear and everything. And you know it's the Marine Corps. I will say it's very good at taking everything that you are comfortable with and ripping it away. And they do that for a reason and I think it's very important. That's kind of like the core basis on what makes Marines Marines. It's you know we'll give you nothing and we'll take away everything that you have to you. You have nothing and then we'll give you what we want you to have and you just got to make it work.
Speaker 2:And you know they get rid of that comfort zone, like there is no comfort zone. You're used to living in the uncomfortable and I think that's what makes the Marine Corps such a unique branch of service and I know things have changed over the years. But you know, back then I think you know we were still, you know, a very um tough indoctrination right off the bat. I know things have changed a little bit and I still think it's an elite branch but, um, you know that that was a shock to me, yeah well, I think one, I think the uh, the marine corp has probably changed the least of all the branches for sure.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious. You say you know like they rip away all the things that make you comfortable. What is like? What is like the one thing that you had I don't mean like physically, but maybe just mentally, what's the one thing that you had that they took away from you, that really you were like, oh boy, this is really going to be different.
Speaker 2:You know they took away for me. I always had, growing up, you know, if something was bad, I had my mom there to run things off of. You know it's. They didn't take it away per se, but like they made you realize that they no one on the outside of here is going to help you. You can't run to them Like I am. I am everything to you right now, like you come to me for anything and it better be good.
Speaker 1:I'm your mother, I'm your father.
Speaker 2:You know that taking away that safety nets and making you feel like there is none, that was hard, that's very hard and I think for someone in my, my place in life at that point that was very difficult for me because I was used to having my family, my core family, there and then not having that like that was a shock to me and I think I wasn't really prepared for that right away.
Speaker 2:That like that was a shock to me and I think I wasn't really prepared for that right away. But I think that was probably the best thing I needed, because I was kind of sheltered growing up because I had my mom there, you know, and it was just my mom, my sister. So it's like I had my little chaos that I was used to but I could control it. And now it's just uncontrollable chaos. Every day I don't know what's going to happen. I've never been talked to like this. I don't know anyone, which that's not new to me, but you know everyone is as scared as I am type of thing. You know I was not used to that. So that was the biggest shock plus the biggest blessing at the same point on the other side of the coin.
Speaker 1:So you went from your core C-O-R-E family to your core C-O-R, your core CORPS family, right yes?
Speaker 2:absolutely Kind of how that works yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're in basic training. You kind of go through that whole initial phase where you're doing all the running around getting uniforms, getting shots, all that stuff. Yeah, Walk me through kind of briefly how basic training went for you.
Speaker 2:You know I went there August 24th 2009. South Carolina, parris Island, is very hot. It is extremely hot and miserable. Still to this day. I don't ever want to go back to South Carolina. It was in that time of year. It was miserable. I've never been in a heat like that, where it's just everywhere you go is hot, unrelenting right, yeah, it's just. You walk outside and it's hard to breathe because it's so humid. Um, so you know that that makes it very difficult and, plus, every everywhere you look is just sand and just trees. There's no, you don't see anything outside of Marine Corps platoons getting hazed in the sandpit. You know they segregate you off from everybody. So you know running around trying to drill. You know everywhere you go is as fast as possible. You're marching everywhere. You're getting one thing Marine Corps really focuses on drill and marching with your rifle. That's everywhere you go. You are marching and you are being corrected.
Speaker 2:You know, arms 90 degrees. You know your rival needs to be locked in. You know it's, it's unrelenting Um. So you know doing that. Now you know I I left as a staff and CO when I got on the Marine Corps. But those simple obedience orders are so important and you don't really realize it when you're young.
Speaker 1:You're just like why does it matter?
Speaker 2:if my thumb is this little different, but it does. It truly does. So if you can't listen to some basic order like that, it will affect you down the road at some point. So, um, that was. That was hard to get used to. It's why do these small little details matter? And always being corrected? And you know, I was in a first battalion Charlie company but to 1,085, started with 80 guys or 85 guys, I think. We graduated with like 60 and that was we had lost a lot more. And you pick up others right away. And but first phase it's broken into three phases rancor bootcamp. First phase you start out, um, with your boots. Uh, without boots. Start out with uh, go fasters. So your tennis shoes go fasters.
Speaker 1:I've never heard them called that, yeah so it's awesome.
Speaker 2:You know they change everything. Like I said, they take everything that you know and they get rid of it. So you know you have a pen. It's an ink stick, you know, you know a flashlight, it's a moonbeam.
Speaker 2:You have, you know. You know your quarter deck. You have all the naval terms. You know. We use all those you know, trying to learn that you know your, your shoes, your go-fasters, your reflective belt, your glow belt, you know it's so, all of those terms you're getting used to and they make you earn that uniform. So, like you don't have your name on your blouse, you have this plastic little name tag that's clipped on your shoulder. Um, that tells you what your rations are at the chow hall. So if you're a double rats, it's red right.
Speaker 2:You're normal, uh, you're.
Speaker 1:You know, just go white one Um what if you're a disgusting fat body or a fat body.
Speaker 2:They paint two white stripes on your t-shirt, uh, with spray paint. And uh, you are a fat body, you're half rats, wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:They don't mess around, no, and you.
Speaker 2:If you are. There's an also a unique tag. I think it's a different color. I was just a normal gen pop type guy. But the fat bodies they were half rats, so they had half scoops of everything and they couldn't get certain items in the chow hall. You don't get a pick, you just kind of go down the line to give you one of each. But you one thing that you had in bootcamp was peanut butter packets. Like if you peanut butter packets were the gold, you know if you could get one, that's prime. You know prime trade bait. You know prime trade bait you know for anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there, you were not allowed peanut butter or any sort of sweets, like every now and then they would have like cookies. You got one cookie and you know very rare Would you ever get that. But you know they were not allowed to do that and you'd have drill instructors waiting Like I wish you would. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like I wish you would.
Speaker 2:Please do Like you're about to get hazed outside right now.
Speaker 1:so right, not not hazed, you're gonna get trained.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, incentively trained yes repeatedly um so uh yeah, no, it's they. They single you out, there's. No, we don't care about your feelings.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're fat, you're fat right and you're not gonna eat what everyone else eats, yeah right that's not fat shaming.
Speaker 2:You need to be in shape if you're gonna be in the ring. Yeah, yeah, absolutely all right.
Speaker 1:So you're, so you're going to be in the Marine Corps? Yeah, absolutely, totally. Get it All right, so you're earning your uniform as you go.
Speaker 2:You earn it, so you don't even get to blouse your boots. You don't get boots until you complete your first phase, which is about four weeks. Marine Corps boot camp is 13 weeks, so your first month is basically you just looking disgusting. You can barely wear your uniform right your sleeves when rolling and Marine Corps is kind of known for our tight sleeves and looking really good in uniform. Your sleeves look like shit. You know, you just look awful, just complete garbage.
Speaker 2:You look like a goober just walking around everywhere you can tell the drilling. You know the platoon. They don't sound good. Everyone's heels hit the deck at the same point when you're marching and boots. The boots they give you really make a unique sound when they're hitting the ground all together with 80 guys and when you're marching, when go-fasters, it sounds like a squish. You sound awful.
Speaker 1:By design, by design.
Speaker 2:Like you, just you don't nothing, you don't really have any pride yet. So when you reach that end of the first month, you know you've. The first month is really just you just getting incentively trained all the time You're not really doing much.
Speaker 2:You're doing a lot of physical training. You're doing obstacle courses it's really kind of getting you. You're doing a lot of classes, you know, of like history stuff, like that. You don't do anything with weapons training yet You're you're carrying a weapon every day, you know, you sleep with it basically at the end of your rack, but you do nothing outside of just learn of what I'm going to tell you to do. You're going to do it well.
Speaker 2:And that's drill um rancor history and physical fitness. That's it. So at the end of your first month you finally get boots because you're getting ready to go to the range to start qualifying. And that's when you really start feeling like, oh man, I've, I've made it. You know this, I've made.
Speaker 1:I have arrived.
Speaker 2:I have arrived.
Speaker 2:I get a blouse, my boots, you know, I get a look good and then like it. It just feels different. When you're marching, everywhere you can hear that sound, and it's amazing what happens to a platoon. When you are all sound really good, things start coming together. So you start building that camaraderie as a platoon so you can start saying like, wow, we sound good, we're, we're getting it together. You start to correct each other a little bit. You know under your breath, you know you're. You really start building that camaraderie and that's where it started to click. For me, it's like there's a reason why we do this. Everything we do is by design. There's nothing that is happening here that they don't want to have happen.
Speaker 1:Right, and the whole time you're there, new people are cycling in and the old guys are cycling out, and so you're watching not only your own evolution, but the evolution of the new people coming in right. We do not only your own evolution, but the evolution of the new people coming in right.
Speaker 2:They do and you know, seeing when you're a first phase recruit, seeing a third phase recruit is night and day. Like they look. They look completely different. They just look older. They look they kind of just they're physically they look different, you know, because obviously they're more slim, they're more trim, their uniform looks tight, you know it looks. They look spotless, you know it's. They're never getting messed up in the sandpit, you know it's. Those guys are always locked in.
Speaker 2:You're like man, I'm never going to make it to that point, you know, but you know you eventually do and you know it's. You start having that pride in that uniform. You know cause. You know what it looks like from the other side, like man those guys look like their uniforms look tight, like they look locked on.
Speaker 2:Their drill looks amazing. They're loud, they're you know they're doing cadence loud. You know those guys. I want to be like that. So that way, every time you get to that next phase, you take pride. And I finally made it. I got to make sure the young guys coming in look up to me and know that I'm tight, you know I'm doing what I need to do. So that's where that pride comes in. You know that's something I really started to. You know I really ran with my whole time in the Marine Corps was taking pride in you know what I'm doing and where I'm at, you know, and trying to always be better. Yeah, yeah. And so that I mean bootcamp worked. It did Right, it did.
Speaker 2:You know I, I, I had to lose some weight when I after I joined. I had to lose some weight after I joined. I had to lose about 20 pounds to ship to boot camp, so I lost it. I was about 185 when I joined. I needed to be about 170, 165. So I got down to 160. Just worked my butt off running and stuff in the winter. It was like the wintertime Sucked, but when I left boot camp. I was about 145 pounds. Wow, I was a string bean. That's a big change. Yeah, I mean, there's your skin and bones, but I could run like the wind and I could do anything you wanted me to do forever. Yeah, you know, I think I'm not gonna stop.
Speaker 1:Endurance was amazing yeah, yeah, tell me about graduation from, from basic training then, uh, you know, since we're kind of getting towards that, that point in in basic, what was it like? So you, you know, since we're kind of getting towards that, that point in in in basic, what was it like? So you, you know, you remember getting there and being a soup sandwich and now you're graduating. Did your mom and sister come out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, walk me through that, yes, my mom, my sister and my aunt and my uncle came down Um and then, uh, they saw me graduate. It's such a weird experience going from seeing them when you're a civilian, and then they come back and I've lost 20 more pounds. The pictures of me after boot camp I look like a death camp victim, I look awful, but that's my design. They want you to be someone that'll never quit physically Right, and that's what they want. They don't need a bodybuilder, they need someone that can just go forever.
Speaker 2:Um, it's weird because you go from one day not being able to speak in the first person, you know, cause they take that away. You can't say hi in bootcamp. It's this recruit, this, this recruit, that these recruits, it's. You know they take away your own personality. So then now you see your family and you're still saying this recruit to your family and it's like you should correct yourself Like it's okay, I can say this now, like I've, technically, I've graduated. You know, it's just a formality at this point. It's really. It's really weird. It's a unique experience.
Speaker 2:You know, my mom was. I think she was like kind of blown away a little bit, not in a great way. She's like what happened to my son. What did you do to him? Exactly? So, but you know I, I got to show them. You know the base. I got to show them. You know like, oh, I had one of the worst days of my life in this sandpit. You know it's. Yeah, you know you get to show them, tell them your horror stories a little bit. But right, you know they're, they're kind of blown away. You know, show them the squad bays and you know it's, it's unique. Nothing changes from the sixties. It's the same barracks, same squad base.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's changed from the forties. It's awful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's, it's unique. You know, I think my mom was blown away. It's like this is where you were at. It's like, yeah, it's a shithole.
Speaker 1:Welcome to my world mom.
Speaker 2:It's been great, I'm going to miss it.
Speaker 1:Did that? So did that give you a different perspective on family and in your life when you walked out of basic training as a graduate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think I I was really kind of like a happy go lucky type kid and I think coming out of bootcamp I was a little more focused all the time, kind of like I always want to be ready to do whatever type of thing, and so I want to say it kind of made me A little standoffish, that's the best way to put it. I was kind of a little more reserved. I guess Wasn't kind of like the out there in your face type of person I was before, just always kind of serious, a little bit Slightly more serious. So that's what I noticed when I got out.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you finished up basic training. Where do you go from there?
Speaker 2:So after that I went to Marine Combat Training. It's MCT down at camp Geiger and, like I said, I thought I was going to SOI Right, so so so.
Speaker 1:I don't mean to laugh when you oh it's.
Speaker 2:it's very funny, was it?
Speaker 1:was it when you got to MCT that you found out that, oh, I'm going to drive trucks.
Speaker 2:Oh so once they start reading everyone's MOSoss's- yeah you know, it's like your admin week, your last admin week um this is kind of around when family comes, they start saying, like you know, private an arena, 35, 31, I'm like well, I knew 0, 300 is infantry like it's your infantry mos field. So it's 03 and then a couple other numbers tells you your designator for what kind of infantryman you're going to be, and I heard 3531.
Speaker 1:I was like there's a three in there.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's a different type of infantry. I was like, sir, what is that? And he goes your motor T and I'm like and then he kept reading off and I was like he's like what, what is that? Like I don't know what that. Is I supposed to be infantry? And he's like, no, you're a crew, to lie to you, you're a motor T. I was like, what do they do? And he's like you drive trucks next, like it just goes on the next.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm just, and that that hit me hard and I didn't really realize it until I went to the same place, pretty much. But then you split off infantry one way, non-infantry the other, and I saw all my friends that were infantry going in this this way and I was like man, this is gonna.
Speaker 1:I don't know what I just did. Like what happened? It sucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I didn't really know yet and I was like, oh, you know, I'm still going to be a Marine, yes, whatever Right, but I'm not going to be kicking in doors and that's not my main job.
Speaker 1:Right. But maybe driving over them, but not kicking yeah.
Speaker 2:Which you know got to do but, yeah, but yeah, you know it's yeah. So MCT it's different. You know it's only there for a month, it's combat training, so it's you know we just basically qualify in hitting the target. That's one thing the Marine Corps is good at is teaching you how to shoot well and accurately. Now it's we want to teach you how to shoot and move type of thing. And every Marine they have the term every Marine's a rifleman. That's a little overplayed term.
Speaker 2:Not every Marine's a rifleman but every Marine's proficient on the rifle, let's just say that. So they train to a pretty high standard. But you know, MCT is pretty simple for me. When I went there I graduated bootcamp in November, like November 10th or November 15th. It was very mid November. We went to MCT right at the end of November. So I got a week home on PTAD recruiters assistance, stayed there for a little bit and then I went to MCT, which North Carolina is brutally cold, you know. So we were there. We were in holding platoon for about two, three weeks Cause they were backed up, um, and we were there like through December. It was brutal in the mornings. You know, you wake up and you're cause. You're in the field pretty much the whole time. Yeah, you wake up and your camelback is frozen solid, yours. I was like this is the polar opposite from what I'm used to I was gonna say from a billion degrees to now it's freezing.
Speaker 2:I was like what am I doing?
Speaker 1:it's like the military you just can't get it right.
Speaker 2:No, and you know the marine corps especially. They put you in the most worst places, you know. But yeah, so you know it was, it was unique, you know you got to shoot the weapon systems. You got to, you know. Do you know it was unique? You know you got to shoot the weapon systems, you got to, you know. Do you know your mount training? You know your mounts, like your urban training, staying in buildings, you know, and fighting off your fake enemies, and you know it's, you know that kind of stuff's fun. That's the Marine Corps, military stuff you're going for. And now you have a blast, you know you think you're like oh, man.
Speaker 2:I could win this war. Right, Send me over now.
Speaker 1:I'm ready All by myself.
Speaker 2:It's like you think you're the best. So after that then I go to MOS school, which MOS school is in Fort Leonard, missouri.
Speaker 1:I know you're very-. Oh my God, I'm so familiar with Fort Leonard, missouri, I know, sir.
Speaker 2:After hearing a couple of your podcasts, you're very familiar with it. So I'm in motor T, motor T school. You're 88, mike, yeah, so I am, uh, and I go go to MOS school there in January, and Fort Leonardwood is brutal. That sucks, I thought camp, camp Johnson, camp Geiger was brutal.
Speaker 1:Uh huh.
Speaker 2:Missouri is a different beast. That's a different beast.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:So I was in holding platoon again and this is kind of important. Um, there's a major backup after the Christmas break. So you know you can only pick up so many classes at a time. They had so many people that graduated boot camp at that point. This is 2009. There's still a very high need for, you know, marines to come in and enlisting, so there's a lot of influx but they can't only. You know they only have so many instructors and classes open. So I was in holding platoon for about four weeks. Four or five weeks, that's a long time and you're just sitting in a classroom there every now and then they'll put on a movie, but you sit in a room like you do nothing, right? So you can't go on leave. You don't get time off, it's just cleaning your rooms and just busy work. You know, all day and standing in formation, you don't get a SIF issue or you don't get gear issues. So there's no jackets and the Marine Corps is very strict on what you can wear in uniform.
Speaker 2:So unless it's issued, you're not wearing.
Speaker 1:Right, and you're only going to wear it when we tell you you can wear it too, and God forbid.
Speaker 2:there's one person that forgets it, God forbid.
Speaker 1:there's one person that forgets it?
Speaker 2:No one's wearing it. So we didn't get a Gore-Tex top. We didn't get anything. It's either raining sideways or freezing rain or snow or just blistering wind. Missouri's not a fun place in the winter.
Speaker 1:It's a special kind of hell.
Speaker 2:It is, it is. So that was unique. But I was backed up for about almost six weeks, so MOS school's pretty uneventful it's. You know you learn all the vehicles, you know it's drive all your seven tons, your Humvees and learning ins and outs maintenance. You know you do your driving simulators, stuff like that. Um, they do our combat simulators in there, you know that's, which is actually really neat. You know you do your combat convoy simulator, so you have like a fake gun up top and you're able to do stuff. That that's probably the coolest part about it. But I was. Since I was backed up for a month before I went to the fleet, um, I missed out on a deployment, my first unit to go to Iraq. Okay, so if I was not backed up, like we were not supposed to be, I would have went to a deployment to Iraq. That, um, the platoon that I would have deployed with hit a 200 pound ID and cut a six by MRAP and half. Um, so, like I said, I think everything happens for a reason.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, and those guys had a really rough deployment and they were over at, they were over in Nawa and it was, uh, it was rough. But you know, they uh, they uh. But, like I said, everything happens for a reason. But, yeah, so at the end of your MOS school, you pick your duty stations, where you want to go, and I think something happened to me where I got so much confidence in myself after boot camp at MCT that I was like you know what? I'm blazing this new trail so much, let's try to keep doing it. So you get your three choices East, west or overseas your three choices in the Marine Corps. That's all you get. Um, I chose overseas, number one. So overseas, uh, and the Marine Corps means Japan and Hawaii. So I was really kind of hoping Hawaii, but I got Japan. So I'm, I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, on 2010. Got there like March 2010. Yeah, and that was the start of my fleet experience.
Speaker 1:That's, that's interesting. My stepbrother was a Marine and that's. He spent a lot of time in Okinawa, japan. He loved it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely loved it there, um, but again it's, it's um. Until you start doing this, you don't realize that there's a. You know, there's certain patterns and similarities, depending on what service that you're in, you know, you just think, oh, overseas, you're going to go to Korea or wherever. No, that's the army. Yeah, not necessarily the Marine Corps. So so let's talk a little bit about Okinawa. And uh, did you take a little time before you went?
Speaker 2:yeah, uh, so I got they gave us about 10 days of time off. I think we got a little more ptad. They got. They gave us an extension on ptad. They're just recruiters, assistants. Yeah, um, they gave us that extra because we're going overseas and going to japan. It's hard to come back, so, like as many times, as you want it's expensive, Right, so um, it's home for 10 days. I said bye to the family.
Speaker 2:Definitely hard on my mom. She was. That was going to be a hard one, I'll bet you know. So, um, I've never flown. I don't think I've ever flown on a plane prior to this, prior prior to, uh, going to bootcamp. That was my first plane trip. Really so now this is my third plane that I'm on and I'm going overseas. So I go overseas with about 10 guys. We're all on the same flight. We're easy to pick out. You know high and tight, we look like we're.
Speaker 2:I bet they're in the military yeah it's like some camo backpack or something you can tell immediately, so it's still a fun game I like to play.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Who's in the military when I'm in an airport, um, but, yeah, flying over there, um, I ended up going to, uh, my, I went to bootcamp with uh, a friend of mine, um, and then went to MCT with them and now we were in the same unit in. Japan. So I ended up going with him over to the same truck company in third Marine division over in Okinawa, and so we got to travel together which is kind of nice.
Speaker 1:You know I'm going to point something out that's interesting to me in this whole thing.
Speaker 2:right, you spent your whole life like not having a lot of friends I know and I have someone in the Marine Corps night.
Speaker 1:At this dude, it's like I know you've been friends for this whole time. I know that's pretty cool I know and that's.
Speaker 2:You know, that's kind of one thing that kept me in for as long as I did. Um, you know it's, you get a family that's like a family that you don't ever leave right but, yeah, no, it was really unique, um, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So we ended up getting to tokyo, you land in tokyo and then, if you've ever been to the tokyo airport I don't know if you're- I have not so you have your international side of the airport and then you have to take a bus or, like this bullet train to the other domestic side, and Okinawa is considered their domestics. It's like a territory of Japan. It's technically not Japanese, but it's a territory.
Speaker 2:Oh kind of like Puerto Rico is to the United States, very similar, okay, um, but Okinawa is like their Florida, if you think about it. People go down there to retire and to kind of escape the busyness of the city, because Okinawa is like a country, kind of farm, very quiet. Quiet, you know, island, very beautiful, but it's, you know, mostly farmland and just nature. Okay, for the most part there's not a lot of urban cities. I think there's only two. It's Naha, which is south, and Nago, which is north. That's the name of the two cities, easy enough to remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's not very hard to remember. So, anyway, we're late to our flight, we're sprinting through the Tokyo airport and you're trying to ask people like where do I? Go. I don't know Everything's in Japanese, I don't really understand. So having these people help you out, and broken English and we ended up getting there. But we get there in the middle of the night. You know you get see a Marine and camis and you know the Okinawa airport, naha airport, in a white Gavi van.
Speaker 2:And it's like you know, you see a bunch of other Marines there. You're like well, I guess I'm in the right spot. It's like which unit you with right spot? Yeah, it's like which unit you with? Tell me your unit. Like, get in.
Speaker 2:It's like, okay, middle of night, it's 10 30 at night, so we get in the govy, we drive, you know, through you know, japan or through okinawa, and we get on base, uh, we go to, uh, uh, check into our rooms, and the the guy driving us just drops us off at the barracks. He's like go see the duty, he'll tell you where to go. So I'm brand new, I got my bags, my big roller bags, and I'm like this is private, so-and-so, this is PFC, so-and-so, we're here to check in. You're in this room, it's the restriction room. The restriction room has no carpet, no, nothing, it's just a tile room with nothing in it.
Speaker 2:Super nice. Oh yeah, it's great, you take away everything, yeah. So when I check in, it's like 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night and everyone is doing a field day and it's field day night. I think it's like a Thursday night. Um, well, there was a uniform inspection the next morning, so they're going to do our green alphas going to be inspecting it and your rooms. Mind you, we just checked in. We have no cleaning supplies. We have our uniforms just got flown across the country, across the world, right, and they're like yeah, you better not be messed up.
Speaker 2:So the platoon that we were supposed to um, one of the one of the platoons that was back, they just got back from Iraq as well and they were the NCOs that were running the field day. And we have these 2008, 2009 Iraq vets that are seeing a fresh meat come into the barracks and I guess this unit that we checked in with Truck Company they haven't had a new boot drop in seven, eight months, like they were, just they were missing guys. Like, so they're, there's a lot of turnover. So they're right, they needed some new, fresh Marines to come in, and we're the first ones. So we're the like oh, fresh meat, lucky you, yeah.
Speaker 2:So of course, field day and you're brand new, I'm going to mess with you all night. So you know you had these giant jacked Marines coming in that just got back from deployment. You can tell they look different. You know I'm used to see skinny Marines that are just young. You know I have this guy. It's got like a five o'clock shadow and he's just got tatted up and he's drinking a protein shake. He just got back from the gym and he's like threatening to. You know, literally make your life hell.
Speaker 2:And it's like I thought we're all on the same team, you know, I thought we're all good. You know it's no. So it's another wake up call, right? So that was a long night. I think we slept maybe two hours, you know. You know, they found us some cleaning supplies, they found us an iron. We're ironing our uniforms and we have a a major inspecting our alphas the next morning, you know and it's that was my check-in to the Marine Corps Welcome to Okinawa. I was like is this how it's going to be every night, like this is awful, you know. So you know it's every, every place I go. It's almost like a trial by fire at this point, but you're used to that Kind of right, like you've been doing this your whole freaking life A little bit, yeah, and it's like, I think, repeatedly doing that.
Speaker 2:that's truly how I learned best, still to this day. Just throw me in it, I will survive, I'll come to the top, but it might take me a little bit, but I'm going to make it.
Speaker 1:I'll sink or swim. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2:I usually swim, but you know it.
Speaker 1:They had the added bonus too. So if they hadn't had any new folks, come in that guy who's at the bottom of the chain you know the chain there the last dude. He's been that last dude for a long time and he's ready for someone else to be the last dude Finally. Yeah, that's someone else to take my spot. Yes, I'm going to be a jerk about it too.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, but no, it checking in it was, uh, you know, you do your first week check-in and that's that corporal that was. That was uh that big burly guy that was saying that kind of messed with us all night. Right, he was our driver taking us, because in okinawa you have, like, many different bases you have different places, different bases.
Speaker 2:You have to go to check in, like sifts on one base, admin is on one other base. It's kind of weird how it's set up. So he has has to drive us around all day, uh, in a Gubby and he was hung over the next day. He was so hung over should not have been driving a Gubby. But I remember the morning he picks us up, we get out after our uniform inspection and our camis and he looks rough and he's like all right get in.
Speaker 2:So we're driving, we get off base and he literally pulls over kind of and does like a crawl and just pukes out the window. He just pukes out the window and just keeps driving and the other marine that was next to him like lance corporal. He just kind of looks at him like nothing, like it's just another day, and just keeps driving. I'm just like what is happening. You know, like I've I grew up in a family where we weren't really big drinkers or very religious you know, it's.
Speaker 2:It was uh not common to. I don't think I've ever seen anyone drunk, you know, like in person, like that, and uh, that was my first time seeing someone hung over to that point.
Speaker 1:A little culture shock.
Speaker 2:I never even had a beer at that point in my life, you know. So I'm, I'm sheltered. I was 19.
Speaker 1:You are the definition of fresh meat.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that was all new experiences to me. It's not used to this, so, seeing I was just blown away, I'm just like oh my.
Speaker 1:God like this is what is happening and when I look at my buddy and he's he's kind of chuckling.
Speaker 2:and my buddy joined when he was older, so he was 24, 25 and I was 19. So, uh, you know, he's a PFC, I'm a private and I'm just like, well, he's used to this. Yeah, he grew up, he's partied, you know, prior to this. So you know, so it was a unique experience. You know, I had a very uh couple. You know eyeopening experiences, seeing like like now you have high ranking guys walking around everywhere. You know mass sergeants, gunnies, and you know first sergeants, and you have, you know, sergeant majors and officers everywhere and I don't know what to do with my hands.
Speaker 1:You know it's.
Speaker 2:I'm. I'm in a spot where the highest rank I ever saw was like a staff sergeant, you know, and you know it's uh. Do I salute, do I?
Speaker 1:wait.
Speaker 2:I don't really know. So you know that was a really big wake-up call. You know, because now it's you're learning how to do the day-to-day life of a marine, which, right, it's more so, more so like a job. You know it's when you're you're not in the military it's you think that's what you're doing every day is kicking indoors and doing stuff. It's really it's a nine to five type job with some weird stuff sprinkled in between. That's not really normal.
Speaker 1:But people ask like what do you know? What did you do? And yeah, it's like I just did what you do when you go to work, we go to meetings, we train, we, you know, if I'm driving a truck, maybe I'm driving a truck somewhere. It's yeah, but I do. People do have that perception that the military is just nothing but breaking things and killing people. You know 24 seven.
Speaker 2:It's a normal job. Yeah, someone's got to do you know a report somewhere. It's not just you know, it's everyone. Take inventories, you know, do stuff like that. Clean stuff maintain it's like it's paint rocks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Whatever you fucking got to do Right yeah exactly so, uh, no, it's.
Speaker 2:You know, my day-to-day as a motor team Marine was, you know, maintenance on trucks. You know, just, I was an operator so I drove them. But you know PMCS, preventative maintenance, checks and services you know, just making sure you're rolling stock and your motor pool is working. That is my main point of focus every day. So it's checking trucks, oil, you know, functions, checks and doing runs, so like we'll drive troops around to the range, pick up ammo and do stuff like that. So, um, yeah, that, you know, I did that for about five, six months with my buddy. We were the two young guys you know, so we were always getting the crap work and uh, we, uh, when it came about six, seven months mark in the fleet, um, we're still roommates, you know at that time. So it was pretty simple. And uh, you know it's got my, my friends since bootcamp. At that point it was like it's the longest tenured friend I've ever had. This is this is great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like this ain't that bad, no, you know. And um, this ain't that bad, no.
Speaker 2:You know, and we, we get pulled into an office and they're like hey, you know our units tasked with billeting or with a, with a kind of like a special assignment for one Marine in our unit. They do like a rotation over at billeting. Okay, it's like kind of like a, just a random billet that they have to fill. Billeting is like you're checking in rooms and stuff like that for transient barracks and they always need like submarines to help out with that and it's just kind of grunt work but you're tasked. You're still in the same unit but you're tasked out to someone else every day, for I think it's 10 months and uh, jesus, that's a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it is. Wow, it's awful. You get really good at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you don't do it. Yeah, so it's very unique. But I, uh, so this, this is a unique point in my career. At this point, I was 19. My buddy was 24, and to drive ammo and to do that you have to be over 21.
Speaker 2:ammo and fuel and ammo and fuel drivers are a dime a dozen Like you. You or they're not a dime a dozen, but you need to have them. They're very important. So if you're going to give up someone, I'd rather give the young kid up rather than the guy that can drive ammo and fuel. So they're like Annarino, you're gone and I was like, okay, what does that mean? And they're like, well, you're going to be assigned to them.
Speaker 2:We're going to move you into different barracks. So now I'm moved into a different barracks and, as a PFC at this point now I'm living alone in my room, which, if you're a PFC with your own room, that's very rare. So I had my own room. I worked with a lot of civilians and I had a staff NCO that was an intel Marine that was under investigation for something. So the hodgepodge of Marines that worked there were usually like besides myself were in trouble because that's somewhere they can put them to, where it's like let's just get them away out of sight, out of mind, until whatever they're dealing with is over. But truck company was tasked with you have to support one Marine to do this. So I'm working now I'm with a bunch of Marines that have been NJP, so now they're, they've got demoted. So I've had guys that have been in for four years at this point that are privates, you know, and the mentality along with those types of individuals I'm sure you've well aware Absolutely, they don't care about anything.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're in the land of misfit toys, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the morale is zero. They tell you this is the worst decision you've ever made is joining. So up to this point I'm thinking this is awesome, like I'm doing some great things here and like you know, okay, I'm starting to get my feet under me and now I'm being told this is I wish I'd never joined. This is the worst thing ever. They're going to screw you over. You know that's that was what I was surrounded around, right? So I did 10 months there and still hung out with friends over in the other barracks, but I watched from afar as they did training. They kind of built bonds with one another. You know, they did stuff and I didn't do anything. So, um, yeah, that was a. That was a unique time in my career.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't fun, no, no, and you know what that sort of assignment can wreck a very good wreck, a good Marine, right? If you, if you're not like, if you don't have the resolve to, to do what you're supposed to do and understand, those people probably got themselves in trouble. Right, you could actually end up being one of the misfit toys.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's very little supervision over there at that unit so you can get in even more trouble because no one's watching you. There's no accountability. Um, luckily I stayed with my buddy as much as possible and went to the gym with them and kind of I lost. Kind of like a lot of people didn't know who I was when I came back to the unit. They're like who's this new guy? It's like I've been here a while.
Speaker 1:I am not the new guy.
Speaker 2:It's like don't put that, don't put that name on me, you know. But, uh, you know, I, um, I came back as a Lance corporal and fast forward the 10 months, you know, it's really uneventful. You just kind of move furniture around, that's really all I did and drive a Gubby. But uh, yeah, it's uh, I came back and I check in to the company office as Lance Corporal in Reno, Uh, and I have this gunny there. Uh, he's a heavy Hispanic accent, gunny, he's like who the hell?
Speaker 2:the hell are you like, I'm speaking to him in this window, this dispatch window I'm like uh, lance corpland reno checking back in. He's like who, like who are you? They weren't aware, I mean existed yeah I wasn't on their morning report and I was like I've been here. While I had explained to him, he's like okay, come in, so I get dragged in the company office. I'm sitting in the hallway and I hear one of the staff our staff sergeant Bartles walks through and he's like ask me who are you Tell him again and like no one knows who I am, Like someone has to know I existed.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I can hear some rustling in the room and they're like I can hear some kind of rustling. I'm like yeah he might be good, he might be, yeah, he might. I think I remember him, or so on and so forth. I'm like what's going to happen? And at this point I'm not like a brand wide eyed. You know, new Marine, I've been in the fleet now for a little over a year, Right?
Speaker 1:So you, know and says they asked me are you retarded?
Speaker 2:I didn't know how to answer that. That's very blunt, very not.
Speaker 1:PC Right.
Speaker 2:No, and he's like, all right, so he goes back in. I hear some more things. He goes can you drive? I was like, yes, Can you drive a tactical truck? And I was like, yeah, Go back in. And I'm like what is happening? And Staff Sergeant Bartles comes out and he goes do you want to go to Afghanistan? I was like yes, that's literally all I wanted. Just like you said, my time over at Billeting could have ruined my career, my time in the military, my experience, Because if I stayed over there, let's just say if I got extended- I wouldn't have stayed in, I probably would never have deployed, I would never have had the career I would have.
Speaker 2:So everything happens for a reason. So I come back and they had a couple individuals get hurt prior to their pre-deployment training on their roster. So they needed to have Marines that were of a certain rank to go on this next deployment to Afghanistan. And I was brand new, I was a Lance Corporal I fell right in that block of how long you had left on the island, everything like that. So there's a time frame because you can't deploy and then your contract in Okinawa run up, right, so you might have to extend over there or like it's. It's weird.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to ask a question real quick. So the I just want to make sure I understand this. The prerequisites to go to Afghanistan is you can't be retarded and you have to be able to drive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was pretty much it. You got to have enough time left.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:Or at least that's what it appeared like Right right. So, anyway, I got pulled into our CO's office, captain Sanchez at the time, and I got pulled in there with staff sergeant Bartles and company guns. Hispanic gunny. And they're all just grilling me. I have a gunny, a staff sergeant, a captain in front of me. I'm a new Lance corporal. I'm just. I'm just like. I've never been in this position where they're just talking to me like like a human.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're kind of like I don't know how to say like I'm trying to keep track of yes, grenad. So you know, I'm messing up the ranks and I'm trying. I'm all like nervous, like. I just agreed to go to Afghanistan. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1:Right you know.
Speaker 2:So this is 2010,. Uh, towards the. This is the. I don't know, it's actually the beginning of 2011. And uh, yeah, so I get stuck with third platoon. And uh, they just got back from a deployment to Korea. Um, it's like a non-combat deployment, just training evolution basically and they were a tight group. They all basically came to the fleet within the same five months of one another and they formed a platoon and they'd been with each other for about a year and a half at this point. So they they were the guys before myself and my buddy came in they'd been in the same group the whole time.
Speaker 1:I'm seeing this trend in your life. I'm just this. Is this common thread in your entire life, like oh, I'm the outside guy once again, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to find my place in this platoon of guys that are very tight and, uh, you know, I have two NCOs in the in the platoon, only two sergeant, the corporal, and all of us are alliance corporals and they are two very experienced combat vets and uh, yeah, they, they ran us through the ringer, they held us to a high, high standard um because they were in iraq in like 405 um in motor t and those guys are, you know, I don't know what time what you were in. I was there, uh, 0607, okay, so even then, I mean, that's that's peak times? Yeah, it was not a good. I don't think that's that's peak times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was not a good. I don't think he's ever a good time to be there, but that was not a good time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know they were over there where just you're losing a lot of people, you know. So you know they. They knew what happens when you're complacent, so they made sure that we were not that.
Speaker 2:Um so, you know, I got a lot of experience in training. Um, we did every single range we could ever do. We did every single. They were very good at giving us what we needed to be successful. Um, you know, and that truly changed the way I approached leadership down the road, based on them. But, um, yeah, so our, we attached over to one three um which is over in Hawaii, first battalion third Marines. Um, and uh, yeah, we uh went over to Hawaii for about eightalion third Marines and, yeah, we went over to Hawaii for about eight months pre-deployment training. So we did all their. There's a PTA, is Bahakalua training area. It's like a tiny volcanic Island. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's a tiny Island that is all volcanic rock and it sounds like a great place to run. Yeah, but it's at the top of the mountain so it's very cold and it's uh, it's uh.
Speaker 2:It swings very cold, very hot, very drastically and it's beautiful. But if you ever do ranges and you have to get on the knee or the prone, it's volcanic rock, it's cuts everything. So you know driving there. Um, you know, we got to do a lot of cool ranges and whatnot, a lot of cool driving experiences in the middle of the night on night vision ops, stuff like that. And, yeah, Somehow I ended up finding myself. The person that I replaced was going to be their mine roller operator. Everyone had their positions in the convoy that they already predetermined.
Speaker 2:When I joined the platoon that was a vacant spot. They were trying to test some guys out, I guess Sergeant Bazua. At the time he was our lead NCO and our NAV, our security team leader and everything. That was his driver. He's going to be in the lead vehicle. He wants to make sure he has the right person, Absolutely. So he, long story short, after months of training. He just kind of asked me Annarino, get up front, we're going to see how well you drive.
Speaker 2:So a couple guys drove the mine roller. I guess he didn't like it. I drove it. I guess he thought I was okay at it. So, um, he said you want to be lead vehicle operator. I'm like, yes, he goes. You do understand what comes with this right, like if you, if you fuck up, someone's dying. I was like, yes, I, I want to do this. So I was like, okay, so I became our lead vehicle, mine roller operator for the, for the deployment, you know. So wow, that's huge. It is, you know, and you're. It's scary when you're, when you think about it. Initially I was a little nervous but you know you get so used to it and it's just, it's like muscle memory. But you know we did a lot of ranges where you're finding IDs in the ground and stuff like fake ones, and you know we did uh, you know a lot of training on the cmd, the compact metal detectors, and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And you know, uh, we ended up going to 29 palms to do cax, or com, uh, itx as they call it now, if it's your training exercise, um, so that's about a month and a half long of just grueling training in this in the desert heat Um and 29 bombs it's if you ever heard of that place.
Speaker 1:I've seen all the memes. Yeah, it's nothing, I was stationed out there in my last duty station but it's it's funny but it uh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 29 palms was just nothing and it was hot and but we did a lot of cool stuff and we.
Speaker 2:We had some good connections with the unit we were assigned with. That allowed us to do a lot of the cool ranges that non-infantry was not able to do, so we shot a lot. We did a lot of shooting and moving. You know, he our ncos were really good at giving us every tool possible to be proficient if we ever needed it, um, so we could blend into any unit if we needed to, if we ever needed it. So we could blend into any unit if we needed to. So, yeah, so we did that and we ended up going from Hawaii to Alaska, over to Germany and then over to, from Germany we went to Kurdistan, and then you go from Kurdistan over to Camp Dwyer, afghanistan 2011.
Speaker 1:That's a long train up too before you got there. I mean, you've got a lot of really good training months, so when you got there you were as ready as you could be for what you're getting into, yeah yeah. So let's talk a little bit about you know, actually getting into deployment and kind of your experiences there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, you know, when we were flying from Kurdistan to um Dwyer, usually technically you go from Leatherneck camp Leatherneck, which is like the main base in Afghanistan, or camp Dwyer. So we landed there and we just changed planes and got over and you go from a C5 from Kurdistan, um, which is huge, you know and.
Speaker 2:I'd see if it's massive. It's like I can't believe this is a real plane. It's how big it is. And then you get to a c-130. You go from c5 to c-130 and you're on cargo net seats and you're, you know they do a like a combat flight down into the, the ao on camp to wire, and they don't really tell you. They just you just start pitching down and you corkscrew down into the ao. So that was my first thought is is this supposed to happen and are we getting shot?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like I didn't know what to expect and you know.
Speaker 2:So we land. You know the first thing I realized it's like it's really bright, it's very sandy and it smells like it bad. It's not a pleasant smell.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:There's something about the desert on a military base just stinks um, so landed there um a lot of admin stuff. I just remember like what are we doing like I thought I was gonna land and we're gonna hit the ground running.
Speaker 1:We're gonna get in trucks and go, yeah, like, start doing our thing.
Speaker 2:It's like no, like. So we spent the first two weeks just like checking in, waiting to get a unit to come pick us up and whatnot. So we we're at the MWR playing Xbox and I'm just like, well, this is a weird deployment, quote, unquote. What are we doing? But yeah, so we ended up saying, okay, we're going to get Hilo inserted into our patrol base, and we're like patrol base I thought we were operating out of Camp Dwyer and they're like no, you are going to PB Amir, patrol base, amir, patrol base Amir has a total of 50 people on it, 50. Yeah, so you have a platoon of infantry and you have a platoon of motor T over the motor T guys.
Speaker 2:So, um, prior to this, we actually were slated to go to Sangan. Um, if, uh, you're familiar with Sangen, sangen was a brutal spot for motor T. Uh, the unit that we were going to be tasked with replacing was, uh, I believe it was one five, and they ended up having two battalions there, Uh, or, I'm sorry, two truck companies there because they couldn't support it with just one because they kept getting blown up. So they went through five mine roller operators prior to our deployment and we were slated to go. So when I was on pre-deployment leave, that's what we were training for. It was Sangan Sangan's in the mountains. It was a very dangerous spot. It was the most connected spot in Afghanistan at the time. So I know I'm backtracking a little bit.
Speaker 1:I forgot.
Speaker 2:But when we were getting ready to go, they like, okay, we're going to sangin, we finish cax, our pre-deployment training, and they change it at the end of cax, like yeah, you guys are going to go to uh, syria or uh going to go to yemen on a mu. So they change our whole deployment. So we're like we're going from sang, now we're going to Yemen, and I didn't even know where Yemen was. I was like I think it's in Africa.
Speaker 1:I can't find that on a map.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't tell you I think it's in.
Speaker 2:Africa somewhere and I was like I thought we were doing a combat deployment and apparently Yemen back in 2011,. We were going to be the first boots on the ground in Yemen. So we were up in the air and Hawaii waiting to go on orders. We didn't know what we're doing. We're like we just finished all of our training, we're going to deploy. I want to decide to get my plane back home to see family At this point. I don't care where we're going, just give me a date. So then it changed from Yemen we're going to Garmshire, southern Garmshire, and it's basically at Garmshire. We're at the Southern part in the desert where the Euphrates river goes down it goes.
Speaker 2:Our AO bordered Pakistan and they were basically our. Our mission down there was to one stop the threat of IEDs by cutting off their supply lines. Pakistan was a heavy funnel for weapons and opium, um. So that was our mission was to cut off those supply lines, stop the Taliban from being able to bring uh ammo and all the supplies they need to fight up North near Kajaki dam and um uh, you know, like, like, show Restrepo and everything that's that's up North. So we were trying to stop the flow of guns and everything that goes up North into the mountains. Um cause that? That was the heavy Taliban fighting areas up there.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I spent my whole deployment in Northern Iraq. So yeah, we're opposite ends of the spectrum, but yeah it's amazing how different those two theaters are.
Speaker 2:It's like two completely different wars almost you know, so you know when.
Speaker 2:Uh, when we get there, we are getting told in our pre-deployment training like, hey, you know, now that we finally know where we're going, just let you know the unit before you. They found, like their unit alone found 250 IEDs and like the whole unit found them, and that's not include the ones that blew up, right. So we're like, oh, okay, because that's you know and I can't understand that's, the main threat is IEDs. It's not like you're going to get fired at and shot at, but it's our um ROE back then and our rules of engagement, uh, it's.
Speaker 2:It was very limited in what you can do, like, uh, we're our ROEs and our ability to engage the enemy, depending on a few things. One, you have to have clearly identified um enemy with a, with a rifle pointed at you, pid, yep. You had to have nothing behind them, so you couldn't possibly shoot anyone that would be behind them. So, basically, imagine them standing in the middle of a field. That's like the only time you can shoot. And then, if they go into a home and shoot you and go into a house, you cannot shoot back, so you don't know if there's anyone in there. That's pretty restrictive, very restrictive, and everything is mud huts over there. There's no buildings, there's not, it's just mud huts. It's straight out of like the biblical days in.
Speaker 1:Afghanistan. Right, I think somebody once said we're going to bomb them back into the stone age, and then when we got there, we realized they were already back in the stone age. Yeah, they're already there, you can't go back any farther, no, you can't.
Speaker 2:It's pre pre-script, you know, you know. So, yeah, there it was unique. We go there, we fly into the patrol base, we turn over with 2-5. I ended up seeing someone out of my MOS school in 2-5. Wow, so we helo in in the middle of the day. I got some pretty cool pictures like heloing in. We're in an Osprey, and the Ospreys at the time, if you're familiar with them in 2011, they had a lot of issues crashing, yeah, and they're not easy to fly.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:And, uh, they're a very unique thing to fly in because, like the G's, go from up and down, only vertical, and then they just turn to go left and right when you're, when it transitions into a plane yeah, so, uh, we into a plane. Yeah so, uh, we, um, yeah, we uh end up inserting with an osprey. Um, we get off the helo. It's just a. We see our patrol base and it's mud walls. It's like an old compound and it has one string of concertina wire over the wall that's maybe eight feet high and sandbags on either side that hold the concertina wire up, and it's basically our side is like a, like a supply area where these airdrop pallets of water, food, uh, and ammo, and uh, we, just, we basically take that and deliver it to all the tiny remote patrol bases in our Southern AO. So that was going to be our mission is to keep the inventory units um gassed, fed and supplied.
Speaker 2:You're their lifeline, Truly, and you can't take large convoys down there because of the road situation. There's one main route, it's called Route Cowboys. That was a main MSR. Secondary road is a hard-packed gravel, sandy, moon, dusty road, but it had giant potholes in it, you know, and it had ID attacks all the time. It's that was your best route. And then you had all these tertiary roads that were just mud, dirt, you know, big enough for maybe a white Toyota or like a motorcycle you know so that was our AO, it's nothing.
Speaker 2:And then you had the Eastern desert. That was just flat desert. So we yeah, you know, we check in, we start doing the left seat, right seat turnover, you know which. Basically you drive with someone from the unit you're turning over with. They put me as, since I was the lead driver, they didn't want me driving, yet they want me to kind of see. So they, since I was the lead driver, they didn't want me driving, yet they want me to kind of see. So they put me in the lead gun. So I'm rocking with the .50 cal and our driver is from 2.5. And the navigator is Sergeant Bazua, my NCO, and the driver knows where he's going. So basically, bazua is just kind of picking his brain and they just put me in the gun. My first trip, and I'm like it's my first deployment. What do I do if I see someone? I'm thinking, oh my God, this is going to be it. I'm shooting everything it moves. I'm going to get shot at. I see cracks in the glass from bullets. They've seen some stuff on this deployment.
Speaker 2:Some stuff has happened, yeah, and I'm seeing like, oh my God, like this is, this is a shock, right, like I am not prepared for this. Um, so they, uh, you know the driver gets in and he's like this crusty corporal. Just, he's like at the end of his deployment. You know, we all know what what that feels like. Oh yeah, You're at the end of a deployment. You know, we all know what what that feels like. Oh yeah, you're at the end of a deployment to go. It's like I have a week or two left. I am ready to get out of here. He's his plate carrier, that's my. When I was taking everything in, I was looking at their unit compared to us our camis look clean.
Speaker 2:Theirs looked white, you know, because the sun, sun, the bleached camis from the sun is just. It melts the camouflage off your camis so they're like a light tan white. All of them look like that. They just look grisly and ruffled, like you're in the middle of nowhere. We're on our patrol base. There's no military grooming standard, really Like we're, like I there's. There's no showers. We had a pump that pumped water from the wadi that we turned in like the pvc pipe and turned into a shower eventually, but it was like baby wipe showers for 10 months. Like you had piss tubes. There was like it was. It was remote, so it wasn't there. Wasn't the holiday in. No, no, you know it's. You know, I hear about certain deployments, man that would have been nice Like hindsight that would have been really nice.
Speaker 1:You guys had a gym, yeah.
Speaker 2:We had the jailhouse gym with sandbags and whatnot that we used, but that was it. So I'm noticing, man, these guys really live in nothing. And then we notice when they are going on convoys, a lot of these guys don't even wear side sappies, like they just took out. They cause it's so hot.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, we we get there in uh uh about May, april, may timeframe 2011. And it is hot Like it is nothing compared to the heat I was used to. It just bakes. It's a dry heat, but there's no cover.
Speaker 1:When people say dry heat, I just want to punch them in the nose. I really do.
Speaker 2:You're not swimming in a humidity sweaty. It's like you have an oven fan just blowing on you all day.
Speaker 1:And your head is in the oven.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's hard to breathe because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we're wearing these IMTV vests, that we call them the HESCO barriers. Yeah, that's what they look like. It was so square, you looked like a brick. So we're wearing those and that was our unit SOP. You had to wear them. They were brand new and they were thick, they were just heavy. And we also got a plate carrier and we weren't allowed to wear those. Apparently, marine Corps this is what I say, you're going to do it, I don't care, and it was a battalion commander decision. So the unit we're replacing with has plate carriers and they stripped them. So they're less than what the plate carrier even protects. Uh, he gets in not wearing a skivvy shirt, he's just looking grisly, doesn't really care, he just seems very lackadaisical about everything we're driving, go ahead and tell me I'm doing this exactly exactly.
Speaker 2:A lot of times he's not even wearing his helmet in the cab. And I'm just thinking like I'm a young marine, on my first deployment I'm training, I did. I was buckled up, I had everything. He'd never wore a seatbelt, no, nothing, he just didn't care. But yeah, so that was my shock when I got there With the lead vehicle operator.
Speaker 2:You get out with a metal detector and you have a sickle that you try to find wires in the ground. If you find something One of my first convoys, of my first memories we get out uh and we see a infantry uh squad. They flag us down on our convoy and they're like hey, you know, we found something up here, we're just checking it out. Just stand by and keep us in your bubble of your, of your um, your thor system, like your anti uh rf rfid device that shoots out like electro signals on top of your truck. It gives you basically a bubble for the people listening that don't know. It gives you a bubble to protect yourself, for someone to use a remote control device to blow off an IED. We get close to them and I'm watching this grunt get out there. The way we were trained to find these IEDs in the ground. We would lay flat on the ground and drag the sickle across the ground so like if it blows up, it blows up and out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know it gives you the best chance of survival. What do you think this grunt did?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sure he's standing straight up Straight over. Oh yeah, and just, there's gotta be something here.
Speaker 2:Digging, digging, digging and I can tell, dropped. I was just like, what did I like? Obviously, whatever I learned does not apply here. No, and pre-deployment training I am in a different realm, yeah, you know. So in your first thought, going to war is like it's going to be very kinetic every day Like this is I'm going to war. It's different. So now it's once again.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like a nine-to-five job yeah it's kind of what my first thought was yeah, the other thing too about training and I learned this, uh, in our train up is that the people who designed the training I'm gonna get shit for this and the people who give the training are people who've never experienced combat or at least not recently.
Speaker 1:No, in fact. In fact we had a major that was like with us and I'm not going to say his name, but he'll know who he is if he's listening and he was the biggest jackass on the planet and really didn't know what he was doing. And I remember he made me get my whole company, so I had 217 dudes and dudettes and he pulls you know you're going to have a company formation, so I get my company formation. I turn it over to him and he's like you know, this training you're doing is very serious, it's going to save your life, and he's given us really good speech. Well, halfway through it he goes no, I've never been deployed, but my brother was and he said it's pretty bad over there and I was like dude, you just lost all of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just lost everything. Yeah, because now we know everything you say is BS.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, that's the problem with some of the training is you have to have a foundation. You do, I get it, and that's why we train Um, but it'd be really helpful if you had people who knew what they were doing sometimes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, you know, and I think all of us as a platoon we're kind of shocked seeing that but, you know, your first two weeks is that left seat, right seat, and then it's, they fly out and it's like, okay, you're on your own. It's really ripped the bandaid off, let's go.
Speaker 2:And you know, and I'm driving a mine roller around and you know, one of the things that I remember most vividly my first couple of weeks driving is um one the amount of people that are on the road I was not prepared for. And commanding the road as a motor T operator in a foreign country is very difficult, because you're on the verge of hitting people on accident or hitting them on purpose and you have to know when to do each. And you have to know when is it okay if I'm going to run over a car with someone in it, like at what point is my ROE? I'm going to control this road Like I don't care, I'm using this mind roller as a defensive device. You know, um came very close multiple times, you know, and it's luckily our defensive posture was good enough to where it deterred them from doing anything. But um, yeah, it was, uh, it was a learning experience right away, because you know, when you train, learning the road, commanding the road and then also these white-yellow jugs that are on the side of the road.
Speaker 2:We're always told they're IEDs. They use jugs as they hold HME, homemade explosives like the aluminum nitrate that they use for the explosions. They put them in these yellow jugs, and everyone has yellow jugs everywhere. Everyone has them. They use them for water and they'll put them on the side of the road when they need to fill them up. So I would literally stop and I would get scolded, like what are you doing? I'm like there's a jug, just ignore it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, okay, whatever you say, boss, okay whatever you say, boss, whatever you say, I guess that's not a threat you know it's like.
Speaker 2:So those things you really had to kind of learn. You had to use your judgment a lot, um, and you know a lot with motor T is what I learned is when you're deployed in that kind of situation, you learn um what your environment looks like and you memorize it. And when there's something that's different, when there's a discrepancy with what you normally see every day, that's when you need to start being alert. And it's amazing how, with our op tempo, which was insane on that deployment, we memorized everything, like I it. There's a couple of stories of just very unique instances where, if I went to one way a slightly difference, uh, I probably wouldn't be here, um, just because of just my memorization of the routes Um.
Speaker 2:So, just for an example, we we had about 240 days on deployment in combat zone. I wrote this down. We had 287 missions and each mission average eight to 10 hours. So there was multiple three day long ops. That you're not sleeping Right, it's. You know, trying to drive and find IDs when you're up for almost 72 hours is challenging. It's like you're drunk, it is.
Speaker 2:It is You're drunk and it's muscle memory. I would literally pass out behind the wheel driving. One dehydration because it was so hot, and two, just exhaustion. Then Sergeant Bazua. My buddy hit me in the helmet as hard as he can Like. Wake the fuck up.
Speaker 2:He just yelled at me I'm just like okay, okay, okay, oh, it's. You know, we, that was a constant thing. You know you're just going going, going, Um, but yeah, you know it's, it was uh, it was a fun deployment. You know, we had a lot of close calls, we, I, I was able to find 20 IEDs while I was out there. You know, with the CMD, with the metal detector your first one is scary. Second one, because you find these little discrepancies in the ground.
Speaker 2:It's like that doesn't look right and you're going 20, 30 miles an hour. It's amazing how you can pick things up, because all you're doing is scanning the road, going that speed, and you're also keeping track of what's in the buildings and what's on the side of the roads and who's watching you, and people are counting your speed and your location around the radio. You're doing a lot looking for yellow jugs, those mysterious yellow jugs, you know.
Speaker 2:But uh, yeah, you know, I that was one of the things I'm proud of, you know. I found everything that we were meant to find, and whatever we weren't meant to find never went off.
Speaker 1:That's fortunate.
Speaker 2:I know for a fact we rolled over IEDs because we would. On the BFT, the Blue Force Tracker, in our cab, you can track every unit and then you get messages and you'd see when units get hit and we would pass certain checkpoints and not even two, three minutes later, another convoy be right behind us like an infantry, you know, mounted platoon, and they'd get hit on the route we were just on. And you know, you know, you can know how long it takes for them to back lane ied behind you. It's not long enough for them to dig it up, well enough to get something that can take out a truck. You know it's gotta be a pretty significant sized IED. So that means a couple of things. One, if it was a remote IED, maybe our Thor system worked, you know. Maybe, or maybe, you know, it just didn't work when we rolled over it, which is possible, um, you know, or we saw what we needed to see and avoided it, and they didn't, you know. So it's, it's meant to happen. It's meant to happen.
Speaker 1:I truly believe that well, I think that's something you learn in combat is like the whole notion of control is really just an illusion. Yeah, you know, because you can do every single thing right and still something bad's going to happen exactly. And you can be the guy with no plates, bleached uniform, no helmet, no seat belt. That'll happen, nothing will happen. Um, it's, it almost feels random it is um it's like russian roulette. Yeah, almost yeah. Were you amazed at what you got used to?
Speaker 1:yeah yeah, like the first, the first time anything happened over there. You know you responded like you said the first time you found an ied. That's like you said the first time you found an IED. That's terrifying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the first time I've done this. I hope my training was right. Yeah, but by number 15, I mean it's, it's an ID, but for someone who hasn't had the experience that you've had, they're like what you know, like all 20 of them would have been terrifying, but you get used to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, it was really weird. The first one, I was puckered up as hard as Did you lay down. No, I didn't.
Speaker 1:I had to ask.
Speaker 2:I was very, very cautious. I'm trying to pull slowly and thinking because if you're, what you do is basically if you're not familiar with it. If you find something, an ID, I use poker chips, these little plastic poker chips, to mark it. So you take your metal detector and it would make a beeping sound when you found something and it's like it gets higher pitch the more metallic the signature. So you know you find its point closest to you. You go north and south and then you find east and west and you kind of mark the east, east, west and southern point of where that is on the ground. You never want to go north because if you try to throw it and you miss and you land on the pressure plate, you don't need to find what's furthest away, just find what's closest to you, right, right um, and we use this.
Speaker 2:So my job isn't to blow them up to detonate them. My job is to locate them and then identify them for eod to come and blow them up. But for EOD they will not come out there. If they think there's an ID. You have to positively identify when there's something there and even then they are waiting 10 to 13 hours on average for them to get out there. It's a hike for them. So anyway, when you've located, then you use the sickle to drag on the outside of the box to try to find a wire that leads to pressure plate, said pressure plate. You know, a lot of times you go out there and you think you found something and it's just a rock. There's metallic signatures and rocks.
Speaker 2:If it's a big enough rock it'll ping and you get close to where that is. With a sickle you can kind of start telling when something's not a metallic like plate and when something's a rock. It has sporadic beeps and it might just be there's metallic parts of the rock in there. It's a solid ringing sound when you hit something that's a pressure plate with copper wire in there for a connection. So you get good at understanding when something's you know not supposed to be there, not natural, yeah, you sort of learn to discern. You do With some beeps.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, we're not going to call everything an IED, no, but we're not going to call nothing an IED.
Speaker 2:First two months you think everything is oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And then towards the end. You're not wearing sappy plates, no, and your frigging uniform's all bleached out, yeah, and you're tired, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the more times I did it and the more I understood the AO, I got really good at doing it to where I could spot. Yeah, we might have found something in the ground, but let's investigate around the sides of the road rather than just going right to there. And a lot of times I don't even need to use my sickle. I can see wires coming outside of the road and it's like, okay, well, I know something's there, like I don't need to, I'll throw a spot around there, cause I know it's in that general direction I can. When we would call the UD and I'd say, yeah, it's about five feet North of that that spot, just you'll find it, it's right there, you know I'm I'm not going to put myself at risk to find it, like I know it's there. So you know, and yeah, that's helpful, it's helpful for them too. But, um, yeah, so you know we did that a lot of times. You know, finding these IEDs you see people standing watching you cause they'll put fake ones out and see how you react. They're testing your SOPs. So you know there's a lot of being uh, holding an aggressive posture. You know there's.
Speaker 2:There was one uh one moment I remember specifically not IED related, but we went to do a resupply down route Redskins, which was a very, very bad route. Um, a couple of weeks prior to this event, we go to resupply this base and there was a tiny little guard shack at the end of the road. There was like a main this this main road is not really a main road. I don't think I could drive a quad down this road, but we did it in trucks and it was a hard um. But the main road led to a tertiary road that's like a footpath and they had a guard shack there and we would drop off supplies at that guard shack and they would take like a gator, like a four by four, side by sidearis gator, and they'd pick it up and shuttle it back and forth.
Speaker 2:Well, we go up and this guard shack literally is blown to pieces and we could see it smoking. We come around this corner and we're like that's not supposed to be there and we go investigate and there's an AMP Afghan national policeman. He just got blown up by an ID. They just did a change of guard and in the change of guard, the time they changed over, they put, uh, like a any personnel, mine or some small ID in there blew him to pieces. Wow. And this guard shack is just there's, he's everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's, he's everywhere. Yeah, it's. There's nothing left like he's pieces, you know. So this is two weeks prior, so we get up there and we resupply them. We, you know, we drop everything off and we're going to turn around, and where you have to turn, it's like this field that normally we've had no issues with.
Speaker 2:You know, we don't really drive in it, but we're like you know it's we had a we we don't really drive in it, but we had our wrecker, our recovery vehicle with us that day for some reason, which is a good thing we had. But we go to turn and one of our MRAPs gets stuck. So it gets stuck mid-wheel, well, in mud. It looks hard, but it's all mud underneath. So now we're in a really bad spot and our truck is stuck. We cannot get it out and you're not going to leave a vehicle behind, right? So it's like I'm staying here until we get it out. So we end up getting a cordon, end up setting it up, and you can start seeing when we're getting the cordon set up, there's more people coming around and there's there's like all these little huts and mud walls and compound walls and start seeing heads pop up and like, okay, there's kids playing in this little wadi, this little river that's has this little waterfall and there's kids playing and jumping in it. And we're like, okay, the kids are here, we're fine, that's what we've known. It's kids are around, you're, you're good. And uh, we get the wrecker out to go pull them out. And the wrecker gets stuck, it falls through and we have our wrecker operators, our recovery guys. They're walking out, waiting in this mud hooking it up and they come out and they're like I can't get me out. So now we have and in MRAP. If you're not familiar, they just have an awful transmission system. Their torque in an MRAP is very bad. So if you're not familiar, they just have an awful transmission system. Their, their, their torque in an mrap is very bad. So if you're ever trying to climb a hill or anything, mrap's the worst vehicle to be in it's safe vehicle. But you can't see anything and you can't get out of anywhere fast.
Speaker 2:So I chose to drive a seven ton uh as my lead vehicle. They gave me the choice of an mrap and I chose I'd rather be able to see and get rid of some of the protection. I'd rather be able to see and get rid of some of the protection. I'd rather be able to see what I'm going to actually go over, which ultimately. I still stand by that.
Speaker 2:But I set up my vehicle cordon on the oncoming road and I start seeing the village elders, like these old guys, come out and start wrangling up kids to get them out. And that's when I started. You know that's starting to not look good. You know this isn't normal. Usually they know we're not going to do anything to the kids. You know they we're um. That's when the you know the warning signs start showing and I yelled at my gunner to get out our MREs. We're keeping the kids close to us by giving them MREs or just baiting them in. You know they're not going to do anything. It's one thing with Afghanistan. I think it's different than Iraq. Afghanistan. They're kind of homeboys. A lot of the people that we were fighting against were from those areas, so they cared about their families a lot of times. I feel like Iraq might have been a little different. It's more collateral damage, so I think they had a lot of foreign fighters there right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when? When we were there, it was during the surge. So you, they were pushing everyone out of those Southern areas and they were coming right up into the Northern area yeah. They. They've got no ties there. They don't really.
Speaker 2:They don't care who no it is as long as they kill someone, as long as they kill some Americans they don't, yeah, they're fine. You know, everyone else is like a martyr kind of thing Exactly so for us, keeping the kids around was a priority.
Speaker 2:So you know, we baited these kids in. In hindsight I thought man, that's kind of messed up. But ultimately war is war. We're not going to hurt the kids, to our knowledge. So we kept them around, we baited them.
Speaker 2:The old village elders are getting pissed. You can tell they're yelling at them, trying to come close to us. You know we're we're yelling at them back like get back, get back. You know I don't care about the kids. I want kids to stay. Um, but the elders I'm keeping at a distance, cause you don't know what they're having under their under their blouse or anything.
Speaker 2:And um Zua, he was with me and we're we're taking the CMDs and going up and down the road, just setting up a cordon, you know, just making sure there's nothing sitting there, um, and we kind of turn back. We go down about 50 meters and turn back. And I kind of glanced back and he's, there's some people around him that he was walking back towards and they're kind of following him and I kind of tell him like hey, you know, just keep an eye out who's behind you and whatnot. And he was talking to him, trying to tell him like just stay back, stay back. They want to get through. They had to go around this road and we're like, no, you're not going anywhere you know, and they're kind of getting a little agitated.
Speaker 2:And I started seeing some guys with buckets and shovels walking from over this Hill, from the compound from to over the crest of the hill. We couldn't see where they were at and I yelled bazoo. I was like, hey, this is not good, like this is very not good. We have kids that are going away. We have guys with digging utensils, like digging up the road that we have to go out. We need to get out of here asap. So I'm dealing with bazoo and, uh, with these other guys.
Speaker 2:I turn and there's a guy right behind bazoo and he has a knife out. I bore punch him as hard as possible right in the sternum. I take the butt of my rifle. I punch him right in the chest. I don't know why I didn't just shoot him. Truly, I don't. It's just a kind of reaction. It wasn't about a swing or anything, but he had a knife out and it's. I'm sorry you're not going to be standing around, as he could have been a farmer just doing something. I don't know, but I punched the shit out of him and he was gasping for air. We had a interpreter with us and he grabbed him up and was kind of yelling at him and you know the guy couldn't breathe.
Speaker 2:And uh, you know, immediately that was when that was like, okay, we got it, this is bad, it's time to get out of here. Like I had justification to shoot this guy, you know, and that's that. That's when that was my first moment ever having justification like I could have killed someone right here. So, you know, we start getting back in our truck. We don't leave the trucks and we finally get it out, you know. So now we're trying to get out of here and we, uh, going down this road and I'm like, oh, there's something in this, in this road up here.
Speaker 2:Like I know it ultimately ended up not blowing up. I wasn't going to get out cause it was too much of a hazardous area to like try to investigate. We just had an ID go off two weeks ago, you know it's. So that was like our first harrowing moment of like this could have been a very bad ambush, you know it's. We were stuck, we couldn't do anything and it's compound walls are all around us Like they could have done anything to us at that point, you know it's. It's amazing how things turn. Like you could tell. There's like a sense of when something's going to happen. Um, but yeah, that was the first experience over there where I was like, okay, we just avoided something. Very could have been very bad.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, I mean you. You know that when you go to the market and there's no one there, you know, oh yeah, those are. It's like you know, drive past the college and there's no students. You know they know something. Yeah, they know something that you don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, you have to trust your gut when it comes to that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So this is a 243-day deployment.
Speaker 2:It was about 240 days. We were in our patrol base. I was there for about eight and a half nine months.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I was ADVON going in and I was the last one to come out because we did turnover, so one of their lead vehicle got to come out. Last Cause we did turnover, so one of their vehicle got to come out. Last One, we had a couple of kinetic. You know instances on the deployment, but it we had one instance where we got attacked at night. I was working out in our, our gym and I have my little headphones on from the PX truck. I'm jamming out. I see a wall of red tracers over our head. It's uh, I don't hear anything. So I just hear my music. I take them off and I see the zips and the clicks and I'm like, oh god, what's happening. And I just see, I look over and I just see a wall of red tracers coming over and as I hear yelling, we just get on the wall.
Speaker 2:Everyone's silkies, your short shorts, your boots your nods and you're just engaging targets and out in the field and it's, it's, uh, you know it's. We ended up. I guess there was, uh, five or six fighters that got taken out. But the amp, the amp police, that was on the southern guard post is funny, it's a funny story, it's. You always find this humor in, like bad times. You have to this amp guy. He had a pkm machine gun and he just cyclic. He just laid on the trigger, didn't let loose once and I just remember on the radios you can hear our guard radios they're just yelling out like who the hell is shooting. I didn't give that order, like we're. They're just yelling. It's like we can't control him. It's amp, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's just shooting everything you know.
Speaker 2:But you know it's like, yeah, that was a, that was pretty funny. But uh, yeah, you know, our, our, our biggest loss that we had it wasn't with our platoon, it was with uh, it was with uh, one of the infantry squads that um, we had a. We had a cop cop, uh, cop wrinkle, Um, it uh was in the Southern spot, about probably a 45 minute drive for us we, it's one of the main supply hubs and they had a big uh LZ so it supported the Southern, southern spots that were very remote. Um, so they would rotate platoons out to the spots because it's so remote you need to like rotate in and out.
Speaker 2:It's bad, yeah, it's not really livable longer than a month before you have to kind of resupply everything. So we uh, I got to know nicholas ott um, pretty well through through like working parties. Every time we drop off water and everything, it's like you just have the grunts come over and help you out and you end up just getting to know people you know and I knew him for quite a few months at this point towards the end of the deployment.
Speaker 2:Um, this is in August and we come down and we know, you know, when you get red air at that call sign across, it blocks all communication, blocks everything. Uh, we get a red air the week prior and you never know what. What happened? You know, could be anything, could just be something in a different AO, something. Well, anyway, the next, once we finally get clearance to go outside the wire, we uh and I'm going down a wrinkle, I'm like where's, where's that? And you didn't hear. He got taken out and he got blown up by an ID. Um, kind of bad circumstances.
Speaker 2:But, like I mentioned before, they took gators to go pick up stuff. So it's so remote, it's better to do it in like a Polaris gator than um on foot. So Lance corporal was driving out and he hit a tow popper in the gator. Did no damage to the gator, miraculously. But the Lance corporal got spooked and he's like I'm not doing this Like someone else drive. So I said basically, don't be a pussy, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2:So they go grab the stuff and they're coming back on their route back and not even 10 minutes later, they hit a 30 pound ID and a 30 pound ID with a gator. There's nothing left. No, um, they found his helmet about a hundred meters away. Um, so they, like I said, we're at rankle, I'm like's sinking feeling. You're just like I just was talking to him a week ago. You know it's. This is like the first major loss we had. Yeah, um, and they point over and they have this gator on on the base and then the next week we had to go take it back and they put it on my truck and it's.
Speaker 2:It was tough, one was tough. I was seeing his gator getting lifted on the back of my truck, and then you can still see everything in it, it was, it was pretty gruesome.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Seeing that the week prior we just had a village elder that we were pretty close with in the local area. He got gutted. He was laying on a table when we went to another patrol base. It's just like I was just talking to him. He was always around the base and you know we always stop in there and help out the kids and stuff. He's lying there with his guts out. You know, it's just like. It's a brutal place, brutal place, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, if ever that phrase you don't you know, you're not guaranteed what's going to happen tomorrow? I, what's going to happen tomorrow. I mean that's the place, yeah, and you're right. I mean one day you're talking to somebody and the next day they're just not there anymore.
Speaker 2:No, no, and you know that seeing that, those experiences, seeing how brutal of a place that is, seeing the hatred and you can tell when someone hates you right away. You get that feeling. You can tell those people that usually have that that look on them are usually the people you're fighting against over there. It's what you kind of gather. I'm sure you guys saw that as well. It's like there's a difference between a civilian and someone who's like they look at you a certain way, like they want you just to not be on this earth anymore. Um, seeing those people how to not be on this earth anymore, seeing those people how much they hate you and truthfully, what you go over there mentally to do is like I want to make this place better Mentally. That's what we all went over there doing. You know thinking I truly think we made a difference on our time there. You know we saw, you know you get to. You build relationships with people, right, and you know, seeing that and then seeing just the brutal loss of life and just seeing how brutal they are to their own and to their kids, and like seeing these kids just living in poverty, and you know it got me to really think about a lot of things over there. It really really made me question a lot of things of religion and stuff like personally for me and stuff like personally for me. You know it, you know it's I was raised very Christian and very, you know, like very strict Sunday school, everything.
Speaker 2:And it's like you see that you grow up from that and then you go total opposite of this is unadulterated, like these people have nothing. And this is where we're at and we are trying to help these people and they would rather themselves suffer than get help, you know. And then you see the dynamic of if they help us, they're going to be killed and if they help them, they're going to be imprisoned. It's there you feel awful for them, you know, and that's that's I really struggle with that and it's you know. You start to understand. Then you start thinking like other conflicts. You know, and that's that's I really struggle with that and it's you know. You start to understand. Then you start thinking like other conflicts. You know, like vietnam, like you start thinking like these are the things I thought about for years. Yeah, it's like you start to understand. You know there's a there's more casualties than just like the war fighters and more and it's it takes a toll on everyone in that area. You know, know it's. You want to avoid that as much as possible.
Speaker 2:It's, you know it's it's truly devastating, you know. But um, but yeah, you know it's that was kind of our deployment. For the most part it's it was uh, it was a high op tempo, exhausting work. We, you know we had some losses over there but you know we uh ended up doing a lot of good stuff you know we had some losses over there, but you know we ended up doing a lot of good stuff.
Speaker 1:I think that's what you have to hold on to really is the stuff that made a difference. That was good and sometimes it's hard to find. Yeah, but it's there if you look for it. I think I grew a lot.
Speaker 2:I grew a lot over there. I changed, yeah, definitely. My mom even said when I got back, like you just look different. It's like, yeah, it's you mature. Yeah, and I came back when I was 21. I went there when I was 20. It's, it's, you are a different person.
Speaker 1:I feel like it took 10 years off of me. Yeah, when I look at the kids that I was deployed with, yeah, they, when they came back, they weren't. They just didn't look like kids anymore.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:You know it was completely different. So when you left, did you go back to Okinawa then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, is that?
Speaker 1:how that works, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was curious yeah, so we, yeah, did you work at billeting when you left? No, I did not. So, yeah, we flew from, we flew directly to Kurdistan and then, since everyone was going to Hawaii and we went to Japan, they went west and we went east, so we had to fly over China and Russia, and so it's kind of funny. But I took a bunch of NyQuil prior because I was like it's such a long flight.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's such a Marine thing to do, because when we came back from I don't mean to interrupt you, we came from iraq, man, it was like the marines were doing nyquil shots, like, and it was the marines doing it anyway. So you take all this nyquil drugging ourselves up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just to go to go to sleep so I take a ton like I took like two of those little packs of four and it's like I'm knocking myself out. Right, I was out. I woke up when we were taking out or I went to sleep when we were taken off and I woke up when we were coming. We're landing and I'm like, oh, thank god, it's so good to be home. We're gonna be go back to the barracks and I look out the window and we're back in kyrgyzstan. I'm like what just happened? And apparently we got denied clearance to fly over china and russia. We had to get and we were a military contracted aircraft. You know, you fly those civilian aircraft.
Speaker 2:Apparently, there was a clearance issue and they said you know, if you continue, we're going to restrict your airspace, we're going to shoot you down, basically, probably. And so we had to turn around, go back. So we had another two weeks in Kyrgyzstan. We're just like, are you?
Speaker 1:kidding me kidding me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like I just want to go home. You know, kurdistan is not a fun place to be. It's boring, it's air force base close to Russia, it's just gray and Eastern Europeans.
Speaker 2:We ended up flying great the second time you know we'd land back in Okie and you know you kind of spend. They give you, I think, a couple of weeks kind of detox a little bit and just kind of do some BS work and you're just keeping busy kind of they don't expect you to do anything. And a lot of times, like after you get back, especially in Okinawa, it's weird because your contract in Okinawa kind of ends, um, and a lot of guys end up either they're EASing at the end of service, like their times either come to an end they don't want to reenlist or they reenlist and get a new duty station. Or a third option you can extend in Okinawa if you had some time, if you want to reenlist, and you can extend there for another year and a half. So I was already there for two years.
Speaker 2:At that point, getting back, I was close to being a corporal, so I was close to picking up. I decided, you know I'm going to reenlist, um, end up picking up corporal. Pretty soon after that, um, uh, then uh, I decided to reenlist and then I stayed over there. I uh, they gave you kind of like a little kicker to reenlist with a uh, 30 days of leave or a free plane ticket to Seattle round trip. So that way that's, that's a.
Speaker 1:That's a huge bonus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's. I chose that. So, I got a. I went home for like a month um you know, free leave, and uh got a ticket and uh re-enlisted and stayed over there another year and a half and I was an NCO over there.
Speaker 2:So it's like a little different experience. But a lot of the guys rotated out and I was the most me and like maybe one other guy was the most experienced people over there, um, in our company at the time, because everyone rotated out. So we're the two kind of combat vets in our unit everyone else was not deploying.
Speaker 2:After that they kind of we stopped tagging in with third marines deploying. So uh, yeah, we did a lot of uh training over at mount fuji, mainland, japan, and you know, being combat vets, you we're doing all, we're leading all the training, Just kind of like what you said. You know you want to have experienced people leading it. You know, the year prior we were in Afghanistan in a pretty kinetic area and you know, we we led a lot of Mount training, a lot of urban training, a lot of IED finding and you know I really I was not a, my personality up to that point was not a leader, like a vocal leader. I was more of like I'm just going to do everything I can to the best of my ability, and usually that means people at that point kind of just like knew I was very trustworthy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when then, when I became an NCO, I started trying to be something like the very vocal guy and I just wasn't that. I really kind of started to learn, struggle to learn.
Speaker 1:You know what, what being a true leader and NCO is, you know, that's that last year and a half really taught me a lot, but yeah, yeah, and if you're, if you're trying to be that vocal leader and you're not, then you really look like you're trying to be a vocal leader and you're not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn. If you're trying to be that vocal leader and you're not, then you really look like you're trying to be a is. It's like a toolbox. You know you're going to take the tools you need from someone you learn and someone you have, you know, good or bad. You're going to take them and put them in that toolbox. That's how you're going to shape your toolbox. Um. So, you know, if you see you have a leader, I've had many leaders that sucked.
Speaker 2:I hated them, like. I just did not like them as people, let alone the leader. Right, you know you're going to and that's in and out of the military. But there might've been one thing that they did well. I'm going to take that and use that in the future at some point. I'm going to remember that, and you also want to remember the things they did really poorly, because you can know this did not work. I'm going to use this down the road and not do this or know when to identify when someone is doing this. You know how not to do. It is a great lesson.
Speaker 1:It's a great lesson yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know I think I use that and that really shaped me into the person I am today. I use that years later when you know, now becoming a father, you know I use that thing, that you know, experience and that mindset when trying to shape how to be a dad. That's what I kind of do is like what didn't work, like, oh, I'm going to use them, do the opposite of that, do what?
Speaker 1:I needed.
Speaker 2:Do what I wanted to be and what I wanted to have as a kid. Be like that for my kids. That's my goal.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, going back to that, after going back to that it's after my year and a half, there it's I became much more of a leader at that point. I think from what I was I, I really understood that. So they gave me a small little story. They gave me a platoon of my time left in Okinawa was very short, I only had like six months. So they didn't want to give me some major platoon to run and to do a pre-deployment training or anything like that, because I didn't have the time.
Speaker 2:So, they gave me kind of the broke dick platoon. That's the we like to call it.
Speaker 1:The land of misfit toys. Yeah, the land of misfits.
Speaker 2:So they gave me a lot of people that were hurt.
Speaker 1:I haven't heard broke dick in a long time.
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna say that it's like that brings back a lot of fun memories, yeah, exactly, so yeah you know it's they uh, they gave me the quote-unquote hurt marines or the people that are like in trouble, or you know the guys that are still there and sick, lame and lazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the ash and trash.
Speaker 2:Those are fat, it's like yeah, it's just the lame ducks. You know they got that and I had to take them to mount fuji a couple and it's like trying to wrangle in these misfits. It's a nightmare. And one thing I learned with doing that is they don't care about your rank, they don't care about who you are, they care about like they've had bad experiences with the military up to this point A lot of them.
Speaker 2:They want to know you're not going to be one of the people that gave them a bad experience. So a lot of times what I learned was what's better is to kind of listen, listen to what they need. If you're giving an order or giving like hey, we have to do this. If you know it's going to suck, give them the what's in it. For me, like, listen, I know this sucks, but if we do this, we can do this or do this, I can get you this. Like that is what I'm trying to do, like this is the why behind it and I think a lot of Marines up, you know, in my time up to that point, never cared about giving you the why. It's like you're going to do as I tell you, because this is what I'm going to give you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is what you're going to do.
Speaker 2:Instant obedience to orders. I deviated from that and I realized that's not the best way to lead. Truly, it's not, and I think Marines appreciate just people in general I'll say not just Marines, but people in general appreciate if I'm telling you to do something, give me the why, and I think the new generation that's coming in to the military you have to give them the why, like the Gen Zs and that's I got up in 2020. So this is like kind of the initial push of this newer generation of kids that questioned why am I doing this? And that was a clashing point for a lot of senior leaders is I don't care if you want to know why You're doing this, because I'm telling you and that's. You lose a lot of people that way, right.
Speaker 1:You know, you lose the buy-in. Well, and I think for like senior leadership too, when someone wants to know the why, they're not questioning your, your authority. They want to know why, and they'll do it even if they don't agree with the why. And I think there's this fear that if I tell them the why, they're not going to agree with it. Now I have this other problem. No, they might not agree. They just want to know why they're doing it. Yeah, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:I completely In fact, I think those are the people you want. Yes, because they're going to make you think about what you're doing before you do it.
Speaker 2:Or they're going to offer you a suggestion on how to better improve your initial plan and say, like, listen, this is what we're going to do, this is why we're going to do it and this is our best approach, based on the information I have. And if they say, well, I don't think that's the greatest idea, that's fine. You don't have to take it as they're challenging. You Take it as okay, well, how would you do it? And I'll tell you if that's feasible and here's why. But you work together as a team. I use that approach with this platoon, for example, and it's amazing what happened. They got off light duty, they started performing and they just acted different. They were probably one of my best platoons I had ever. They would do anything. They were some. They were probably one of my best platoons I had ever. They just they. They would do anything. They would do anything for you because they bought in and they knew you had their back and they knew that you were giving them something because you needed them to do it and it was for their best interest. It wasn't something just like I'm just messing with you type thing, and that's what a lot of these guys and girls had. That that point, um. So yeah, we ended up beating out a lot of platoons in training, ended up performing way higher than a lot of the full functioning deploying platoons. And it's like I have. I have people that are getting ready to get out. They have, they don't give two shits how well they perform at this point, like they're counting the days down, but they're out here kicking ass, you know. So that that opened my eyes a lot.
Speaker 2:Um, and then after that you know that was when I had to choose. You know what am I doing next? So I re-enlisted and chose to, uh, figure out okay, if I'm going to make this a career, possibly, what's my next step? Um, I had a good mentor that said, like, listen, if you're going to re-enlist, don't just go to another unit. They wanted me to get promoted to sergeant. They thought I could do a meritorious promotion. So they said, listen, you need to win this meritorious promotion board. And I had about a year left.
Speaker 2:Win this meritorious promotion board and then request to go on your special duty assignment, which, in the Marine Corps, if you want to go and be a staff and CO, you have to do a special duty assignment. So that's drill instructor, embassy duty or recruiter. Um. So I was like, okay, you know, they challenged me to do this. Someone I trusted challenged me to do this and I'm going to do it and ended up being a Gunny Bartles at the time he got promoted. But he's like listen, you're going to do this, like you can do this. So I'm like, okay, I've never had a meritorious promotion at all and it was like a, it was a performance board.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was like PFT, cft, all being observed by a board of people. Then it was like, uh, you had to give a presentation, you had to do sword manual. Yeah, it was, it was, it was unique and you know, I I studied so hard for this and I tried so hard, I was performing, I was competing against a lot of friends of mine, which kind of sucks Cause.
Speaker 2:It's like if I beat you, that's like um, you're, I'm your senior leader now, and it's like you know a lot of these guys. I was one of the most junior corporals that was on it, so I felt bad. It's like the Hunger Games.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:I felt awful doing it. You know it's like I wasn't. I was never like some physical specimen that was like I'm going to run a perfect score, like you know. I was just solid. It was very solid physically, you know, like performance-wise, you know it was high, first class CFP, FTC. But, um, you know, when it came down to performance of your job, I was very good at that and knowledge wise and leading, I was a very good leader. At that point, um, I felt very confident. Let's just say maybe not good leader I think you can always improve but I was very confident in my leadership abilities. Um, and that's one thing I didn't have growing up was confidence myself. And I think at that point in my life, coming off deployment, getting this turnaround, this platoon, you know, having that feedback from them, made me feel really confident myself. I ended up winning the board, got promoted to a sergeant three years, just under three years. My time in, it's fast, fast as hell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and at the time when it happened I was like I don't the way people view you now. Now you're this guy that got promoted super fast. Now it's like, okay, well, this guy's a kiss ass, Right, you know. So you, you think that's, that's the perception, right, Anywhere it's going to be the perception. So you have to prove them wrong. So now, everywhere I go, they're going to ask man, you're really young, how are you a Sergeant? It's like, oh, I got meritoriously, meritoriously promoted under three years. Like that's, that's insane. It was like two years, 11 months, Like I don't know. I had meritorious board. I thought I'd be on it to outperform people and that's what I did. That was my thing. I, I had to be like that and you know I chose recruiting duty. I, when I had to pick time, everyone told me I needed to be a drill instructor. All my chain of command was all drill instructors and they hate each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Recruiters are these disgusting fat bodies that are civilians in uniform and you want to be a drill instructor? This is what you want to do and I just I, I almost went that way and I had a staff nco that I really I worked for directly and as a dispatcher for a while and it's a very, very kind person, just very smart, intelligent, just quiet guy. He's like almost a guy that you can see, like if he just turned into a civilian tomorrow he'd be a great civilian like you'd never tell he was a, he was a marine. If he just put into a civilian tomorrow he'd be a great civilian Like you'd never tell he was a, he was a Marine. If he just put on civvies and walked out the door, you'd never tell. He still lives in Japan, but he was like.
Speaker 2:You know, what I learned more as a recruiter than my entire time in the Marine Corps is as far as leadership and my business sense in how to walk and talk as a professional Right he goes. What are you going to learn as a drill instructor? To yell at trees? To yell at people? Who would you rather work for? Someone that can be intelligently speaking to you and be able to give their opinion. Intellectually, that's what you want when you get out. He goes always think of what happens if this doesn't work out. You always want to have a fallback. And he also said, not to mention the ribbon or the recruiter ribbons sits higher on your on your ribbon stack than all the other.
Speaker 2:SDAs, and so he's like it's harder yeah, so I uh chose recruiting and uh, I got mocked a little bit by my other chain of command. But um recruiting, I went out recruiting and requested to come back out to recruiting station Detroit back home. I thought that'd be a cool place and they put me up in Richmond, michigan. How's Richard 31 and Gratiot? Oh, it's like Chesterfield. Just keep going up, gratiot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, there's nothing up there. It's a three square miles round if you took around the whole town. But yeah, I lived in Chesterfield. I had Lance Cruz, North Anchor Bay High School and New Haven as my high schools and I was there for three years, from 2013 to 2016.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know about your experience, but they give you an office, a car, a credit card and you hang out with high school kids and, if you do it right, when you go to that high school the doors open up for you. They treat you well. It's a really good experience, and I'm just wondering was that your experience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I replaced a recruiter that did not do a very good job. He was an underperforming recruiter. Um, it's weird. When I checked into recruiting duty in my office, I saw one of the recruiters in my office when I was recruited he became a career. He became a career recruiter and he was, uh, an 84, 12 as a career recruiter. So he was our 84, 12 at ours, detroit. So I ended up working for him. He's like this is the weirdest thing in the world, cause three years ago I was a pulley.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in the delayed entry program. Yeah, you were lower than snail shit. Yeah, I was a chubby little kid, the civilian that he remembered, cause I would work out in his office all the time. And he's like and Reno, and like, yeah, oh, my God, gunny Laundra, you know it's, it's so weird, you know, seeing them, yeah, but uh, yeah, no, it's, uh, it's, it was a fight, it was an uphill fight for the first year.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I mean it's long hours. I mean I would, I would leave at 5am to go to maps and then I'd come back after doing interviews and picking up kids and whatever, and I'm back at 10 30 at night. You know, you're sometimes you work in 15, 16 hour days and you go home to nap and come back, right, you know? So, um, yeah, it's, uh, it was very hard. I think that was probably one of the hardest times in my military career was on recruiting. Um, more than anything I've ever done, that was the most challenging Cause I feel you takes you out of your, your comfort zone, way out, which is the military, and now I'm a salesman and.
Speaker 2:I'm selling, I'm like a.
Speaker 1:I'm selling an idea, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I'm not selling you a product right, Like I'm selling you an idea that could possibly get you killed and you're going to take you away from your family.
Speaker 1:The other thing, too, about recruiting is it's very rewarding, right, right, like, if you look behind me, you know, my first year out recognized by the, the michigan house of representatives, for recruiting excellence. Right, you know, but that doesn't matter, it's always. What have you done for me lately? Right, so you can. You can put in 20 guys in one month, but you have a week next month, yeah, yeah, what are? You doing this month? What are you doing this month? What are?
Speaker 2:you doing this month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, so yeah, and you're right. It is hard because you're selling people an idea, you're not selling them something that they can touch or feel. Yeah, you know, and part of it is you're selling them on your story too, Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I tell you what I think my story coming up as a kid, I used that I told them exactly who I was and where I came from and I said, listen, this is what I did. I was being a Sergeant under three years, like showing them the possibilities of being able to do that. You know those. Those things do help, you know. And I was younger, I think I was 23 when I went out there.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I was 23. So when you're 23 and you're talking to a 16 to 18 year old kid, you have way more in common than someone that goes out there. When they're a staff Sergeant who's like in their thirties, you're trying to. I don't know what's cool now. Like I knew we were very similar in age, so I understood kind of how they acted, how they talked, and it was helpful. Um, but yeah, it was uh. It was definitely uh an eyeopening experience because you know you're, you're, you can't rely on anyone else, it is you alone.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's cutthroat too. Even if there was someone else to rely on, you're dude.
Speaker 2:you're on your own because everyone's worried about themselves at that point and it's designed to be that way. It's not even that it turns. It's not even that you get those people out there. It's it turns people to be like that because I would love to help you, man, but if I help you and I don't meet my numbers like I'm screwed, no one cares that.
Speaker 1:I helped you. No, you did help each other. I mean, I will be honest. We did help each other, but not to our own detriment.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't go out of my way to cause myself to miss a timeline or you know a number for me to help you but I would help you if I could Right, if I was ahead. You know we gave people away. It's like trading people. I got to ask so.
Speaker 1:I recruited in the Navy. You recruited in the Marine Corps. Did you learn this little trick early on? I'm going to make goal and I'm going to maybe throw a couple extra bones in there. I'm going to make goal and I'm going to maybe throw a couple extra bones in there, but I got 10 guys. I'm stringing them along because I know next month's coming up pretty damn quick, right, like the first couple of months. You're like pew, pew, pew, pew. You're putting in tons of people and the people who are watching they're like oh, he's going to learn this lesson.
Speaker 2:It's blown slow and quick. Yeah, no, I had those calendars on your desk. On the bottom of my calendar I kept a running list of names, uh huh, oh sorry, I'm running a list of names on my calendar and they were names of guys that I knew.
Speaker 2:If I needed them to join right away, I could get them to join. Yeah, um, but they, I would tag them along and say, oh yeah, there's no rush, you know, I got. They're usually grads. Uh, all the seniors obviously, you know, with people that are listening that don't know, recruiting seniors are gold. Like you want your seniors because when they graduate they have to ship soon. Grads can ship whenever you want them to. Pretty much If you need someone to ship right away, you talk to your grads. They don't have to wait for the school year to end. So my grads I had my list of I need someone to join right away and they probably weren't the best applicant, but I could get them in Right Now. It might take some finagling, some work on my end, but I'll find a way to get them in.
Speaker 1:Well, it's up to the Marine Corps to turn them into Marines.
Speaker 2:I'm just, I'm throwing them up right now. What's difficult about recruiting? And I don't know how the Navy does it, but you know, statistically you're responsible for this individual up until they graduate boot camp.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, yeah, yeah, when they got on the plane.
Speaker 2:No. So if they fail out of boot camp, that goes as a hit oh Under numbers, which I argued for. Why is this my problem? Like, I've trained them to meet the standard to go to boot camp. I'm not a drill instructor. I can't train them to not roll their ankle and boot camp or break their arm, yeah. But if they break their arm and they get kicked out, that falls on me. Ouch, it shows as a they did not complete recruit training. Yeah. So, yeah, um, my, my three years there is hard. Um, you know, you end up really learning a lot, um, but uh, you know, I was top 10 recruiter all three years. Um, I was uh, I missed out recruiter of the year.
Speaker 2:It was kind of salty about that, uh by uh, one person that dropped out of bootcamp, one and it was a failure to adapt. Oh, that's even worse, like if they broke their arm. I could live with that. So, his failure to adapt. I ended up arguing that and they got rid of it. But then they hit me for a kid that had a faulty valve in his heart that we could not have tested for. He got a waiver for a heart murmur and you know the Marine Corps said yeah, he's good. Navy said he's good. Maps cleared him. Government said you're fine to go. We tested it, it shouldn't give him issues. And the kid ended up getting named the fainting goat in bootcamp because this he had a sticky valve, they called it.
Speaker 2:It sounds like a heart murmur but it performs fine. However, under high stress the valve would stick to the wall and would close and it would basically make him pass out. So anytime his blood pressure went up, a drill instructor would yell at him. He would literally yes, sir, yes, and just pass out on the floor. So I would you know you get. You call these drill instructors a lot and you talk to them and they all sound, you know, like drill instructor frog boys, you know, and they're like.
Speaker 2:I remember talking to the drill instructor the first time. He's like are you recruiting someone So-and-so's? Uh, are you his recruiter? I'm like, yeah, he goes. What the hell did you give me? I was like what do you mean? And he's like man, every time I yell at this kid, the kid passes out. I don't know what to do to him and I was like what do you mean? He's passing out. He goes did you ever train this kid? I was like, yeah, he was fine. He's like, obviously not terrified. He passes out of out of fear, and he thought that's what he was afraid of, right, turned out and he just medically lost the blood. This kid is literally fainting from blood loss, like a fainting goat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I felt bad. This kid worked his butt off. Yeah, he's one of those kids that was a string bean, could barely make weight to go. Yeah, he couldn't make, couldn't get enough weight. Yeah, yeah, like I fed that kid so many, many McFlurries and everything before maps and burgers. He was throwing up water. I was making him make weight. It's like you're shipping. I don't care, you're going to ship. You know, at maps, when they're weighing them, 4am, you know it's like you're going to make weight one way or the other.
Speaker 1:Call him the calling me maps. Liaisons in the morning like weigh him first, do not let him be.
Speaker 2:You know all those tricks, oh, all the good stuff. Yeah, it's like you will make it. Yeah, and so you weren't married at this time, were you? So I? So I met my. I was married before uh-huh, I met my ex-wife um my first year. I was about 10 months in recruiting um I met, I met her and, uh, you know, we were just young, is one of those young, you know military stories starter marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know it's like she was, you know, good enough person. It's just, we just were really young, we were better friends than anything and, um, you know, she followed me to my next duty station and she was with me there and it just didn't work out. You know, it's just one of those things where it's on recruiting, you're a totally different person because you're stressed out all the time, you're working so many hours, and then you change and you go to the fleet where it's a normal-ish nine to five. You are kind of like now you're back to your normal self a little bit and you're it's almost like learning a different person. So it's. I think that was probably the main reason and you know it's just didn't work out, but I got we were married for about three years and uh got divorced.
Speaker 2:You know, just best, the best decision for us, you know. But yeah, so I was, you know, we moved out to 29 Palms, california, um, you know, and uh, when I was getting orders I wanted to lat move. Like I told you in the beginning I didn't want to be motor T, right, I hated it. So one thing I did have a passion for was EOD and I cause I worked with them a lot in Afghanistan and all of our training we worked with EOD in pre-deployment and I made a lot of good friends that flat moved into the EOD community. Um, so while I was on recruiting, I took, uh, I had to do a lot of convincing but I convinced them to let me go and do a screener on recruiting duty. So I had to give up a lot of bones, like I had to basically make the mission, like the mission of the, of the actual station, uh, that month, and they gave me kind of like a, a pass to like throw it as one, one person up the next month if I was to go. So I went down to uh, uh went down to Quantico. I did the screener down there at the EOD center bomb suit, test everything and passed, spoke to the master sergeant, the uh, the captain and the chief warrant officer there.
Speaker 2:Um, it's a very cool community, uh, just the EOD community. And they're like, yeah, we'd love to have you Like you, I think you'd be a good fit. And they have to basically give you the blessing, right. And then they call the monitor who basically controls your everyone in that MOS. He gives them orders. That's how the Marine Corps works. There's one guy, they call him the monitor, but in each MOS field has one. So you sit on an iron throne.
Speaker 2:Basically that's what it feels like, and they work in Quantico, so it's like if you call them, they're ours or whatever they want them to be so or whatever they want them to be. So you know he, I spoke to him briefly. He's like all right, sounds like you're going to be a good fit. I'll put in your lat move package. I'll move it forward. Well, in order for that to get approved, your monitor in your MOS has to release you. So, mind you, I'm on recruiting duty. I was a sergeant and I'm about to finish my special duty assignment and in doing so, that's when you start to look at getting promoted to staff NCO Cause now you've, you're ahead of the game.
Speaker 2:You know you're completing all your PME, so I have my reenlistment package tied to this lab move and it's my only chance to get it, cause there's a term service limit for when you can let move into this community and it's you can only be a Sergeant. And, uh, you can only be a sergeant and you can only be. You have to be less than like eight years or something like that. And I knew if I go to another unit like I'm not going to get released. You know it's I'm going to probably pick up staff sergeants soon. So I'm like my time's ticking.
Speaker 2:So they hold my reenlistment package till a month prior to my EAS, my end of service date, and you're familiar with it. And if it comes back denied and you have 30 days left, you have 30 days to find a job. So I'm sweating and I don't have orders. My wife at the time is like where are we going? I need to know what I'm doing. And I'm like I don't know either. So, anyway, reenlistment comes back approved, light move denied, and that was gutting, cause at that point, what do you do now? I have a wife, I have a life, I I don't. I don't have a job lined up like this I throw all my eggs in this basket.
Speaker 2:You know, Um, so ended up just saying, okay, I want to go to camp Pendleton. And, uh, my monitor, who denied me, said well, all right, sounds good, gives me orders, gives me 29 palms, California. And at the time I was like, are you? There's no way, this is right. I said camp Pendleton, he goes. Ah, I gave you West coast, it's West best. The only thing I got, oh my God, yeah. So, it's kind of got the green weenie there and just kind of suck it up and go with it.
Speaker 1:So we went out to 29 you think those guys are the guys that you see their asses kicked in high school something.
Speaker 2:It's a power trip it feels like it yeah, you know I've only met a couple that are like actually genuine, like they. They care about you. But you know I understand they have a weird role because they're. There's thousands of marines that are in my community, right, they hear every sob story in the world.
Speaker 1:I get it, yeah, but man, that that one hurt I had a huge advantage when I was uh in, um, uh, norfolk. We actually took a trip up to the pentagon and met with we call them detailers in the navy met with our detailer, so I got to see the guy face to face, with each other in the eye. It was a really good experience. But nine times out of 10, it's just not like that.
Speaker 2:So I was just yeah, that's crazy. They would do their tours, They'd go base to base and they'd have all the monitors go one time and they'd have the whole base go and you just meet them and it's a lot of the junior guys.
Speaker 2:they meet them. They're like I'm thinking about reenlisting and I'd like to go here and it's like, yeah, you'll get what you get, type of thing. But the more senior guys they know them. Most of the time you want to get on good graces with them, kind of. Get them to know you so they can put you in a good fit of a unit. And I remember meeting this guy and he just don't really care about you. You know you're a dime, a dozen type of thing.
Speaker 2:Right, which you know, motor T is the third largest MOS in the Marine Corps. It's I get it. Go ahead and get out Teach me a lesson.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like.
Speaker 2:I got a billion more of you Right. So you, it's a very historic unit. It's one of the first units to go anywhere. If you're ever going to deploy the Marine Corps, 7th Marines is one of the first units you're ever going to send to 1st Marine Division. So 7th and 5th Marines are very highly decorated. So I worked at 7th Marine Regiment headquarters. We ran the truck company over there. I became the Motor T-Ops Chief, so we have a platoon of about 80 guys. Um and I'm I'm going from recruiting duty where I'm hands in my pockets and, knowing my community, I'm in civvies most of the time talking to people and now I'm I'm in control.
Speaker 2:I'm in charge of 80 guys that are, uh, running around the largest training base in the United States, you know, like landmass wise, and uh, we are responsible for supporting every unit that is training to go overseas and deploy. Um, it was a shock, you know. It's like I want I have to remember how to do all this stuff. I I haven't been in a truck in forever. I've been in a guppy, you know. So that it was. It was hard. It's a hard change. Um, uh, I I made some great memories there. They uh a lot of. I think the challenges I have there made me the professional I am today. Um, because I had to, I was promoted to staff Sergeant a couple of months after I got over there, um, so I got uh, my uh, you know, I picked up my rocker there, and that is when you start getting treated differently as a staff and CO. You're now more of a delegator, You're not the doer anymore, and it's a learning curve.
Speaker 1:Is that a hard transition for you?
Speaker 2:It was a hard transition at the time because I was a doer coming off recruiting duty.
Speaker 1:You have to be right, yes, you do.
Speaker 2:There is no delegation. Even if you're the boss of a station, you're doing a lot. Now I'm delegating. I have 80 people that now I have to trust them to do the job. That was difficult and it was a lot of responsibility. I mean, we had 250 pieces of rolling stock that I was in charge of. So that's water bowls trucks, rolling rolling stock that I was in charge of. So, like that's water bowls trucks, you know trailers, you know everything like that. If something's down, you can't support a mission. You're answering to a Colonel, right? You know. So it's a lot of stress.
Speaker 2:Um, high op tempo, um, it's what I asked for. But I wanted to deploy again and I wanted to, um, I wanted to be training again. I didn't want to sit in like an aviation unit and just sit in an office Like I didn't want to do that. So I want to get out in the field and train and that's what I did. You know it was. It was a good time. Um, you know, we did a lot of cool stuff. 29 palms you can drop everything but a nuke on that place. It's it's when I was there, it uh, um, I had a major hip surgery. Um, it was like a lingering injury I had for years. And the military.
Speaker 2:I think everyone in the military, especially the Marine Corps I don't, I can't speak for the other branches, but if you're hurt you don't say anything, you just suck it up and just go right Like you just don't want to be considered the weakling or the light, light duty guy. And so I had many kind of pretty serious injuries. I just kind of sucked it up and kept going, um, especially on deployment. Um, one thing was my hip. It had anytime I ran it was a shearing pain went up my back in front of my leg. It felt like fire. Um, eventually I was kind of going through my divorce at the time and I was kind of in a weird transition of life. Um, and my mentor at the time, master Sergeant Barksdale it's a great guy Um, he, he kind of knew I was going through some stuff and he could kind of tell, um, I never let it affect my work.
Speaker 2:He could tell that, like, cause, we worked in conjoining offices, right? He could tell I flip a switch when marines are around, when I'm not, I'm just like I just look kind of defeated and he's like, listen, are you staying in or getting out? I'm like I truly don't know. Like I'm at a, you know, I I was. I'm in a billet that's a gunny, that's a gunnery sergeant billet, so I'll build it above my pay grade. Um, I'm performing at a high level at this point. So, career wise, I'm doing great Um.
Speaker 2:Personal life not great Um. And he can tell that's affecting my, like that glimmer in your eye type of thing. It's gone. He's like you don't look like you're having fun anymore, like you don't look like you're enjoying it, and he goes. Eventually that will roll into your professional life. He goes at some point. It will. And if you don't enjoy coming to work every day, like you don't want to be that staff and CO that rolls in and just makes life miserable for people because you're miserable, right, um, and I really appreciate him for that.
Speaker 2:Um, he pushed me to be better every day, professionally and personally. Um, and uh, he said listen, if you're going to get out, you need to update your medical record with everything. He's like you just list everything that every Nick bump bruise that you have listed. Um, he goes. Cause the worst thing he goes. He was a 18 year vet, like he's been in for almost retirement at that point. He's like this is twilight tour type of thing. He's like listen, I have a lot of buddies that are out and things pop up when you get out, when you stop using it, things.
Speaker 2:All these issues that you were dealing with that were kind of like little nicks or a little you know ankle bumps or tweaks. Those things get way worse when you stop doing it every day. And, uh, I'm glad he did, I'm glad he told me that, cause I got fixed. Uh, I went to medical. They're like you have a torn labrum and it's like flipped inside out and uh, yeah, I had pretty major hip surgery on that, um, and I had to dislocate my hip and refold it all back and shave down my bones and it was crazy.
Speaker 2:But uh, yeah, I spent, uh, going through that year of being divorced and then doing the recovery. You know, I really I didn't want to be one of those lame ducks that had like this lingering, like limp, and this type of type of surgery, I was told is can be either great or awful, yeah, um, but it's really how you approach your physical therapy and I got really into fitness. Um, I focused heavily on, uh, physically just being just a beast and, I think, being going through a divorce. I had all my attention just focused into doing that and I think, you know, I just, I got probably the best shape of my life.
Speaker 2:I have great recovery, you know, and uh, yeah, I uh still have pain, like some pain that's never going to leave from that hip, but, um, I think, mentality wise, I needed that. I kind of did. I made a lot of friends that were outside of the military. While I was out there I had a really good close group that were at my gym that I went to and, um, they truly helped me recover mentally. So I was going through a lot after recruiting and then through the divorce and, like I said, my hip surgery. I was in a bad spot, I just wasn't in a good spot, and they truly saved me a lot of, uh, possible heartache and whatnot, just being there. You know, I think you always need those kinds of friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do.
Speaker 2:You know, just something that's takes your mind off and they make you better.
Speaker 1:Right, right Cause otherwise you could get into a real pity party and that's not going to help you get any better. No, sure?
Speaker 2:No, yeah, my friends Jared and Christie out there and uh there's, they just moved to Alaska. They're physical therapists. So there's the funny thing they're physical therapists. They're at my gym and they helped me recover. They kind of gave me, you know, pointers on how to get better. And they're still some of my closest friends today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it falls right into the everything happens for a reason category A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. And there's, like, people that I truly would never have met, if never would have met Um, if I did not get orders to try to have bombs that I didn't want or lat moved over to UOD or go get the surgery you didn't want, because you didn't want to be that lame duck Right. Exactly, you know. You never know what'll happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. So did you get out? After your, after all the surgeries and everything, did you? You got out of the military then, yeah, so what year was this?
Speaker 2:So this was 2017 or 20, between 2017, 2018 is when I got my surgery, and then um 2019 was my real year of like getting fit and fully recovered. And then 2020, I got out March 2020.
Speaker 1:Something else happened in March 2022.
Speaker 2:So where did you go from 29 palms? You come back to Michigan. So I, so I got. I got out March 28th 2020. I had about 60 days of leave that I could use. So I technically was like June is when my EAS was. Um, so I was at like 11 years and 10 months, so just under 12 years of time served, and I knew it was a hard decision. Hard decision I've ever had to make in my life was getting out, because I truly loved being a Marine but I knew for my mental wellbeing I needed to get out. I just was not enjoying it anymore, um, which is really hard to come to terms with. It's like I love it, but it's not good for me, you know it's. That was hard. Um, because my trajectory was I was going to be like an E9 careerist. You know I I was in positions lined up that were there like I want you to stay in. So, um, I had some really hard decisions to make. I ended up getting out, best decision I've ever made in my life. Um, you know, like I said, I got out on March 28th and I get home, finally free, finally free. I get home.
Speaker 2:April 1st is when I drive into my driveway at my mom's house and I was like I was getting ready to buy a house, like I wanted to go house searching. When I got home, I was ready to use my VA loan and they shut everything down, everything down, and I was like, oh my God, this is awful. So stuck in a house, my mom with my mom and her husband now, who's a great guy They've been married for 15 years now and, um, I'm living at home with my mom in the basement and that, mentally going from, I'm in a bad spot. I've recovered and mentally I'm great. And now I'm back home living in my mom's basement and I just quit the job I loved and you literally cannot go anywhere. I am stuck in the house and I'm living with my mom, who I truly haven't lived with in almost 15 years, and she wants to catch up in time with lost time and I'm like I need to do my own thing.
Speaker 2:You feel bad, but it's like I understand where you're coming from, but also I can't live at home. But it's like I understand where you're coming from, but also I can't live at home. I can't. So as soon as, uh, they opened up the real estate market again and uh, I think july or june, june, july, that year 2020 that you could see houses, but it was like you had a mask up and you had a glove up and it was like a shower and hand cleaner and yeah, so my uncle was my real estate agent.
Speaker 2:He helped me find my first house and I ended up meeting my now wife, um on uh.
Speaker 1:On uh hinge hinge online, so it's a dating app oh, I've heard of all kinds of things, but I've never heard of hinge yeah, so hinge, I met her on hinge.
Speaker 2:Uh, it was uh. We started dating when I was living in my mom's basement.
Speaker 1:So trying to explain that you were truly the man of her dreams.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, I was like so you know it's even funnier is I met her that you couldn't go anywhere to date. So I said you want to meet up in Mayberry state park and a walk? And she's like, yeah, you know my wife's very. My wife is very strong willed and very like I can handle it myself, I have this very strong will and very like I can handle it myself.
Speaker 2:You could have been a serial killer, though, and all of her friends said put on your location, you're going to meet a stranger in the woods.
Speaker 1:What could go wrong?
Speaker 2:I know so anyway, we took a long walk. It was only supposed to be four miles and I ended up getting us lost and we ended up walking about 10. Because it's all like interconnected trails. And if you don't take the right trail and you have to do another loop and it's yeah, so uh, I ended up messing that up. Good thing you had the hip fixed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know Right.
Speaker 2:But, uh, yeah, you know, um, I ended up buying a house and, uh, lived in it for about 10 months and then my wife and I were dating at the time still and she's like, well, I don't know why you bought a and you know we kind of the last after 2020,. We dated for about two years and got married and you know we've been married ever since. It's been great, that's awesome. Kids we just had our first. She's just turned seven months yesterday. So she's, you know, getting big now. But you know one thing I will thank my wife for she's, uh, she's, you know, getting big now. But, um, you know one thing I will thank my wife for, um, she's an amazing person. She makes me better in a lot of aspects. Um, I heard Brandon make us when you had him on, you know. He said you know and I think you alluded to this too it's, you know, find someone you can't live without and that's someone you can live with.
Speaker 2:Yeah can live with my wife truly makes me better. I wanted to go to college when I got out. It's something I really wanted to do and I always found an excuse not to do it. I was like it's COVID, I can't do this. I was working at a job when I got out, at a manufacturing facility for Chrysler. We build parts for the assembly line.
Speaker 2:I was working third shift and I was dating my wife at the time and third shift sucks and I was like that was an excuse. I can't go to college. I'm in third shift. She's like you can do it, you're just being lazy. My wife's very cutthroat. That's how her family is too, and I'm glad. I'm glad my daughter has that to look up to. But she pushed me and I just graduated a college this last year and you know, I got my bachelor's and I never would have done it without her pushing me truly never would have done it. Um, but yeah, now it's now. It's funny. I work at a company that, uh, one of the one of their. It's a machining company and they do a lot of custom fabrication and whatnot. Um, and I work in quoting, but one of their main main things that we are known for is our mind rollers. We make mind rollers for the government, so you know a little.
Speaker 2:You know a few things about that, so it kind of helped me out in the interview. But you know, uh, I worked five minutes from my house and my wife and I were. You know, we bought a bought our house we're going to live in for, hopefully, the rest of our lives and we're in a great spot. It's amazing how things you experience in life you end up doing things you never thought you were going to do. Everything happens for a reason.
Speaker 2:I truly believe that my experience in life I think you're going to make me a better human being and it's really how you view things is what you really need to pay attention to. Not everything's the worst thing in the world. If it's happening to you, it probably feels that way, but eventually it will turn out there's a reason behind it or you're going to learn something from it. Um, but yeah, you know, I think me pushing myself and getting thrown into these unique situations over and over and over again throughout my life have made me who I am and I think it's going to make me a great father and you know, it's going to make me really appreciate it down the road, and that's why I wanted to do this. I want to kind of give something to my daughter. She can listen to down the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's, I mean, everything's kind of working out for you. You know, I want to go back to you you talked about when Mikas and I were talking and I said you know, the key is not finding, you know, that person that you can live with, but the person that you cannot live without. Interestingly enough, do you know who said that? You mentioned it, I think G Gordon Liddy, who was.
Speaker 1:He wrote the book Will, but he was like the CIA guy, that for nixon and did all this crazy stuff. There's like a movie about him where he they want to know if they can trust him and he takes his hand and he puts a lighter underneath it and holds the flame. You know like he's a really tough guy, but he used to have a. He had a talk show back in the 90s and I remember him saying that. It just stuck in my head like of all the crazy shit this guy said and did, that's the thing that stuck with me and I thought g gordon liddy said that, yeah, but mrs liddy was amazing and she kept him once he got out of prison.
Speaker 1:She kept him on the uh, on the straight and narrow. I think that, uh, as a as a man, in the more men I meet, like there's always it's not a woman that's behind you anymore, it's this woman that stands next to you to make sure that you're doing what you're supposed to do. Yeah, so it's good that we can find that.
Speaker 1:The other phrase that I hear a lot from my military friends are my now wife right, Cause my my now wife, because people have to understand that distinction, cause I you know when I talk it's the same thing. I have a couple of ex wives and you don't want to get those stories mixed up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. I always make jokes with uh, cause a lot of you meet people in military. A lot of them have been married multiple times, just kind of the kind of your uh, initiation military. You gotta have one, one of those uh lying around somewhere and uh, you know I always make a joke. Yeah, second's the best, you know the first one. You get all your mistakes out of the way, right, right. But uh, yeah, no, it's, it's been amazing.
Speaker 2:I couldn't imagine myself being married to anyone else. She's great, mom, um, tough as nails, and uh, she's, uh, you know she's got my back and I have hers, type of thing. But uh, yeah, it's one thing that's, you know, that really drew me to her was how little she needed to be like coddled and like carried along, like I don't. I never wanted to be with someone that you know I needed to hold their hand to do anything. Like my wife is the exact opposite, like she's telling me she's a boss lady, you know, type of thing. But you know, truly, she makes me better and I make her better. So you know, it's, it's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't ask for much more than that. No, my saying is third time's the charm.
Speaker 2:So anyway, there you go. Anyway, the second second best is for me, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, we all have our place and it sounds like you're where you need to be, so it's been great talking with you today.
Speaker 1:Um, I've learned a ton. Um, I I love sitting down and making new friends, so this is this is really good for me. I always ask people the same question, I think throughout our conversation. You've sort of answered this, but I want to put a finer point on it. For people listening to this years from now, when neither one of us are here, what message do you want them to take away from the way you've lived your life, but also from our conversation today?
Speaker 2:It's hard. It's hard because there's so many little lessons you learn. What's one thing that truly you know makes that something someone should pull away? Um, I think taking it day by day something that I really focused on. I think, whatever struggles you're going through, whatever struggles that they may be family, whatever struggles you're going through, whatever struggles that they may be family, professional life, whatever you can only do what you are able to do right now.
Speaker 2:Don't worry about what's going to happen tomorrow, a year from now. You can't worry about it. You're going to stress yourself out, which will affect many other facets of your life. You can only handle what's currently in front of you. Don't worry about the past. Don't worry about the future, what's right now. Take it day by day and truthfully. That has helped me in my professional life. That's helped me in the military. You know my personal life. You know it's. If you're not here in the now, focusing on the closest problem at hand, you're not going to be present for your family at work. You know it's where you start making mistakes. I think just being present and understanding what is you are controlling, what you have under your control, is what you need to focus on. It's probably the best thing I could say All right yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for taking the time out today on a Sunday to come and talk with me. I thank you.
