Finding Purpose After 9/11; A Soldier’s Journey (Benjamin Bolen)

A pipe purchase, a recruiter’s wave, and a high school morning watching the towers fall—Ben’s story is a chain of small moments that turned into a life of service. We follow him from a childhood shaped by loss through the discipline of sports and faith, into the U.S. Army as a cavalry scout, and onto the streets of Baghdad where seconds, instincts, and rules of engagement determined who came home.

Ben explains what counterinsurgency looks like from a driver’s hatch: evolving IEDs and EFPs, convoy spacing, and the split-second choices behind shout, show, shove, shoot. He remembers handing out food to families while scanning rooftops for snipers, drifting a Bradley during the historic elections, and the quiet after a mission when your hands finally shake. The heaviest turns arrive in December—losing brothers, a Christmas Day mission, and a black-route convoy that he survives minutes before another unit suffers devastating losses. Coming home brings gratitude without closure, and the hardest work begins: rebuilding identity, marrying, finishing college, and deciding whether to serve again.

Years later, Ben returns as an officer, trading tactical firefights for strategic air defense and the grind of garrison life. He leads up and down the chain, protects his soldiers’ time, and confronts the cost of a career that always asks for more. Ultimately, he chooses legacy over ladder—transitioning to family-first leadership and service in community, veteran mentorship, and faith. This is a candid, unvarnished conversation about calling, courage, and cost; about how grief can become grit, and how purpose can outlast any uniform.

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Transcript

Early Life And Loss

SPEAKER_03 0:35

All right. Three, two, one. Today is Thursday, January 22nd, 2026. We're talking with Ben Bolin, who served in the United States Army. So good morning, Ben.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Good morning, Bill.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Thanks for braving the weather to come here. I know that must have been an adventure. Yeah, the roads were a little a little sketchy, but still safer than Iraq. Yeah. Well, I don't know. That's kind of a lower high bar, one of the two. Um, so yeah, let's start out with uh something simple. When and where were you born? Uh Grand Rapids, Michigan. Okay. In what year? 1985. Okay. 1985. The two years after I graduated high school, thanks.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

So did you grow up in Grand Rapids? Uh for a couple years. Uh we moved to Saginaw for my dad's job and then spent most of my childhood in Midland.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Okay. And what'd your dad do for a living?

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Uh he was in sales. Oh. He was in outside sales. Um, he actually passed when I was eight. Oh. He had uh brain cancer when he was 33 years old. Uh tumor came in six months later, he was gone. And that experience is what really shaped my life, ended up leading me into the military. When you see loss early on, you start thinking about how fragile our life is. You start thinking about your own legacy. And when you hear a eulogy at a funeral, you wonder, what would people say about me? What's what's going to be my impact? What's going to be my stamp on this world?

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Right. Well, so talk to me a little bit about growing up at I mean, that's pretty early to lose a parent. Uh, was your mom working? What did what I mean, what did she do?

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Yeah, she had been uh an X-ray tech, um, mostly part-time. I had an older sister and a younger sister. Uh, so she went from part-time to to full-time, and her life changed pretty dramatically as well. You go from a in a normal middle class family of family of five uh to seeing your mom become a single mom, and then losing your dad and sort of becoming the man of the house at at eight years old, it's uh changes things.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Yeah, that's that's rough. And you had so you had an older sister, did you have any other siblings? And then a younger sister. Okay, so you're the middle kid.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yeah, and then my mom ended up getting remarried a couple years ago, uh, a couple, sorry, a couple of years after my dad had passed, and then they ended up having three kids. So I have this neat, mixed, mixed family, and uh some people don't don't have a dad at all. Right. And I had the opportunity to have have two dads, both good, really good guys, and a whole other family was created through that loss.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

So I think life is very much how you frame it. You can feel sorry for yourself, you can feel like you got a short end of the stick. Um, and then this blessing came into my life. Man, some people don't have one dad, I got to have two. And now there's these, there were these three other kids that part of our family. Now I had these new uh like step family from his from his side of the family. So I ended up having three families growing up, so uh something something tragic turned into something pretty incredible, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Right. What was it? Dr. Dobson said that life is one percent of what happens to you and 99% about how you react to it, right? Very much so.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Very much so.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Yeah, what a great way to frame that that loss. Right. It doesn't make the loss any less significant, but it certainly probably helped cushion it.

Blended Family, Faith, And Framing Adversity

SPEAKER_02 4:21

It did, it did, and and that was the that's the wise realization later through all the through all the years. I mean, initially you're alone. Initially you have this thing taken away from you, and that provider and that sense of security to you is is gone. And uh there is some anger. There is some anger there as you're growing up and some feeling bad and then trying to uh adjust to a stepdad. Right. Uh is a unique experience. And um so how did that work for you? Um it was a it was a unique, it was a unique dynamic because he's in his mid-30s and all of a sudden has three three kids, you know, married a married a widow with three kids, and um he's a good Christian man and respected our family dynamic. Um and you know, I think really did his did his very best in what was a pretty complex pretty complex situation. Um and our relationship has grown, grown very much since uh my sisters when he came around called him John, and I was real quick to call him dad. I was real quick to call him dad. So um I've called him dad ever ever since. Uh I you know, I don't compare I don't compare the two. It was he's he's my dad. So and uh yeah, a good man.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

That's pretty good for so you're like 10 years old when all this is happening, right? Yeah, right. And then did they start having children like pretty quickly um after they got married?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Or were these like within a within a couple, yeah, within a couple, within a couple of years. They're both in their mid-30s, so yeah, timing. Timing's a bit a bit unique then. Um and so they had uh a daughter and then another daughter, and then a son. The cool thing is my grandparents on that side of the family, in their basement, they have their entire family heritage, Dutch heritage, going back hundreds and hundreds of years. And if my younger brother hadn't been born, that family heritage would have stopped.

unknown 6:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

So when we think about legacy and what that means, this whole family was created out of that out of that loss, like rising from the ashes, and an entire generation gets to continue. That entire genealogy continues because of yeah, because of that.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

So no pressure on my little brother, but uh but he better do things right.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

And there's such an age gap. I think there's 17, 17 uh years between my oldest sister and my youngest brother. So we're kind of halfway between our parents' age, right? So we're siblings, but also we're older, we've done that, so we're their friend, but also Yeah, you're kind of that mentor, leader. Yeah, yeah. So it became this really special dynamic.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

So well, with all that going on, I can imagine it's tough to be a kid anyway. But what what was it like kind of growing up in in Midland? And like did you have like lots of friends? Did you play sports? Like what was it like being a kid?

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Um, my my dad, my uh my first dad, uh had really brought me up in baseball. Baseball was a big passion. My uh uh stepdad, uh he was a big baseball basketball guy. He loved he always loved sports. Uh so I played I played baseball. Uh ironically, when we first moved into the house after my dad had passed, uh a neighbor kid walked over and introduced introduced himself. And we've been best friends for 30 years, 30 years since. Wow. I got I got close with my uncles. I got close with family. Uh, because when you when you experience loss, you understand the deep value of close personal relationships. And uh for all the material things that we want in this life, there's some things that are really priceless, very, very irreplaceable. And so you appreciate family and the the the bond and closeness that we've had as a family. There's always family conflict, there's always these unique dynamics that everybody has with their parents or with their siblings. And at the end of the day, we always find a way to resolve it one way, one way or the other. We don't take we don't take family for granted.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

I don't take I don't take the friendships for granted. Um as I got as I got a little bit older, I um I got into football. Uh that was part of being an angsty, angsty kid with a little bit of you know, kind of anger and testosterone, and wanted to be able to wanted to be able to hit people and playing football was actually really great prep for the army because you're getting yelled at quite a bit. Um this this level of discipline, the standard that the standard that you have, being a part of a team, um being being a role player, um realizing that everybody has to, it's an 11-man team on a football field. If if one person doesn't do their job, it affects the whole it affects the whole team. Um and then just the physical the physical training of two a days and the physicality throughout the season. Um doing sprints in the August heat, you know, gets gets you pretty prepped for training.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

Yeah.

Sports, Discipline, And Mindset

SPEAKER_02 10:11

And being able to push yourself beyond where you think, where you think you can go and how you control your emotions, how you control that aggression. Um, all those things translated, translated really well. The uh as far as mindset, that's one of the big things I want to be able to discuss today is uh not just what I did, but very much where my mind was throughout these different seasons. Um I mean initially I wasn't a very ambitious kid, wasn't very motivated, didn't have a lot of goals. I had this, you know, who knows when life can end. Life is so unpredictable. I just want to, I just want to enjoy it along the way. So I I played football, but I wasn't hyper competitive. I wasn't a win at all at all costs. Um with my academics, I was a good kid, but I wasn't trying to make honor roll or get scholarships or spending tons of hours prepping for the ACT or anything like that. It was uh I didn't take life too serious, yeah. Just sort of getting by a class clown, you know, when you experience trauma and grief. Um, I replaced that with you know humor and sarcasm and sometimes a smart mouth.

SPEAKER_06 11:32

Yeah.

9/11 And The Call To Serve

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Um kind of a lighthearted, became a light, I didn't just didn't take things, didn't take things real serious. And uh growing up, there's a lot of clicks. You know, there's kind of the jocks and the band and the drama people, and people are really focused on academics, Midland, um, you know, it's really academic town. You know, are you going to Michigan or Michigan State? You know, it's just the way, sort of the way that it was. Um, and I got along with groups of people from everywhere, from every from every walk of life. Um, I didn't have one single group. And so I've noticed that all these all these things would translate to the military because you're oh yeah, everyone from everywhere, and you're all your differences, you set them aside to focus to focus on the mission, controlling the aggression, the discipline, and how how seriously, how seriously you take things. Um, as we get talking, we'll see how Army really shifted a lot, a lot of what my mindset was. You just as you mature and as you grow up and as you see, see and experience different things. Um so as I was getting toward like junior, junior, senior year, um trying to think 9-11 was my junior year. Oh, okay. Um so I was a I was a junior in high school, and I remember I was in I was in English class, and they made an announcement, hey, something's happened, everybody come to the library. We watched, we watched it on TV. And I'm at the time I was thinking about a career in sales and sales and marketing, following you know, dad's dad's footsteps, maybe something entrepreneurial, like my like my uncle's, but it was gonna be in business. And when you see people jumping out of the World Trade Center, there was this light switch, this light switch moment for me. It says, It doesn't matter your career, how much money you have, if our country's at risk or at threat. And when my dad had passed, there was this man of the house thing, you're the family. Right. Um this, you know, the sense of the sense of security. I'd be the last one up and looking out the windows and locking the doors before I went to bed. Just have that sense of a sense of alertness that that comes. And so 9-11 sort of directed that um to a purpose. So I had my grandpa was in Korea, had broken his back in the Korean in the Korean War and rehabbed, rehabbed himself. And then I had uh another grandpa retired as a lieutenant colonel from the army reserves. And I had five uncles that um four four uncles that were serviced between the the army and the marines, um, non-combat, but there was there was a a family legacy, there was a history. Nobody, nobody talked a ton about about what their service was. They all had a pride in it. You could see where their structure, where their structure came from, but it wasn't a a huge a huge thing. It wasn't really visible. Wasn't really visible. Um But there was a this is a this is a path. So as I got into uh got into senior year, um, I wasn't good enough at football to get to get a scholarship, and I didn't have tons of academic type scholarships. We did some college visits and there were opportunities for me to go to school. I had visited some technical trade schools, didn't really um love that type of thing. Um and then it was really hard to think about sitting in a class because at the time seeing it was had coverage of what was going on. 24-7. It was.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

And um when you're when you're seeing that, like how can I live in a box and have normal life when this is when this is going on over there? And I'm very strong believer in in a calling, but not everybody sees it, not everybody feels this movement inside of them, this this thing that's happening. I have to do something about it. I cannot be an onlooker, I have to I have to take action, take action here. Um and I didn't know exactly what what that was gonna look like. Um, so some of the stories I'll share, uh sort of the butterfly effect. Um so my stepdad's best friend was getting married in Boston. Now, hey, do we want to go to this wedding wedding in Boston? We had an older dog, and I said, No, I'll stay home with the dog so she doesn't have to be boarded, you know, put in a kennel, yeah, put in a kennel or anything like that. So I stayed home, they all went. I turn 18. On my 18th birthday, my buddy Craig gives me a call. He's like, hey, so you're 18. What do you want? What do you want to do? You want to go to the casino? Do you want to go to a club? Uh you're the man now. Let's go somewhere. And I said, I wanna I want to get a pipe. My great-grandpa smoked a pipe, uh-huh, and I love the smell of it. Um, I had a lot of family that smoked. I hated the smell of cigarettes, yeah. But a pipe was this very good, strong smell, and so we went to Meyers and we bought just this cheap pipe and this cheap bag of bag of tobacco, and I couldn't get it to light. There's a way you gotta pack it, there's a way you gotta have it.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

It's it's a whole like thing, right?

The Pipe, The Recruiter, And Enlistment

SPEAKER_02 17:47

It is. So I'm like, what in the world? And I had never smoked before, right? I didn't I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, I was a clean kid. And so we go across the street to this tobacco shop. I said, Hey, how do you how do you light this pipe? We can't figure it out. And there's this girl there, she's in college, she's like, I don't smoke, I just work here to pay for college. Go talk to the Navy people, they smoke all the time. And so, as we're walking down to the Navy recruiting office to ask how to light a pipe, um, I walk by the Army recruiting office, and just there looking at the sign, the sign on the wall, and the recruiter just takes his hand, kind of waves me, it waves me in, and I started started talking to him. He said, Hey, what are you thinking about? I said, Oh, we're actually heading down for this. And have you thought about the military? I we talked about family legacy and you know, 9-11 and what that looks like. I said, you know, I'm I just don't know if I could make a you know a four or five, six-year, six-year commitment. I'm I'm 18. I can't, I can't think about four or six years ahead right now. Um he said, well, do you know we have a two-year contract? We have a two-year active duty contract. What do you think about that? Oh, I didn't know you had I didn't know you had a two-year contract. And a couple weeks later, um, oh my so my family gets home.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Yeah, so you're doing all this to your family's at a time. All this they have no clue.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

And they get home.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Hey, hey, how was your weekend? How's your birthday?

SPEAKER_01 19:26

I'm joining the army. And I bought a pipe.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Blindside. They're blindsided. Like, okay. Yeah. Um, a couple weeks later, I go to MEPS and I this uh chose to be a cavalry scout, the armored reconnaissance specialist, um, which the recruiting video looked really, really cool. Oh, yeah. So it looked, it looked really hard.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

I want I don't mean to interrupt, but I gotta ask a question. So like you totally blindside your family. However, like, are they on board with this? Like, do they think this is a good idea? Do they not think it's a good idea? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

I've because we kind of walked past the I've thought I thought back on these on these conversations. Uh-huh. Um, they weren't against it. They knew I wanted to be independent. They knew I didn't want to depend on them financially. Like we still had I still had four younger siblings that need to go to school that were probably gonna be more focused on their academics than I was. So like just hey, there's you have a lot of other responsibilities. They were gonna help they were gonna help pay for school. You know, they they believed that education was a was a good patent. So no. I'm gonna this can help me pay for school. This can help me with jobs later on, like take care of the kids. Um, but when I became a scout, like what is you're doing? Oh, I'm doing forward reconnaissance on the eyes and ears of the battlefield. Then we're at war. Of all the jobs that are available, you're doing the job on the very front lines that goes ahead of the unit to do recon. Yeah, that's that's what I'm doing. If I'm going into this, I'm gonna go do everything, do everything that I can. I want it, I want to do the full thing. And so is a mom. I mean, she's a mother, she's got she's got kids, she's lost a husband. Yeah, so that's I've already lost a loved one, and now you're and now you're doing this. So that was that was tough. Um my stepdad, he was always read Proverbs, pray for wisdom. But you're kind of you're a man. Like make your own, make your own decision and deal with and deal with it. And didn't try to wasn't all wasn't all about it, didn't try to talk me out of it. They're both, you want to do this, you know, we'll we'll we'll support you. We won't talk you out of it, but we're also not cheerleading.

SPEAKER_06 21:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

You're going to war right now, you're going to war right now. Even uncle, my uncle Tim and I are really, really, really close. Um, and I I'd asked him after the fact, I said, What why do you always why do you talk about it? He's like, Because Ben, you were actually really excited about it. You it was something like when when I talked to you about it, you felt I found something that I'm really excited and passionate about. This is this is my thing. He said, Why would I talk you out of something that you really you really wanted you really wanted to do?

SPEAKER_03 22:27

And I'm curious, like this is probably like the first time you've been that excited about something in a while.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Really, really it was. Yeah, really it was because yeah, I didn't have ambitions and aspirations, kind of took life as it, took life as it went. Um, and I would I see these people in the suburbs, middle-aged folks in the suburbs, and they have their suburban job, they're nine to five, and they're they're kids. Is that is that all that life? Is that all that life life is? Is this thing? Um and so that led me, that led me into the into the military. One of the ironic things was I I was pretty sharp academically. I got a really good ASVAB score. There was an opportunity intelligence analyst, but it was 26 weeks of training. I said, if I'm gonna do a desk job, I might as well just go to college.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Right.

MEPS Hurdles And Shipping Out

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Um, and so a Calvary Scout was called OSA, this one station unit training, you basic training and your specialty training at one place. Um, and so I it's funny because I was my senior year, I co-opted a bank. So I was in khakis in a dress, dress shirt in the day. So a lot of people are very surprised. Right. You don't fit this profile, you don't fit this this type that you're this light-hearted, you know, nice guy, you're a good kid. Like you don't fit this, and everybody had this. There, there's a there was some can still be a really negative stigma of the military, right? As you as you see that people there's this, there's this type, and it's just like, no, it's everybody. Everybody goes, it's that call.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Anybody can anybody can hear that call no matter what walk of life they rich kids, poor kids, yeah, white kids, black kids, exactly. Yeah, anybody.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Yeah, it's the most dynamic, diverse group of people together focused on a single mission. It's pretty pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

So, did you sign up in delayed entry then while you were in high school?

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Um, it was yeah, it was delayed entry program. So I signed at 18, so I didn't need a parental waiver or anything. Right um, and then I was gonna ship. That was March, went through um MEPS in April. Oh, little little sidetrack on that. I was deathly allergic to bees when I was in middle school, went into anaphylactic shock, almost died, had to go through an immunologist for years to build up a capacity for bee stings. And my recruiters like, hey, do you have do you have any anything that and I'm like, no, I don't, I don't think so. And I'm sitting there at MEPS. Have you ever had an allergy? And I was like, man, I could be out in the middle of nowhere, get stung by a bee, and die. That's not very heroic. That's not the way I want to go out. So I checked, I checked yes, and suddenly the recruiter finds, checked, you checked yes on the you checked yes on the form. What are you doing? Why don't you talk to me about that? Right. This whole bag. And they're like, You're not gonna, they're not gonna let you in the arm if you have if you have this allergy. Um it ended up going up to the surgeon general of the army for me to get a waiver. And I went to the immunologist back in Midland, they did a check, and I wasn't allergic anymore. And so it actually it actually cleared, and it didn't delay anything, but it was one of those, there's there's these different things that could have could have shifted, could have shifted what it was. All these things, all these things lined up. And um, so my ship outdate was September 17th, 2003. Um, as a bit of a last two raw, I took all the money I made from my co-op job and I took my grandma to the Bahamas for a week. I said, I'm gonna I have a week in heaven before I go to hell.

SPEAKER_06 26:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

And it was the everybody else is in is in school or they're working their their job, and my grandma was available, and so I got to take my grandma, yeah, you know, on this trap.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

So I want to stop you right here because when you said I took all my money that I made, blah blah blah, I'm thinking, oh, and I threw a big party, you took your grandma in the Bahamas.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Yeah, and it was how cool is that it was it was amazing. I got to I got to snorkel and be be on the beach and just have this this mental moment of peace. Because you have this idea, you can watch war movies. You might have an idea, you talk to different people about what you're getting into, you're working with your recruiter and different stuff. You have this kind of idea of what it looks like. Most of us just picture full metal jacket.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Not gonna lie, I watched that like the night before I went to the case.

Basic Training At Fort Knox

SPEAKER_02 27:26

That's what we're expecting, right? And um, and so it was just this I'm gonna go in completely relaxed, I'm gonna have this moment, this moment of enjoyment. And I don't know where my life is gonna be in the next two years. Right. You're you're it's there's very much this this position, this position of surrender when you when you raise your hand, both at both at MEPS and on the on that final, the the night before ship out is probably the most terrifying night. If you check in, you stay in that hotel, you really have your last your last night of of of freedom, you know. Before serving your time, and then that bus early in the morning. Yeah, it's it's it's it's on now. It's game time, right? It's like when you're having fun in the locker room, and before the game, you're getting prepped. It's game time now. It's kickoff, let's go. Um, it's like most of the the lesson from the military, it's it's about the mental. It's about the mental state, it's about your mental strength.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

So yeah, your body will do whatever you tell it to, right? Yeah, it's whether or not your mind is going to overcome that fear. So you where did you go to basic? Fort Knox. Okay. So you took a bus to Fort Knox?

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Um we flew.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

You flew from maybe Lansing, Lansing to Louisville, and um it's a bus ride you don't forget. Is you go, you get off, you get off the bus, you go to that USO station, you wait. You wait to be picked up, and you're still in your civilian clothes. We didn't have phones at the time. That's how long ago that was.

SPEAKER_06 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

And you have this tension, you're looking at the other kids. We all have kind of the same apprehensive look, look on our look on our face. Like we've said our goodbyes, you know, the whole the whole bag, and you're riding that bus, and then that bus pulls up on the base and it's on.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

So wow. Yeah. So talk me, talk to me about that. Like the bus pulls up. Is it now? Are you getting there during the day or at night? It's night. Of course.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

It's always it's oh, it's all I don't know why it's always at. It's always at it's always at night, right? Part of the mental, it's part of the mental game. Is you're just driving in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden you pull up, you see the gate.

SPEAKER_05 29:48

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

I mean, Fort Knox is a site anyway, because actually, actually, Fort Knox. Like you drive by the the vault.

SPEAKER_06 29:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Um, you know, that at the time that was a home of armor. That was a home of armor. That's where they did all the training. Um, and you pull up to these, you know, block brick buildings, everything's big and cold.

SPEAKER_06 30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Um, and you get off that bus and it's that that that wake-up call, that shark attack. Um get off the bus. You know, let's go, let's go.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

And at any point during like those initial few moments or few days, were you like rethinking your judgment on what you were doing, or were you like all in?

SPEAKER_02 30:32

It felt a little bit like just two a days. Okay. Felt a little bit like like two a days, two days in football, and there's this, I know exactly why I'm here. Yeah, I know exactly why I'm here. And the mindset is I'm going to prepare for war. Like most of us, we knew exactly. We knew exactly what we were getting into. There was no, there was no surprise. It wasn't just the promise of free college or or something, and it's active duty. So this is our life. This is what I've chosen. Yeah, what I've chosen to do with my life. Um, so there's a you teach me what I need to know. It's what training do I need, coach, kind of kind of mindset. Is I'm here, it's gonna be hard, but it's the good, it's the good kind of hard.

SPEAKER_05 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

It's the yeah, so it's I think that was the mindset. And then I think from there it was just this make it to the next meal, make it to breakfast, make it to dinner one day at a time. Um don't think too far ahead, and you learn, you learn how to see the light at the end of the tunnel. All right, training has phases. This is the tough phase, and it gets a little easier, and it gets a little easier, and then this happens, and we can always, no matter how dark the tunnel is, how far, you can always find that glimmer, that glimmer of light. There's always some carrot that's taking you to the next the next thing, and you always have to find you always have to find that.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

So it's interesting you bring up about the meals because you're right. Like, no matter what you're going through in basic training, they're going to feed you.

SPEAKER_06 32:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

Right. So you're like, uh whatever you're doing to me right now at 11 45, I know we're gonna get a break and eat some food. Like, it's not about the it's not about the meal, it's just like you know, you they never looked at it that way. Yeah, that's funny.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Yeah, because that was because as you go through, you see you see people starting to have breakdowns. Yeah, you see people who've been recycled from training, you see people that have been held back for whatever, for whatever reason. They couldn't pass, they couldn't pass the swim, they couldn't get down to weight. They missed, they missed something. Because when you go and you're in that holding period, remember it was Echo 515. It's funny how you remember these units probably 23 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

I was in out at 005 was my unit when I went to the Navy boot camp in 1984. Absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Yeah, so you remember these things imprinted on you. It is imprinted on you, right? These things are exactly. Um and so you're there and you see these people that are in in various stages of various stages of transition. And I mean, be being a scout, it was very much like being on a football team. I mean, at the time it was all male combat unit.

unknown 33:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Most of these kids were, I mean, they're they're athletes, they're you know, tough, tough kids, sharp, sharp kids. Um, we have a little thing against if you have to have a decent ASV score to become a scout. You won't just take anybody kind of kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

That's the military, right? So for anybody like watching this going, what the hell is he talking about? It's like your ASVAB that kind of determines your career path. So if you're gonna take that test, then you should take it seriously. Right. But you're right. But just like in regular life, right? You have people who perform this job, and you have people who perform this job, and these people may never get to this level, and you know, and so on. So everyone has kind of their their place. Now, I think you also can do things to better yourself, but but yeah, I mean, there's just certain things that that some people can do that other people can't do, right? It's a fact, yeah, yeah. And it's that way in the military, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Yeah, and it was being there on purpose. The other job was systems intelligence analyst. Um, hey, you have this great ASVAB score, you can do this really, this really cool job. It's like, no, this is the job, this is the job I chose. So it's I mean I I chose it, and so a lot of people will try to compare the Iraq war to Vietnam. Said, yeah, except for the fact that it's a volunteer force.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Except for the fact that we're not drafted.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Um, except for the fact that we knew what we were getting, what we were getting into. Nobody was really, nobody was really surprised except maybe the old timers who hadn't seen a whole lot, seen a whole lot yet. But I mean, joining in the early years post-9-11, like the culture in America was something special. People would see on the street, they'd see your army bumper sticker or whatever it whatever it was. Boom. Thank you for your service. Hey, go get them. Yeah, hey, yeah, go. It's there was there was this sense of this sense of unity. Our boys are over there. Our boys, our boys are fighting.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

Very reminiscent of World War II. I mean, we didn't have victory gardens, right? But we supported our troops.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Exactly that. So one of the coolest stories from from basic training, um, it was March, I think it was March 2003. Um, so the invasion of Iraq is is happening. Had hap man, I'm getting my time messed up. The invasion of Iraq had happened, and then when I was at basic training, they actually caught Saddam Hussein. And they brought us into the the TV room to see that. And one of these neat things, I ended up going to the unit that was spearheading the invasion, invasion of Iraq. So there's these neat little things that that lined up.

Unit Assignment And Hard Training

SPEAKER_03 36:17

Yeah, absolutely. So you um you get through you're through basic, and now you're in the in the program where you just stay there basically for your AIT, right? You stay at Fort Knox.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Exactly that.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

So did it feel like like AIT was just kind of an extension of basic training?

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Very much so. Yeah, very much so. They were maybe different colored phases. Like, I think red phase is the hardest phase. You have your little earplug, we had a little earplug case, oh yeah, colored colored tape on it, so you know. Um, and it was it was strict, it was strict because we would see other people um uh on the weekends, um on off hours. We had certain you earned certain freedoms. Um we were in higher phases, later on phases, and then some of the other units. Not scout, right? 19 kilos. There were tankers and there were, I think, wheeled vehicle mechanics, maybe a couple other ones that were there. Like, oh, they get to go to the PX and shop at, they get to be on the phones, they get to be playing in the arcade, they're eating Snickers bars. We're a phase past them. We don't get any of that, we don't get any of that stuff. So it was um, it was a pretty long, it was a pretty long basic, and though you get that three-minute phone call. Hey mom or dad, I'm all right. Hey buddy, I'm all right. Hey, uncle, I'm all right. Yeah, and mail call. Mail call is amazing. Um, almost everybody remembers how special mail call is. When you get a letter, yeah. Um, you're seeing pictures of family. It's not email, there's no text, we're not snapping and sending pictures. You get that maybe a letter or two a week or something, and you get that picture and you smell the perfume on it or whatever it is, and you um you hear about you hear about what's going on in family. That's all the communication sometimes that you get. And we, I mean, we cherish. Yeah, cherish, you cherish that stuff. Somebody's somebody's thinking about you, and for a moment, you this is what they're doing, and then you have this reminder they're proud of, they're proud of what I'm doing. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't want to be anywhere else. I want, I want to be, I want to be here.

SPEAKER_03 38:35

So that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. So you you get through basic, you get through AIT, um, and you go to your first unit.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

So are you still so is your first unit right there at Fort Knox as well, or you go someplace else?

SPEAKER_02 38:49

No, so I got sent to Fort Stewart.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Um, it was uh third ID, it was 2nd Brigade, um, it was Crazy Horse Troop, 37 Calf, Gary Owen, um, with a bunch of guys from basic, actually. A bunch of the guys that I had come in with from day from day one, like eight, maybe eight of us got sent to the same. I mean, to be a to the army's so big. There's all the scouts for this, you know, session, our training for a dozen of duty stations in each, you know, squadron and troop everywhere you can go. To actually show up at the same platoon with somebody is very rare.

SPEAKER_06 39:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Very, very, very rare. And like Crazy Horse, you know, the guys that were gonna be our NCOs were about a we're about to, you know, six months out from the Iraq deployment and spearheading the invasion. So the guys that are training us up for our deployment, they talk the talk, they walk the walk. They've seen, they've seen what combat's like. They know what deployment's like, they know this training is going to prepare you for what you are going to see. There's no question about it. There's no theory, it's not abstract, it's not hypothetical. This is what it takes to survive as a Bradley crew. And so, and third idea is unique. Um, Bradley is heavy armor, heavy, heavy mechanized. So you become a Cav scout and you're thinking light recon forward reconnaissance, and you show up. To a 32-ton armored vehicle. This is not necessarily the idea.

SPEAKER_03 40:37

Not what you see.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

I imagine light recon, you know, this um and being a part of being part of heavy armor. Um, but the to be a part of that group, and that group has has an amazing history. So the seventh calve ironically goes all the way back to Custer.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

I was gonna ask about that because I remember when we fell under the 2-7, it was like, oh custer. I hope this doesn't happen to us.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

And then later it was hail more. Yeah, like we were soldiers.

SPEAKER_03 41:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Seventh CAF. Like it was the air calf at the at the time. And um Gary Owen is what they say, and we were soldiers. So it's this same. There's in the military, there's always this unit history.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Oh, it's there's always this.

SPEAKER_03 41:27

Well, that's kind of a parallel history, too, because when you think of Gary Owen, that's something completely different from like the lineage of of of uh General Custer and so on, right? So yeah, it's it's a very um storied uh group of people.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Yeah, because you think about the cavalry, you think about these guys, you know, mounted mounted horseback riding into battle on a on a saber in the charge.

SPEAKER_06 41:51

Right.

Deployment To Kuwait And Baghdad

SPEAKER_02 41:51

So it was that, so that that history is there. Um, I mean, part of it is uh you you earn spurs, you wear a Stetson. I think it's the coolest thing. The Stetson, I do like the Stetson. The Stetson is pretty pretty pretty amazing. You have your sort of John Wayne, kind of John Wayne moment. You can't grow up and become a cool cowboy. Um so yeah, get to that, get to that unit, and it was a pretty strict unit. These guys didn't guys didn't mess around. These NCOs didn't didn't mess around. It was um the morning inspection. Morning, morning PT as a unit, we go hard. Go hard during PT, rotating through through combat time in the motor pool, like your vehicle is your lifeline. You need to know how to care for it. Like shoot, move, and communicate. It's yeah, almost everything that we did all the time. And then when you're off hours, like you're building this brotherhood. These are the guys you're going to war with. So you're building, you're building relationships by playing pick-up basketball or going going out together and hanging out, hanging out in the barracks. And most of the barracks stories are all classified, as anybody who's been in the barracks knows. Like what happens. This is like a wild, wild young comeback. Right, exactly exactly that. Like what um, but it's I couldn't ask, couldn't ask for a better, a better unit, unit to be a part of. Like it was, it was tough, it was hard. You, if your boots weren't polished, you got you got smoked. Like you're doing push-ups until you feel like you want to die. You're doing lunges until you know you can't remember your own your own name. And it was um where the army was, you made a mistake, you got disciplined, you got counseled, they're talking to you about it at the time. And you make it through that discipline, you say, Yeah, Roger Sergeant, and you move on. It was taken care of. And at that time, you're bonding with your you're bonding with your NCO. And that and that says something. There wasn't, there wasn't paperwork. It was if you don't quit, if you do what you're told, you're gonna be you're gonna be alright. Because this idea is if we tell you to stop, you stop, and we tell you to stop, you don't question it.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

You don't hesitate. If we tell you to turn left, you turn left right then. You execute. Um like that it exact. It's gotta have precision. You have to have this this sense, this sense of discipline. And we're on unit runs, run, unit runs, and we're we're laughing at other units. We're we're making fun of them as we're going by. Like you, if you got your it was a chest out kind of unit, right? And you're you're a part of something, and yeah, we're getting ready. We're getting ready. We're gonna go lead lead from the front again. Um and you're hearing you're hearing stories. Um, what's unique is you're hearing war stories, and you can't tell if it's total BS. Is this heroics and myth and legend? Are these scare tactics to the young Joes to try to get us to take it to take it serious? How did that did that really happen? Like there was a sort of maybe Google at Yahoo, Bing, whatever, yeah, at the at the time then, but you could you didn't really know, you didn't really know. It wasn't, you know, there's not common knowledge, can't find tons of stuff. People would still go to the library to look to look stuff up if you wanted to verify information.

SPEAKER_06 45:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

So you'd hear some of these stories of legends. Some of it was truly, truly legendary stuff that they did that they did over there. Um, and you you don't know what's kind of what to take what to take from it, but what you learn really, really quick is these guys are gonna get me gonna get me ready to go, and this is what it's gonna say.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

So yeah, and bring it back, right? Yeah, I learned two things. Like if I if a story starts out with There I Was. So there I was, yeah, or or what's the other one? No shit. Like you know, there's just a level of BS in there somewhere. The story's probably got a kernel. A little bit, yeah. Yeah. So you you do this train up with these guys and you're getting ready to go. Um, when did you finally deploy?

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Um, we deployed January 2005.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

So you are what 20 at this point or 19?

SPEAKER_02 46:33

I was January.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

Trying to do the math.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Yeah, you're both five, twenty. Yeah. Right. I was almost twenty. Yeah, 20 almost 20. Almost 20.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

Yeah. So you're, I mean, think about this. You're 19, and you're this is a big this is like a lot of responsibility for a 19-year-old kid. Right. Right? But you none of you saw yourselves as kids.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

Yeah, because you're you're going up, you're going up quick.

unknown 46:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

You're going up quick, like you're like paying my own bills, taking care of my own stuff. The army's providing a lot, but wasn't some kid, you know, doing my laundry at mom and dad's house, and mom and dad weren't paying paying for school and wasn't living with mom. Like, no, you're doing it on your own. I've been on my own. I just dealing with it. Um and um I mean you're thrown into the you're thrown into the world. There's no handcuffs. You're half a country away from everybody. And so that's um like if you do something real bad, like it can completely mess your military career. We'd have kids go to jail and we'd have to NCOs would drive over and have to have to bail them out. Like we were Fort Stewart's 45 minutes from Savannah. So we we tore up that town. A lot. That was our our biggest bonnie was going out going out to the going out to the beach and going downtown to the to the clubs and bars and meeting meeting girls and getting rowdy and doing all this stuff. And I probably made like 1400 bucks a month. I spent it all. You know, it's just on whatever on whatever I want all the all the all the time. I felt like the richest man, you know, in the world. Look at all this, look at all this money, look at all this money that I got. And we were all doing that. I had a car. My parents had bought me a car for college. Um they're like, okay, you can go to college, you can come back, you can come back home. So a lot of a lot of the guys didn't have a car. So I became the designated driver.

SPEAKER_03 48:43

Very popular guy.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

Very yeah, so yeah, you have different people trying to uh you know, get get in the car. You know, I was I was a way out, and you're looking out for your guys, yeah, making sure they don't get in trouble, making sure they don't get a DOI, making sure they don't fight people. You know, this this whatever with the with the girl. Like, like where'd this guy go? Oh, he ended up with some girl. He'll get a ride back from her. Like, all right, good for him, bro. All right, and I mean it was, I mean, there's times, there's times we'd go out till you know almost almost four in the morning, hit up a waffle house, and come back and get changed and show up the PT at 6 30 in the morning. And it was just like the way best food on the planet, by the way. The way it was. Waffle House is great, and uh, and oh man, driving because you're up at 5 30 in the morning, cleaning your room, getting ready for PT. You're on duty all day. You go out till you know two or three in the morning, and you're driving back on post. There's this road on posts, curvy dark forests, yeah, back on posts, and every guy in my car is sleeping, snoozing at that point, drunk and passed out. I'm there sober, driving these roads by myself, being awake like 20 plus hours after after a full day, after a full, after a full week, and just trying to get these guys back, which is I mean, that bonding, because at the end of the day, that's what you learn in the war. Just want to get my guys back home safe. Yeah, gonna look out for my buddies, make sure they get home safe. And so that and I would become a driver. I ended up um growing up in Michigan, you learn how to drive on mud and icy roads, daylight today. You learn how to drive in the snow. Some people don't know how to drive in the snow. Uh, we trained on Bradleys and Humvees, and there are people that could not park a Hum V. They could not tactically, they could not tactically drive. So, me and one of my buddies, Caleb, we grew up in Michigan and we became some of the top top drivers because you know how to handle a spin out, you know how to keep your cool when your vehicle starts getting. Sometimes you do a spin out on purpose, right? Exactly. Yeah, there's a cool story about that. That happened later on. Um, so you become this this driver, which is this cool position of trust, you know, for for a Joe, you're responsible for the safety of your crew, right? Um, so it's pretty, pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

So I want to you brought up your parents who bought you a car, um, you know, so like your college you could come home. Right. Um so between the time you left and went to basic training to the time you deployed, did you go home for any period of time?

Rules Of Engagement And IED Threats

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Uh yeah, so when I was in I was in basic, we actually got Thanksgiving or Christmas. We had a we had to leave. We had to leave and we got to go home then. Um so that was pretty pretty cool. I always had decently short hair, but people see like that. And you're you're pretty fit. You're you're you're you're looking pretty you're looking pretty solid. But one of the coolest things is I actually got actually got baptized. Actually got baptized. I'd been a Christian, had been saved for a while, but hadn't, because Lord, I don't know what's gonna happen the next two years of my life, but my life, my life is in, is in your hands. Whatever happens, your will, your will be done in my life, and I got baptized in my home church. That was that was a cool moment. And you come back and you talk to old girlfriends, seen if a spark, seen if a spark is still there. That was that was always interesting. And talk to some people, they're you're out there moving your life forward in full gear. You see some people that they're screwing around, not they're not doing a whole lot of doing a whole lot of anything. Um, so you get this mix, this mix of and but there's this confirmation of I'm I'm here on purpose, I'm proud of what I'm doing. I wouldn't want to be doing anything, anything else. And like I said, we had a close family, and you miss family. You don't miss, I mean we were a family like the eight of us at the dinner table together. So it's like we were we were close in that family. So missing missing that. I mean the the the kids were all three of them, I think were all under under 10 or 8 years old at the at the time, whatever it was. And you know, it's you miss you start missing out on some of that, on some of that, some of that stuff. The the kids they they don't really know. They don't really understand what's going on. Why is Ben gone? Is he safe?

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Like they have this idea.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

And it's because everybody, like we already said, they're seeing stuff on the news, and they're seeing, they're starting to see KIAs and all this stuff. Yeah gets gets reports. So a lot of people are just very worried for you. Are you gonna be are you gonna be safe? What all that, all that different stuff. Um so that was that was basic, and then um trying to remember how many times three and four-day weekends, like Georgia to Michigan's thousand miles, 12 or 14 hour drive. Yeah, like flights. Like I made all the money in the world, but flights were still expensive. The logistics of getting on a flight, getting there, coming back, leave paperwork is a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

Coordinating the logistics of and flights can be unpredictable. Um so I drove home a couple times though. Once I had met so cool story about how I met my now wife. Um so there's this one of my buddies, Caleb, went to Fort Knox together, came to Fort Stewart together, same platoon. I actually shifted platoons at one point. They had to rearrange drivers and rearrange some of the squads for deployment. He be actually became my roommate. And to screw with him, I took his phone and I started calling all the girls in his phone. Like, hey, it's Caleb. Hey, what are you doing? You know, and all this stuff. One of these girls is my now wife Amanda. She said, This isn't this isn't Caleb. And we hit it off. Caleb was from Michigan, he was from Flint area. Um, this is this this girl, she's a pastor's kid, you know, she's nice, it's nice, nice family. Caleb was a good Christian guy, right? You you didn't see a ton of other guys that had faith, so it's right. You're you're absolute wild man, but I saw this this foundation, right?

SPEAKER_03 55:39

Of trying to do what yeah, you're still a young guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

So it's uh um, and she and I hit off, so I drove, I drove up there. I think I drove from like Savannah, Georgia, up to up to mid-Michigan in like like a three or four-day weekend. Driving 24 hours and 72 is half half nuts. Yeah, but like then I could I had endless energy. But you could do it, endless energy, right? And endless energy.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

And and it's amazing what a young man will do to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

And to meet a girl, you'd have walked it if you could have exactly exactly that. Exactly that. So um, and I think the most significant, well, two, we had two. So there was a point when we our unit was on alert in late 2004. So when I went home for Thanksgiving, my whole family ended up having this big pre-deployment sendaway.

SPEAKER_06 56:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

Um, so it was almost like having soft orders. There was a date, like hey, we don't know when we're going, but it's likely before it's likely before Christmas. So we had this this send away. Um, and you're you're saying you're saying your final goodbyes came back to base. Okay, it's actually gonna be January. So I actually got to go back, go back for Christmas. And this girl and I we'd actually growing close, really fallen in love um through this, through this process, like all the all these country love songs. There's all these songs about you know, soldiers deploying and being gone and coming home and all this differently.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

This is like the heyday of the thing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely what. So it's just like these you're this warrior who's also like in this, you know, sensitive, you know, guy, guy in love, and all this thing, and it's um we have a couple, a couple pictures of me walking to the plane the last, the last time, because you're saying goodbye, and now we have orders. Here's where we're going, here's what we're doing, and we're getting mission briefs about what's going on. The news is still is still happening, and it's I know what I'm I know what I'm getting into.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

Yeah, it's for real.

SPEAKER_02 57:59

And so when when you say goodbye, you don't know if there's gonna be another leave. Like the the emotional toll of this is the final goodbye, it's not the final goodbye. This could be the last moment. Like what the that's part of that that mental angst, like it's amazing, like this live like you're you're dying, yeah. Men mentality, like there may we may not get tomorrow, so let's whatever tonight.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Like, there's this there's a there's a there's this whole like 12 country songs going on right now, right?

SPEAKER_02 58:29

Yeah, exactly. Like you're just you're you're in this moment, and what's beautiful about it, most of my time now I'm thinking I'm playing it for the future. Um thinking about all these all these other things. And it now I how rare am I absolutely in the moment, absolutely present in just we have today. I'm just thankful for today. I'm not worried about tomorrow. I can't control tomorrow what happens. We think we can control it, right?

SPEAKER_03 59:01

Yeah, we don't control it.

SPEAKER_02 59:02

And so it's this this roller coaster, this roller coaster life. And it's a it's a special thing, and it's it I've probably rare to experience outside of outside of the military of this.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

Yeah, yeah. But it's it's that thing like in the military where you're you spend I I feel like anyway, like you spend half of your time living in the moment because you're getting ready to go somewhere, right? And then you spend that time you're away like anticipating coming home. And I don't feel like it's like a whole lot of in-between, yeah, especially when you're like in a relationship. Um that's yeah, your life is either preparing to go somewhere or wishing you were back home. But but in the middle of all that, you've got to be in the moment wherever you're at, or people get hurt.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

Yeah. Well, the uh we had one guy, one NCO, he gave us this little safety briefing. He said, 'Cause you you end up, you see stuff. You see people live, you see people, you see people die, see people get hurt, people come home unscathed. And they say, guys, when it's your time, it's your time. If it's your time, you're gonna slip and crack your head in the shower.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

Right.

Hearts And Minds Amid Danger

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

If you're gonna go go over there fighting for something, something you believe in. So you just get this this perspective, like will my number get called? If it does, it's gonna get gonna get called. And ironically, on my final Christmas leave, I totaled my My car. Totaled my car. I was driving on, yeah. So I was driving. I had visited the same buddy who helped me buy the buy the pipe when I turned 18. I visited him in Mount Pleasant. He was going to CMU. And then I was going to go see um see my grandma. The same grandma I went took to the Bahamas. I'm driving to M55. And this truck pulls out. Apparently didn't see me. Um I totaled my car. And I get out of the car, car's smoking, and I don't have a single scratch on me. There's glass absolutely everywhere. Airbag deployed, the front completely smashed in. There's glass all in the back seat. Um I had tons of my stuff from the military that I was gonna put in storage. All this, all this stuff. Um glass absolutely everywhere. And the the police officer showed up to the scene, like, are you sure you're are you sure you're fine? Like look at your car. There's glass everywhere, like this whole thing. Yeah, not a single, not a single, which is one of these, one of these moments. Right. Like it could have just happened like right there. Something could have happened. Even if I'd been injured, it could have delayed deployment or made me non-deployable or anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

Could have been a life-changing event.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

Yeah, it's exactly that. Exactly that. So I didn't have to pay to store the car. So that was that was that was that was taken, that was taken care of.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:11

You know, I gotta, I gotta, I just want to stop here. I I I admire the way you take things and and find a positive in it, right? Like a lot of guys would be like, oh, my car's wrecked, and you're like, uh, I don't have to pay to store it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:25

We're trying to figure out does it go to my younger sister who's you know, about you know, 16 or needs a car for if she goes to college, or what do we do with it? Do my parents need a second car? Like, did they just take it back to them? And that was handled, and so it's because you you find that you know in the military, you would get this. It's sometimes it's dark humor, sometimes it's deep satire.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

Of um, it's amazing at the time, you have the gift of this is a life or death situation. This is when I need to take things seriously and be locked in. And this is not, this is not a life or death situation, and you end up having this ability to to navigate between which one, which one I some of the most hardcore guys I've ever met are the most light-hearted, goofy, funny guys until the moment it's business time.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:19

And they're you you see it, you see this. All business exactly, and it's it's it's cool to see. That's a skill, it's a skill you'll adapt.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So uh, yeah, so you you uh make it back to base one piece, yeah. And then so when did you finally deploy?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:41

So it was I think January 10th, oh five. Okay. Um so and seeing because you there's married guys, you know, in the in the unit, guys with kids. It's different. 19-year-old, you have nothing to lose, really. Said my goodbyes. I told I told my mom, said, you know, you got 400 grand. If something happens to me, then go grieve in Hawaii for a year.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

Like pay off the house, send all the kids through college. Like that's that's finally. I know exactly what I'm doing. Like, worst case scenario, you become a little bit more rich, and I you know went doing something I'm something I'm proud of. The one mental thing that's different, the KIAs everybody had clear conscience with. Come back injured was a totally different coming back changed. You lose you lose a limb or something else. That was a whole different whole different thing of you. I either want to come back whole or not, not at all. I don't know how to navigate not being, you know, this, this, you know, this thing, and that was a whole different whole different thing. But you're seeing because even even some of the hardcore guys, you know, when you see them say goodbye to their families, like you start to see, this is what's really like this. Isn't the Spartan brigade training? Because we did NTC.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

Like I I was very fortunate. I got to my unit March, February, February 04. We deployed January. I had an 11-month train up to get to know my unit. We did NTC, Fort Irwin, California for a month. We did a month at JRTC at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and we had done squadron missions, brigade missions, troop missions. Like we had our we had a very intense, very intense tempo. We were locked in, like training over and over and over. Muscle memory, like hey, we're doing first aid training for the 900,000th time. Hey, we're gonna do react to contact drill number 8,000. I it just redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. So when you're there, it's just redundant. We've run this, we've run this drill. I know how to escape the driver's hatch if there's a fire. I know what to I know what to anyone.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

I know how to put a tourniquet on. I know how to start an IV.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:26

Exactly that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:27

That stuff pays off.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:28

Yeah, yeah, and it would, it really would later on. And so there's this like you're going and it's this isn't something on the news, this isn't something that we're training for, this isn't a mission brief. Like, we're we're going. So there's this think you're ready. You've done every single thing you can, and still that, still that moment.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:53

That moment, that moment happens. I mean, we had maybe a couple guys, a couple guys go AWAL on that final, that final Christmas leave. Didn't didn't didn't come back for whatever reason. Some people had family stuff going on. Army didn't really care.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:11

Got a mission.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

If if mom had cancer, if she was pregnant, if something happens, like you come back. And it was like go to war or go to go to jail, kind of kind of thing at the time. Like if you it was a big it was a big deal. You didn't either way, you're not gonna be home. Yeah, like I don't I don't want to go to Leavenworth, you know. So um, I don't want to go to military prison. So um we oh this is gonna piss me off. So we went, uh landed in Dublin, Ireland, landed in Dublin, Ireland, home of Guinness, yes, home of Guinness, and we're at the airport with a layover in Dublin, Ireland, and the airport has this massive Guinness bar, and we all start walking right toward the bar, and they're like, Nope, you cannot go to the bar. We're on orders, go over here, and no, not to point ever point a finger at the guard. There's a bunch of guard guys throwing down Guinnesses in Ireland, and just like what what in the we're going to the same place to do the same job, but they get to drink a Guinness, we're not even gonna be there for a while, and so it just and but it says that that was the temple, that was the the discipline. It was like this right this thing, even if it's you know, kind of fake, fake discipline, whatever the whatever. Um, so I didn't get to have a Guinness in Dublin, in Dublin, Ireland. That was a that was a bit of a shame. Yeah, and then we uh we got to Kuwait, and just remember the flat desert, the dust storms, one of the clearest night skies I'd ever seen, except for NTC, Fort Irwin, California, that pretty gorgeous desert. Um and you're sitting there acclimatizing your vehicles. We had shipped our vehicles on a boat, and then we had they had to pick them up from the port, and then you got you get ammo. You get live ammo, you get live ammo for the first for the first time, and oh, we get to eat Pizza Hut in Kuwait. Kuwait's a little softer, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:29

Pizza Hut, Burger King. I think they had like a taco boat.

Elections, Loss, And Resolve

SPEAKER_02 1:09:32

Exactly that exact and that stuff. The these are the little you drive by a hundred of them now a day, yeah, taken for granted. You could have Pizza Hut instead of the Chow Hall or an MRE. If you could have a McDonald's cheeseburger, like those were treasures, those were special. It's like this might be our last everything. This could be the last meal kind of thing, you know. And it's yeah, um, and you're working out watching movies, listening to music, because there's nothing else. Reading magazines, it's a hurry up and wait. Yeah, I can't believe we've gotten this far into the interview without saying hurry up and wait. And uh is a real thing. You're you're there. When exactly are we going? There's gotta be a changeover. Some people are gonna drive up. We knew we were gonna be in Baghdad. Some people are gonna have to drive the vehicles up, some people are gonna are gonna are gonna fly. I ended up being part of the group that was going to fly.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:31

Um now what what camp are you at then in Kuwait? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

Was it Liberty?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:39

Was it maybe Liberty?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:40

Because I was at Beering. I just I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:43

Um one thing I can't remember because it was maybe a week, week and a week and a half.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:51

Yeah, just long enough to kind of get your internal clock fixed and get used to the hot weather.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:57

Well, one thing, one thing I remember, it was right before we left, right before we got to Kuwait, I stood on a scale in my full battle rattle with my weapon, my gear, and the whole bag. I was like 150, 160 pounds at the time, and I weighed 225 pounds when I was in when I was in kit, which didn't include if I was carrying a radio or whatever specialized specialized equipment. Um thank god you're gonna be able to get it. Have an impact later on. So we end up uh I got my first helicopter ride on a on a uh Chinook helicopter. And you think about cool jobs in the army. So these guys, they had this these cool helmets on. They're cooler helmets than what we what we had, I think. And they had this cool night vision, like the really high-end stuff. And there's this door gunner because the the rear door is open, and this guy's laying in the prone, harnessed to the door of the back of the helicopter with a 50 cal machine gun. And and you're flying in. We flew into the green zone, into Baghdad, and you only fly at night, and RPGs were still a threat.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:19

And so that every now and then flares are popping out, and it was like flying in a roller coaster, is what that what I remember that experience is like. And you're sitting there and you're in you're in kit. Because you go from the no ammo Kuwait to landing, landing in green zone. We're going into the combat zone. So there's this this ride is another one of these the next steps. So no, there's always the next level of training, like going from red phase and basic training. There's always gonna be another yeah, you're always transitioning. There's always a something else, something else happening. Um, and we land in we land in Baghdad. I think we did a night, maybe a night in the green zone. Um, and then took another helicopter from hold on. Oh, I screwed it up. No, we took a a plane, we took a plane from Kuwait to the green zone. Remember, because it did a combat landing, it's not like a commercial plane, like nosedive, yeah, nosedive straight down, and then this flat, those pilots got some sack. Yeah, they're absolutely absolutely absolutely amazing. And then we took the chinnick from uh from Baghdad to Rustamaya is the camp that we were at, southeast, southeast, southeast Baghdad, and you're checking into your new barracks and trying to figure out where the motor poles and the chow hall and the whole bag.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:01

Rustamaya was awful. Like our sister unit, the 46 MP Company, was there when you were there.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:08

Yeah. So we were co-housed. Um we were co-housed with some of the Iraqi army. Some of our unit, our unit got split. It was very unique. Uh within our troop itself, we had two platoons that were gonna stay in the green zone. They worked alongside special operations and they did missions on the border. They had a whole separate mission set. Our unit, we had a headquarters um platoon, we had a mortar platoon, maintenance platoon, a tank platoon, and a scout platoon. So they ended up sort of splitting, splitting our unit in half. Um, and so we're in we're in um Rustamaya, and then some of the guys from our unit were also gonna be training the Iraqi army. Like Saddam has been caught at that point. The goal is to transition from a full coalition force to prepare for the elections. That was to try to transition power to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military. So it's in uh a bit of transition stability. There was the Mahdi militia, it's very violent militia, a lot of bad things still happening. It's a war-torn, war-torn country at this at this point, right trying to stabilize, kick out the bad guys, put in a stable government. That's that's what the mission, that's what the mission set. That's what the mission set was. Um and we were first assigned to a neighborhood in Baghdad running running presence patrol missions and um listening to the mosques. It was a bit of our intelligence, a lot of communications happened through the mosques. Um counterinsurgency, winning the hearts and minds. Um coin operations. It's coin operations.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:45

Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:47

Um and navigating rules of engagement. Those were some of the really big, really big kind of themes of what's of what's happened happening at that time.

unknown 1:16:58

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:00

So you get in, you get settled in at Rustamaya, and then you're like running missions then.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:05

Yeah, so we did the left seat, right seat ride, this transition. I can't remember exactly who we transitioned from, um, and and taking over, and we learned to run with a very aggressive tempo. Um is you react to contact, push-through contact. Like our guys, um, if we're if we're driving in in the Bradley or the Humvee, our gunner is out of the turret scanning. Um, you know, shout, show, shove, shoot was our rules of engagement. Um, the main threat at the time was IEDs and vehicle borne IEDs.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:47

Yeah.

High-Risk Convoys And Close Calls

SPEAKER_02 1:17:47

And you are hearing mission reports, you're hearing intel reports about what's happening across the country and in your in your AO. Um, and so we ran with an aggressive tempo. Like if there's a there's a car coming up, because you're interacting with a fully moving civilian population.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:08

Yeah, they're they're they're going on about their business, right? Yeah, and you don't know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:14

The 90% of people that are kind of indifferent, I would say about five percent really supported what we're doing, and five percent you know, you had to watch you had to watch out for. And so our rules of engagement, you don't want to these 90% of people that are indifferent, you can you can push the wrong way if you do the wrong thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:34

Um, and those reports were happening on the news. You hear people violating, violating stuff and what was happening. Like you were, it was bad. It was bad. If you brought public attention to the unit, it was bad, it was bad news. Um, but that shout, show, shove, shoot was um, because you're sitting there um you're showing your we ran like M4 carbines, most of us.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:01

Um one in the air, one in the concrete, one in the hood, one in the windshield. All happening with about a second and a half or a couple a couple of seconds um for a vehicle to close from whatever it is, 100 or 50 meters into your convoy, and as a driver, convoy spacing, knowing where you're going, knowing all those drills, react contact, contact, contact left, um the orientation of your of your of your gunners, the communication, all of the shoot, move, communicate. All of these things are starting to become. Here's how we get to lunch, how we get to here's how we get to dinner, and you're looking for and JRTC was really good training, really replicated, like NTC was conventional warfare, right? Like tank on tank, um, had none of that. When when we they did they did when they invaded, but we didn't at that point. But JRTC was very much counterinsurgency, dealing with the civilian population and um and and rules of rules of engagement.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:14

Uh so we were talking about the training uh MTC.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:21

MTC and JRTC.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:23

So JRTC at Fort Fort Polk. I feel bad for anybody who's ever been stationed at Fort Polk. It was humid at Fort Stewart, but Fort Polk was a mess. But you learn the idea of counterinsurgency, dealing with civilian population, dealing with dealing with riots, rules of engagement, what you respond to, what's a weapon and what's not.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:45

Right.

Coming Home And Reentry

SPEAKER_02 1:20:46

But when you get to Iraq, the one thing you don't see at JRTC is the amount of trash that's on the side of the road on these on these routes and in these neighborhoods. Because Iraq had been a functional, a functional. Country prior to the war. And at this point, it's like a war-torn third world country. There's you know leftover stuff from the invasion, from the invasion still, and the military presence and uh the uh the infrastructure of the country, power, sewage, trash, services that we take for granted. Um, really, really pretty devastated over there. So, one of the main threats over there is IEDs. And it could be the size of a shoebox, it could be buried in the ground, it could be in a dead dog on the side of the road. That was a lot of dead dogs over there. There's a lot of stray animals over there, and there's just junk, trash, there's broken down, burned up, burned up cars, and so what was unique is the way their technology adapted. So initially, instead of an IED on the road, it was like a doorbell. Simple wire switch, wire running to it. You're looking for wires, you're looking for less traffic, people avoiding the area, you're looking for some of these different triggers. Eventually, it was like a garage door opener. They could trigger it from maybe 50 meters away. They wouldn't have to be so close. You wouldn't see a wire anymore. And then it was a cell phone, it could be a mile away. So you can have contact, and there's there's nobody. There's nobody there, there's nothing to respond to. So when you're driving, you're worried about V bids. You come up to an intersection and you wonder if somebody laterally is is actually is actually gonna stop. So you're looking at that car, and then you look over to see if your gunner is looking at that car. Um, an ID could take out one vehicle. Um, I mean, some of these are buried RPG rounds, buried mortar rounds. Like there's they had access to supplies, access to to munitions. We were digging up caches and finding finding this this stuff that they were using to make these bombs. A lot of our own stuff, a lot of our own stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Like when the Iraqi army had disbanded, like how they got access to this equipment. And these aren't necessarily Iraqis, these were people coming from Jordan or Pakistan or Syria. Like it was just a hotbed of terrorists coming and trying to trying to do something with it. And so there's a there's a skill zone, there's a sweet spot. So if you're driving and you see something that looks a little sketchy, and now the roads are not these paved roads like potholes in Michigan, is that a pothole? Or is that an ID? So there's this moment you drive, moment you hold your breath, your whole test tightens, and then you pass the kill zone. And this is happening multiple times a day. Vehicles coming up, and you wonder if they're gonna stop. You wonder what the response is gonna be. You hear boom-boom, or a couple of our warning shots pop off, pop off real quick. And one of the craziest stories, I want to talk about the news real quick about how fast information traveled.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:46

So I'm walking from my barracks to the Chow Hall. Yeah, it's you know, quarter mile across across base, and I hear this explosion, and you hear explosions pretty routinely. Like everything is, these are fodd, these forward operating bases. Um, there's always stuff happening. And you hear I heard this boom, it was it was a big boom. I see smoke coming, coming from kind of downtown, downtown Baghdad. I get to the Chow Hall, and this is 90 seconds on CNN, you know, a car bomb hits the Palestinian hotel in downtown Baghdad, where the media was.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:33

And so I see smoke, and 90 seconds later it's being reported live on CNN. So you're seeing this, you're seeing this stuff happen, how quickly information can can can pass. And but a carbon will wipe out a convoy, it'll wipe out an entire building with the right carbon. Yeah, so most of the this building had been hit. Yeah, really, really hard. And all the routes, the the how routes are labeled is important because there's a story later. So you have green routes, is yeah, it's it's safe to drive on you know, fuel tankers, fuel tanker convoys can go on green routes, yellow routes, um, like up armored Humvees, no soft shells, like contact possible, red, like contact, likely um armored only. So that's our our tanks and our tanks and Bradleys. If the route is labeled black, is is not safe. Do not do not drive on this route. So when we're doing route recon, it's part of my job is to understand where are we going, what's the route. If you turn off the wrong road, you can go from a route that's been secured because it's rotating engineer units, NP units, and us rotating, like 24-hour presence patrols, yeah, rotating, rotating through. And one of the craziest things, we had it the unit next to us throughout the war. I think they lost 36 soldiers. Um, and they rode, they rode casual. They didn't, they weren't very aggressive, they were under the hatch, their vehicles, they didn't have the sense of awareness. So we we're going into this neighborhood, and they said, This is a very dangerous neighborhood, this is an ultra-violent neighborhood. They're gonna try to do all this, do all this stuff to you. And uh I don't think we lost one person in that neighborhood because we rolled with this aggressive stance. Um, so we were in this neighborhood for maybe maybe the first five, six months. Um, one of the wildest missions we had is we did this uh one of the winning the hearts and the minds was we handed out frozen turkeys to these uh to these folks. And so we're in sort of this plaza park surrounded by all these tall buildings, and you're interacting with kids a lot of times. You're interacting with just normal, normal families, and so you don't know who's good, who's bad, any of this different stuff. And I had a heart for the kids because a lot of these these little kids are the age of my little my little siblings, right? And these kids are sometimes shoeless playing playing soccer. Um, it's funny because there's you know hardcore rap music talking about how dangerous this is, and these kids are raised in a war-torn country. Like these kids have seen IDs and RPGs and AK-47s. Like they've seen they've seen this stuff, and these light-hearted kids like me to choke a lot to talk about, you know, they they wanted they wanted chocolate, and we'd hand out you know different stuff. So we're doing this mission, we're handing out these um these frozen chickens, and so we have we have concertina wire laid out, and you're seeing these families are you know very thankful to get this to get this stuff. It's funny because the men are standing there all very orderly, and ironically, the women are pushing pushing each other out of the way to get to get to these chickens, and the and the the kids are there, and so you're there and you're having this little community event is happening, and um this stuff is going on at the same time. You're working, you're looking for snipers, and you're looking, you're looking out for car bombs. And one of the hardest stories we heard was that some other unit in the same neighborhood, uh somebody with a bomb vest detonated a bomb vest to kill a medic and a bunch of kids. They didn't care about killing kids because they got this American American medic. So you're you're so tuned in in the moment. Is you're doing this humanitarian mission, and at the same time, you're ready for anything to happen. You see, you see a shadow, you see a glint of you see a glint of something, and you're you're looking over, you're looking at your buddies, see if they see it, you're calling calling stuff out, and then it's hey, we need more chickens over here. This this rotation of of happening, and you're seeing these kids acting like acting like little little kids while this stuff is all this stuff is happening. It was a very unique unique situation.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:30

Did you find that it was uh you got used to things? You know what I mean? Like when you first get there, as opposed to when you leave, like there, you get used to certain things.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:43

Well you you uh you know, you you normalize these circumstances, yeah. But becomes a normal day in our life. You know, is that the military can share stories that most people you don't understand as a normal day in the in in the life, and you sometimes you share it like that's not a normal story. That's not like because it was you know, we've talked at the beginning from joining the military and how your mindset changes to getting ready to leave your family to basic training to pre-deployment training and the uh acclimating to your unit, and you're learning you're learning your job. Yeah, and so it's you're not suddenly there.

College, Marriage, And Civilian Life

SPEAKER_03 1:31:29

This is all happening in these subtle subtle changes, right? To you. Exactly. They're big changes at some point, but you tell a story about about something that happened over there to a certain group of people, they're gonna look at you like you got a second head on your story. Like, that's not normal, but you're absolutely right. Like to to I think that's why I'm fortunate. My son served uh in the army as well. He deployed the year after I got back, and uh we will we can talk, right? But it makes for an interesting conversation like Thanksgiving when yeah, when people who have not lived it are like, What? You did what or that what happened? And you're like, We're just having a casual conversation. Yeah, it was just another day.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:10

So uh so how long how long were you there then? I ended up being deployed for 12 months, okay. January 05 to January 06. Um, where things got a little wild was May May 05. Uh, we'd been in country, we had our op temple, we were running missions, we were doing our rotations. If you weren't out on the road running patrols, you're doing maintenance, you're in the motor pool. As a driver, I had to keep a Bradley and a Humvee, fully mission capable at all times, which is a full-time job. You could be out on a mission for 18 or 24 hours, you come back and you go into refit.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:55

You might get time to get something from the shop at get a meal at the chow hall. Like they have this nice chow hall. We didn't have a ton of meals there. Like we were we were out on the road all the time, and I mean you got up to 130 degrees. The the roads, the concrete. Bradley track was not designed for 130 degrees to be driving on concrete, it's designed to be driven on dirt. So changing out track, and it was massively physical job. You breaking track with a sledgehammer and trying to get it to line up. It was physical, physical work. And even when you're on base, mortars and rpgs are still are still a threat. Like your weapon is is on you. You don't have a magazine in it, you're not live. But even when you're there in a moment, you have to be ready because things could things could happen on base.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:01

That was a that was like a magazine.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:03

We're essentially, you know, in getting toward the outsert outskirts of the of the city, but just a couple hundred meters away from like where the main route, where the main route was. So they somebody fires a rocket and drives away. Somebody pops off a couple mortar rounds and drives and drives away. Um, I I don't envy some of the guys that are on gate guard that are that are doing some of that some of that job and looking out, looking out for this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:30

Um I always felt bad for those guys because they looked like they were melting. It was so freaking hot. And they're it just looked like a miserable job.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:40

Miserable job. Well, because it's we have um, you know, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, different, oh, you're you're I'm a combat guy, a non-combat guy. When you get over there, all on the same team, you're all trying to get back to each other. You respect the role that each person has. We'll always jive at each other and who's the best, and all this different stuff. And there's always this ego that comes with it. But when you've been there and you've worked alongside people, I we needed fuel in our trucks, we needed our trucks to be maintained, we needed people to serve chow, we needed people to get supply to us, we needed somebody who knew how to operate an air conditioner. So we we needed every every single person has has it. It takes it takes an army, and they had to be good at what they did, exactly that. And there's I mean, something that I've really never seen replicated in civilian life is we talked about how diverse people from backgrounds that get thrown together. These people you wouldn't you may not hang out with outside the right outside the military. You may not have anything in anything in common. But you look to your left and your right, say, I would die for them, they would, they would die for me. If I get hit, they know how to patch me up, throw on a tourniquet, call nine line, and pull security until I get out of here. And speaking speaking of the nine line, I I talked to my mom, how's it how's it over there? What's this, what's this like? I said, you know, I I roll in a in a in a squad with a with a couple trucks. These are you know eight eight of the most capable guys you'll you'll ever meet in your life. Like if I get if I get hit, I'm gonna be Medevact in a Blackhawk helicopter to a team of like surgeons and nurses that are waiting for me and ready. So if I crash on a ditch in a Michigan road, like I may not be found. I I builded that car out on you know on 55 up there, and just I felt safer. I felt I I I had one time where I had had fear for my life, so we'll share that one later. Um but May May of 05 was a turning was a turning point. Like I talked about some of the progression of IDs. Um so shape charges was was the new modern technology.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:14

E FPS.

Returning As An Officer

SPEAKER_02 1:37:15

Yes, and um because when we rolled Hum V, we could go about 55 miles an hour. You're we talked about that kill zone. You're not in that kill zone as long when you're rolling, you're rolling fast, you're very agile. Bradley is about 35 miles an hour. You're in the kill zone longer, but I mean, the armor is two-inch armor plating, reactive tile, like it was designed to be to be hit. And we heard about the first shape charge that hit an Abrams tank, burned it up. Heard about the driver that burnt inside that. Um said, this is the top secret U.S. armor on this Abrams tank. This is the advanced technology, and they improvise it, you know, C4 and ball bearings, you know, how this how this works. And then um one of our squads was out on a mission, and our Bradley got hit by a shape charge. And um he ended up losing, losing below the knee, his left leg, and they brought the Bradley on post, and you could see into the engine block, and it had ripped through the engine block. You're talking like six inches of like hardened hardened steel and armor, yeah, blowing through it with a roadside, a roadside bomb. And ironically, I ended up taking his his driver's, his driver's job at the at the time. I had been the lead scout driver the time, and then this was the platoon leader. So our platoon leader shows up in in May. He's a West Point, West Point guy. He had done his officer training, and he shows up in May to Iraq, and he's standing there with his hands on his hips. So, hmm, so this is a Bradley armor officers, primarily just trained on tanks.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:16

Oh my goodness. So I became the platoon leader's driver, and he said, Well, you know, Bolone, if you keep me alive, I'll buy you, I'll buy you a Stetson at the end of the deployment. So I had this, I had this mission to keep LT alive. He's he's like this physics and math major, sharp, sharp as attack. Um, I mean, we had a lot of these rowdy combat hardened NCOs. We had this super, super sharp, kind of nerdy, nerdy lieutenant. Um, you know, his pen, his pen was his was his weapon. Logistically, very smart guy. Get us what we needed from command, let the platoon sergeant lead the platoon, like the really, really, really good uh dynamic. Um would always take a moment to process before he corrected, before he corrected me. Like the vehicle commander and the driver have to have a very special relationship as they're they're they're navigating, they're trying to get you to go somewhere, and you're they can see things that you can't when you're in a driver's hatch, yeah, you have pretty limited visibility, especially at night, especially in poor weather, you're driving with with night vision, you that they are your seeing things that that you may not that you may not be able to see. And there's concertina wire all over the road. And there's hex barriers, it's massive concrete walls all over, everywhere. And you're navigating, you're pivoting around all of this, all of this stuff all all the time. So having that relationship was uh was really important.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:00

Yeah. And you know, you I think this backs up to uh you may not like in the in the in the outside, these may not even be people that you like. Right. Like you may not like them, you right, you don't hang out with them, but when you're there, they're family. Yeah. And it's it's a strange thing because some of the guys, I know, like some of the guys you would not want to be with in garrison. They were you knew they were gonna be trouble. But when you got into combat, those are the exact guys you wanted next to.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:31

Exactly that. Exactly, exactly that. And you start to see how people respond in the most you know horrific and nightmare situations. The tough guy who becomes a baby, right? The the the quiet guy who is actually a pretty hardcore, pretty hardcore fighter, the guy who's everything's good up until they get a call and they start thinking about home. Right. Because you're you're there and you're working and living together 24-7. And now I have a roommate. And when when we're rolling, as a squad was two Bradleys or two Humvees, and then sometimes we would split off into different AOs. So it's you, your gunner, your driver, and maybe your dismount. And we were running sometimes, you know, out to 72-hour missions. Right outside the wire, it's just you. Like that's it. And rotate eating, rotate sleeping, rotate guard, essentially, because you're when you're outside the wire, like you're tuned, you're tuned in, and we have different music, and everyone has different different stories and all this stuff, and you know people and everyone's there processing, being away and hearing, hearing stories. And it could be me, it wasn't me, it was it was them. This is what's happening, here's what's going on at home. And a lot of us is oh, here's what we didn't, here's what we did in high school, or you know, different different stuff. Here's what's going on at home. What do you want to do when you get out? Yeah, whatever else. Hey, you know, what are you reading in that magazine? You're just and the whole time you're scanning, the whole time you're looking, the whole time you're listening to the radio, and you have this a lot of multitasking going on. Very, very much so. There's yeah. Um, after we were in that neighborhood the first five or six months, we ended up handing off that neighborhood and then going down to an area called Salman Pak, is where this Mahdi militia was. And we there's an Iraqi police station, so we were running missions with the Iraqi police. Like a lot of the missions that we're running, we would do presence patrols, which is just driving and showing we're here.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:01

Right.

Garrison Reality And Family Strain

SPEAKER_02 1:44:02

Um we saw a lot of car bombs and IDs, like people weren't doing force on force with us. You probably weren't gonna win, you know, force on force against the Americans and their with their with their equipment and their trucks and all their different all their different stuff. And so we started running running missions with the Iraqi army, the Iraqi police. So we'd stay with the Iraqi police and we were doing raids, and we were getting we're doing raid, we're getting information from informants, essentially. Hey, we've we've seen this here, we've seen this here. Like that the that counterinsurgency, like winning hearts and minds, is we needed to build trust, trust within the community to try to find out, hey, this person's an outsider. And the the community knew if somebody was an outsider. And there's there's clans and tribes and all this different sects and all these different things, groups, and you could tell if somebody was outside, not from not from the community. Um, and we had an interpreter um that was communicating with with folks, and we had informants were uh pulling some of them out of the river. Like you they found out you're working with the Americans. Yeah, like the Iraqi police did a recruiting thing, they had 100 guys lining up, they had a target on their back. They were considered if you're working with the Americans, you're part of it. Um so it's anybody that was supporting us, but we do we do we do raids and we were finding we were finding finding caches. We did a mission rounding up like every military age male in an area and detaining them, asking asking them, asking them questions, and yeah, and then running a humanitarian field medical. And some of these people had no access to medical care at all. Um and it's these these relationships and what's what's happening there. So we would rotate a week at Rustamaya to rest and refit and run squadron missions wherever in Baghdad. Um we'd rotate for a week at the Iraqi police station, and then we took over this area called Pontoon Bridge. We took over a house. Um, there's an area on the river, there was a crossing, and people were coming from the south and and getting access to Baghdad. Um so we're trying to take out this militia, we're trying to stabilize the area, and we're trying to secure this, secure this river. So, like you're out there for a week um running off MREs and Mountain Dews and whatever else we could, you know, cook out there, bring out there. Um, a week without a shower. Yeah, a week of going to the bathroom in a Portageon. And when it's when it's hot, like we've talked it like a blow dryer in a sauna. Yeah, it's hot, it's humid, you are soaked to the bone the second you step outside. Like you can run an air conditioner and it'll feel like it's 90 or 100 instead of 130. Right when it's when that sun bakes and down by the river, it's humid. It's humid. Um, you know, kind of feels like you tropical, tropical jungle. This isn't out in the desert, not like dust storms or anything else, but it's um, and part of it was beautiful country. Like some we I've seen Saddam's palaces and some of the some of the hotels and resort areas. And it said, man, outside of this war, this would be a wonderful, a wonderful place to visit the culture. Babylon is there, like the Tigris and Euphrates, like the Garden of Eden, the history of this country. These Americans, like to be in a place, like the cradle of civilization. It was pretty pretty amazing. And you hear about the history from the interpreters and all the people you're working with, and they were trying to protect the sovereignty of their nation as well, and protect their history and their culture, and you know, some of the in bed loss and transition from a decade multi decades-long dictatorship to transitioning to a free government. And so you're a part of you're a part of something that's right, feels that feels pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:30

Yeah, yeah. And to be to be there were uh a lot of things you read in your history books actually happened. Absolutely, right? Yeah. The things you've read in the Bible happened. It actually happened, right? You're walking those paths. So it is, it's it's like a dichotomy, right? You're there, uh, you know, you're a military presence, um, you're fighting a war, um, but you're also trying to respect the culture, you're trying to take care of the people who aren't trying to kill you, right? Um, but you don't know who they are or who they aren't. Yes. Um, it's hard. Yeah. I mean, uh to put it in simplest terms, then it's hard.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:05

Yeah, because there was times we'd we'd drive, we'd drive by and people would wave plagues and cheer us on.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:13

And then every now and then you could tell a look. You could tell a look, you would see this, there's this darkness, this look in their eyes. And I remember there's this little girl kind of jumping and waving, and this elder, this older guy came up and he put his hand on her shoulder, and she stopped. And he just gave us this look. And every now and you you'd see that. So like there's not a lot of things that eventually you say, this is a threat, and this isn't. Um every now and then you say there are some people who hate us.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:51

And so it looked being cheered a second, and then get a look, get a look the next, and there's people who would throw rocks at us. Right. There's not a lot of people that would just would just shoot at us. Like we're driving through country neighborhoods and communities and rural towns, and there wasn't a lot of a lot of crazy contact and something like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:15

But it was so you spent your last half of your tour then doing that rotation, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:50:25

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:27

All right, and then so you're getting ready for redeployment, right? To head back home. Um, but talk to me about those like last few weeks or last few months.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:40

Yeah, so December, oh I got to talk to you about October is the elections.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:45

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:45

October was the elections. So we we were on a quick reaction force in Baghdad. We actually got to stay at the um the Iraqi like Olympic training grounds. Uh-huh. I got to do my first like Olympic high dive, their Olympic pool. And so we were gonna be on a quick reaction force for these democratic elections. Um, it is massively historic. Historic thing. You're talking about like sliding the vehicle. Um, my vehicle was extremely reliable, but slow. So I had to drive a different vehicle that was fast, completely unreliable. Thing just eight oil.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:28

Eight oil. And like the amount of maintenance, uh, the grease, the lube, the the amount of stuff that you have to measure. They they're running, they're running hot, they're they're heavy, but this thing was fast, and I was I was mad that I had to drive this broken down vehicle. It had spitter cans everywhere. I was super clean. I I I took great care of my vehicle. It was it was a mess. How do you drive this thing? How do you operate in this thing? It was disgusting. So I was mad. So I'm driving this vehicle about as fast as I can, and I turn left, and I did a power slide in a Bradley through this downtown plaza in Baghdad. 32 to 64,000 pounds.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:16

And I'm going thing as fast I can't, and I like drift. I drift to Bradley, and my my LT is like, all right, you get that out of your system now. You good now? All right, all right. It's just like are you done being mad? Because I, you know, we we could we could have an honest conversation, right? Sir, this is crap. This thing's a piece of junk, it's not maintained. I was up to speed, I had two vehicles mission ready. Now I got a switch. Like, you're killing me right now. And uh I guess we had we had this great relationship. Like, but that was one of the fun, one of the fun things I got to do. And they had we were worried about bombs. We were worried about IEDs and different things happening at the at the election sites, at the polling sites.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:59

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:00

And they had a 70% turnout. More more turnout, more turnout than any American election I've ever seen, I've ever I've ever seen. It was complex.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:11

Um, I remember the pictures of people with the the ink on their fingers because they when you voted you had to dip your finger in it.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:16

So to be there then in that in that moment was was was a was amazing. And we were we cleared out this militia. Kids are back to school, businesses are open, the gates are are off, the kids are in uniforms, yeah, going to school, families are out and about in in in town, shops are open. You are seeing this war-torn place back come back to life in a sense of a sense of normalcy.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:45

Yeah.

Transition, Purpose, And Service Beyond Uniform

SPEAKER_02 1:53:46

Start start to happen here. And people are having having tea outside, and shops are open, and you're we got to eat some of this Iraqi uh Iraqi food, like lamb and and rice, and this chicken and this bread. Oh it's you know, it's pretty, pretty amazing. And saying, man, at this rate, this war is going to be over in the next couple, the next couple of years. That's what we've stabilized this place. It went from like bodies in the streets to like a we're kind of like a thriving, a thriving community. Um and then in then in early December, um one of our one of our tank commanders got killed by an IED. Um, so other than the the driver that had lost, that had lost his his leg, and some people from our sister units. Um, one guy had got hit in the hip by a s by a sniper, but we had gone really, really without casual. It's very rare because you're hearing about stuff. Oh, yeah. Like I said, our sister unit, literally in the barracks next to us, they lost 36 people. Um, and so it was very, it was it was very rare that we lost somebody. And so we had this first real loss. And this NCO, like he had he had a family, his brother was on our unit, his actually younger, his younger brother was in the same unit. Like it's very rare. And a lot of NCO, like there's NCOs and Joes, and there was this, there was this line of how how they communicated. Like, you're a Joe, we're an NCO, this is not your conversation. We tell you what to do. You don't ask questions this thing. And it's this very mission first. Just do what you're told. I was one, I asked questions. I was sometimes a why person. I want to understand it. I want to, yeah, you know, these these different things. I was a thinking, a thinking person. Sometimes it's not approaching it. Right. And sometimes I wasn't. And I I also would stand my ground. They didn't, they don't like that. Hey, I'm a man. Talk to me like a man. Don't be don't disrespect, you know. So there was some some angst there. And I remember this one time you could tell I was feeling down, because you have moments. You have moments depending on what's what's going on. And his staff sergeant comes in, hey, how you doing, bull and good good, sir. No, bull. How you actually doing? Told him what was going on, like that kind of guy. And like there's jerks. We had some jerks. We had some jerks, like real, real jerks. And uh, this was a great guy, and and he lost, he lost his life. Like, I think we had think we had redeployment orders. It's like ear early mid-December. Yeah, you were close. Uh real close. And so these tankers are tough guys. Real, real tough guys, don't show a whole lot. Um and seeing men ball, seeing men broken in tears and red face. When we we did this, you know, on base, on base memorial, and we're so we're so close. And like most of us don't cry unless you see another man cry.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:03

It's the one thing, all men is boom, it just there's a thing. It breaks, like you know that pain. Yeah, you know that pain is is hitting is hitting deep. And at the same time, there's this, we're not home yet. Reminder, yeah, moment. Do not ever take your foot off the gas. And and not that it did, not that it and anything had happened, like an oversight. Just a reminder, it is still, it is still on. Every last mission. I don't care if you can count them on a hand, every second. You need to be tuned in. So we get to Christmas Day. I think we're within a week or two. Um, we didn't have a mission set on on Christmas Day. Like the right seat ride transition starting to happen, the new unit was starting to show up. Yeah. You know, our tempo was was slowing pace a little bit. Um, didn't have a mission on Christmas Day. They were supposed to serve steak and lobster in the chow hall. You're gonna have a real meal, you're gonna be able to call family. Um, get woken up very early on Christmas Day. Somebody from our unit got killed that overnight. And so they put on a combo blackout, nobody could call home, nobody could email, because this guy's family was gonna be notified. Right. And they had to be notified first, you know, or two weeks out. And Christmas morning, this family's gonna find out that their son got killed. And his uh ID hit up hit a Humvee rollover type situation, just the most devastating, most devastating thing. So we're we're there, um, and they're like, looks like a mission, looks like a mission is gonna is gonna come down. So we had this hot list cars and terraces that we were we're always looking out for.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:58

So you always have that blue opal. There's always a blue opal. Looking out for a blue opal, right? Okay, there's a thousand of them here.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:06

This was a a white Range Rover. Oh, pretty unique. Tons of them, tons of them in in Kuwait, but unique. Um, so we get a mission. Like, we're gonna go out and try to find try to find this hot hot cart. Is that there's a this revenge moment. Like we're there's your the with the the roe, the counterinsurgency, the hearts and minds, and everything else. This this is about getting it done. Payback. And um, so so we're sitting there, I mean the Bradley. This is a there I was story. Right. This is one of my favorite there I was stories. So there I was.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:42

No shit, this really happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:44

A Miami cigarette hanging out of my mouth, bag of Doritos in my lap, cold mountain doing my hand. I'm sitting in the driver's hatch, and sure as shit, I see a white Range Rover. And I I said, white Range Rover, and I shifted, shifted into drive, and I hit the gas before my commander even even said anything. And so we're sitting just short of where this where this checkpoint is. So there's some traffic building up, people are slowing down as they're processing through this checkpoint, it's daytime. And I said, and the the white Range Rover keeps coming, and I'm going at it, and I said, I'm gonna play chicken with this Range Rover. I said, I'm going to run over this Range Rover. I'm going to pancake this this Range Rover right now. And it keeps coming at it. And the the Bradley's a massive, loud, yeah, heavy, rumbly, threatening looking vehicle. It's got tow missiles up, it's got a 25 millimeter gun, it's got a machine gun. It is, you're not gonna win, you're not gonna outpower, outpower this thing. So he he turns into the Medium to start going the opposite direction. I turn toward him and I hit him in the rear quarter panel, blow off his whole rear quarter panel of this range, which is satisfying. This is the rich person's car, and I just got to smash it to pieces. So we we and in the in the moment, I am level and I am clear. And just you're on mission. We talked about that redundant training.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:28

You get in contact, something happens, you know exactly what to do. And and then after they dismount, they Iraqi police had seen what happened. They show up, pull these people out of the car, they inspect the car, see what's going on, go to detain them, and then my hands start shaking because that was uncontrollably after, just like this. Oh my goodness, like um, and this thing happened, and go to dismount, got to pull security. All this happens, and we're we're now there's traffic on both sides, not an ideal security situation. Other vehicle on the opposite side of the road, they come up and we go to circle the vehicle, check on the Bradley, and I had managed to rip the track off of the sprocket. Very hard to do. I said how heavy it was, and right, yeah, having all this stuff was tightened. So when I had hit them at this angle of the median, you could not have replicated it if I had tried it a thousand times. Bent bent up. So literally had to get a we tried to we tried to break and reset track back onto the sprocket. Like there's these teeth, and they have to sit in alignment for it to for it to work. Could not get it to reset, could not get it to align. They end up recovering us back to base. I mean, we were out there for a minute. It was pretty, it was pretty, it was pretty tense because you feel you feel bad. I did all the I did all the right things, but oh my goodness. Yeah, we get we get back on base, and it's toward night now, and I spend that evening not eating steak and lobster, Christmas dinner, but trying to fix the track of my vehicle because we were gonna be going back out, going back out the next the next day. Um, and I want to tell you the one time I was scared in Iraq. Had never been scared up to that point. Um, and so our one of our final missions before we go back is all of our vehicles now had to get sent get sent back home. So we had to escort all of our vehicles down to southern Iraq so that they could be ported so that they could all be shipped back home to Georgia. And I was gonna be the lead driver of this convoy of all these of all these vehicles going south. And it was a black route, the one that even heavy armor don't drive, and I was gonna be in the Hum V. The lead vehicle going about 15 to 30 miles an hour to be able to pace with this like heads are these heavy equipment trailers, the semis, contractors driving these semis. The weight of a Bradley's massively heavy, right? So these semis can only go up so fast. So you're driving at night, rotating between like night vision and headlights on a black route, and this is further south than we'd ever gone. I mean, at this point, they said, hey, go to the mosque, go to the school, go to the bridge, go anywhere. And I knew I knew all my routes. It's right, I need I knew the detours, I knew the area, I knew the all the stuff to look for. You you learn landmarks. Um I knew it all. So I'm driving a black route on a route I've never seen before at night, and it's far. And we're that close. It's just um, my my lieutenant was like you combat risk management is a very unique aspect. You cannot mitigate and minimize every single risk, right? But you can make two smart, two smart risks. Prep as much as you can to be ready for whatever. This is this is nuts. We're we're taking this route. We need to go now. Here's what's going on. It's here's here's where we're at. Um and so I drove, I drove this route. We had some about halfway in, we had about very light contact, just AK-47s from a field, pushed through it, nothing, nothing major. We get to base. It's national championship between USC and Texas. I was not a fan of USC. They had beat Michigan. You know, previous, previous Rose Bowls. It was a you know, it was arrival, and I'd get to watch Vince Young step into the end zone and beat beat USC. So I'm having like just breakfast at the Chow Hall. And so we we rest and refit, we get ready to drive back, drive back, drive back to our base, and we find out a report comes in that a MP unit was behind us on that same route. That same point where we had contact, those AKs fired at us, the MPs stopped their convoy, dismounted, went into the field, were ambushed, had a mass casualty, lost like 30 people, almost an entire platoon. Got wiped out. So you hear these stories. We were right. We were just right there. That happened to them. Like then this stuff happened all the time. Yeah, it man, we ran out, we had nothing. They go out, something, something happens, all this stuff. Um I ended up driving that Southern mission like two or three times to get all of our to get all our equipment down. Um and then got back.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:26

Yeah. Yeah. What was it like for you stepping off the battlefield onto a plane and knowing that you're at it at home? Like, how was that feeling?

SPEAKER_02 2:07:36

That's a good question. That's a that's a good question.

Legacy, Calling, And Final Reflections

SPEAKER_00 2:07:38

How do you define how do you find that?

SPEAKER_02 2:07:43

Um not really the mission accomplished. Like you're you're just transitioning, you're just handing over. Not not real. There's no beginning and no end, right? Not real closure. Exactly that. Yeah, exactly that. Um losing Sergeant Mitchell was tough. That loss. That loss hit us really, really hard. It was it was it was personal. Losing that guy on Christmas was tough. That last month was really, really heavy, puts things in perspective. Um because you you know why? Why then? Of all the things, of all the because you you start looking back on the amount of missions that you ran, the the amount of time you're outside the wire, the the close calls. I didn't share all the contact stories and all the different stuff that happened. A couple couple more that would probably be good to share, but uh that you know it just man, that's that sits with you, that sits with you pretty heavy. But and there's this other time just like I went ready to go. I committed then to surrender to God's will. I don't know what's gonna happen. Uh and now when when you I prepared for the worst and I came home alive and unscathed, I was ready to die. I was worried about getting getting injured or disabled or something, something happening. Um, and you hear about you see you see guys in Kuwait from other units recovering, doing all the all this different stuff, like stories. Oh that guy got hit, that guy got hit by a sniper. Oh, this guy was in a fire, this guy trapped on his face, this guy lost a leg, this guy can't walk, all the stuff.

unknown 2:09:39

They're going back.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:41

So you have this massive sense of gratitude. And you also have this sense of like the world's kind of weird. World's kind of weird. You know, what's feels random. Feels random. Yeah, this I mean, my faith was important to me. I said, Man, God, you must have you must have some purpose. There must be something that you spared me. Or yeah, there you you gave me a guardian angel because there were some close calls. Um and you see your body is fine, but mentally, they did uh they did mental health checks on our unit right toward right toward the end. And they did one of the four platoons and they all failed. So they said, I think I don't think we need to test anybody.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:30

I think this is a pretty good sample.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:33

You were talking about what our normal was. Yeah. Yeah, you got them all on our actually like these. Um and I had been, I had that two-year contract. I've been stop lost when I was in Iraq.

SPEAKER_06 2:10:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:50

Ironically, tried to re-enlist. I tried to re-enlist when I was in Iraq. Um and like there was the war was gonna continue. The surge was now essentially, essentially in effect.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:06

Is whatever happened between 05 and 06, um, it was gonna need more. We were not had not stabilized things to move toward closure. They were bringing more people, longer rotations, more guard, more reserve, less time to refit, more time downrange. It was a big, big shift, big shift in the war, the surge. Um, and yeah, mission ready, right? Let's go. And uh, I said I'll do six years right now if you can put me in Italy. 173rd task force, like light recon. They have like 18-hour deployment window um to almost anywhere in the world. Like, really, really cool. They're like, nope, they're only taking like Rangers and E7s. It's like, all right, I'll do four years right now if you can put me in Hawaii. Freaking Hawaii, Schofield Barracks, Light Recon, jungle training. I was heavy mechanized, check that box. I wanted to do jungle training. Like, nope, Hawaii's not taking anybody. I was like, all right, I'm putting my in my pack and I'm out. Just like yeah, just like just like that. Um, and then I got back and I had decided to do study criminal justice. Like, I was just gonna work for the government, wanted to work for the feds, serve outside and just in a different uniform, just have a gun and a suit instead of gun and boots, right? You know, and uh that was that was a plan.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:34

So you uh you got back to Georgia, and that's where did you outprocess us from the plan?

SPEAKER_02 2:12:39

I did, and that was uh a buddy he'd been deployed the first time, he deployed with us. Guys like 23, he was gonna be 100% deaf basically by the time he was 30. Yeah, so he was he was he was out processing, he was my roommate at one point. Um, and talk about a guy who's checked out is a guy who's basically going on a disability. No, he's gonna be deaf by deaf by 30. Um, but here's stories about the VA. Yeah, hear stories about the VA, you hear about people getting stuck while they get processed out. Like I mean, there was the I mean the volume of people coming back and rotating out all the different all the different stuff. And um, I mean you see these forms, and in the military, you get poked and prodded. Oh yeah. Check the check the freaking box soldier, like let's go. And like check no to everything type thing. Like, I'm out, I'm done. 90 days. We have 90-day reef refit. Um looking back, there's guys in Garden Reserve, they don't get that. They get off a plane and they're home. They don't have reset time with their battle buddies. Like that's blessed. Goodness. Like that 90 days is important. We had a bunch of, I had a bunch of block leave. Um you're waiting for vehicles to get back. You got rotations where it's a little lighter, they're trying to give you some family time back, you're trying to process. You start to notice, hey, there's demons. There's I'm not at threaten anymore, but sometimes you're you're your sleep or you trigger moments, different stuff. Your your buddies are there, you're all processing it at different paces. I mean, guys, the amount of divorces, the amount of divorces that happened during deployment, the amount of affairs that happened during deployment, the relationships that crack under pressure. It's a lot of pressure. A lot of pressure on a lot of pressure on a family. It's a there's no glory. There's there's really no like there's no welcome home parade, there's no job well done, there's no huge mission accomplished, there's no we got all these, we got all these medals, whatever. Like I did some things, I got a couple RCOMs, got a combat action badge, it was pretty low-key stuff. We had a ball, you know, we had gotten our spurs, and my LT got me a stats and yeah, that was one of the most I want to make sure you got your stats. That was the question. One of the most special things in my life was that he like to be a Joe and to get something from an officer, and getting him getting him through, and um he was a leader I deeply, deeply admired, somebody I wanted to emulate, somebody who did who did it right.

SPEAKER_05 2:15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:34

Um, so I got engaged when I got back.

SPEAKER_03 2:15:40

So you came back to Michigan?

SPEAKER_02 2:15:42

Uh yeah, I did. I got a few weeks later, after we got back, I got I got some block leave. And um I had looked at a road trip across the country. That was one of the things I was gonna do. I planned the whole thing, Michigan to Chicago to Mount Rushmore up to you know the northern Oregon, the northwest. I'd never been in the Pacific Northwest. Down, I had this whole this whole thing planned. Uh 1969, Chevelle 454 was my dream car. They had those in Georgia. I was gonna buy my car, and I was gonna take that spring and summer, and I was gonna live, live free. That was the plan. And I thought about driving that car and looking over to an empty passenger seat. I said, I don't wanna, I don't want to share, I want to share my life with somebody. I don't want to live my life alone. If there's one thing I know, it's I don't wanna I don't want to be alone. I got I got engaged to that same girl that I called. I think it's me. Yeah, prank that I had prank called.

SPEAKER_05 2:16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:46

Prank called then, and uh we set a wedding date, set a wedding date for June. I got got accepted into that college. He had a great, great veterans program, really good veterans team over there. Criminal justice program. We had a really good path to what I wanted to to what I wanted to do. I had a plan. It's important. We always talk about gotta have a plan.

SPEAKER_06 2:17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:07

I don't care if you get out, stay in, what are you gonna do? You gotta have a plan.

SPEAKER_06 2:17:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:10

What are you gonna do? Um, you're not gonna just figure it out. You gotta have a plan. We can help you make a plan. The army can help you make a plan, like whatever it is. Um, I had a plan. I had a plan. And um, I mean, looking back, I wouldn't have done well alone. I wouldn't have done well alone. Um having somebody to share life with, somebody with a good family, a good good faith foundation. I mean, that was good, those are big things.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:36

Yeah. And where'd you guys settle then?

SPEAKER_02 2:17:39

Um well, I went to college at Ferris, so we were in we were in married housing. Okay. Um, I mean, it's weird being a married freshman combat vet. You're a freshman around these 18-year-old kids.

SPEAKER_06 2:17:54

Right. Who seen nothing?

SPEAKER_02 2:17:55

They were like just at prom.

SPEAKER_06 2:17:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:57

Like, and I'm married, but I'm in college, I'm 21. Yeah, right. So it was this very unique aspect. And uh I got you know, a little bit of that veterans, veterans benefit. They'd have veterans breakfast, like, nope. There's opportunities to do guard and reserve, big bonuses, huge bonus, huge bonuses, search. Those guys weren't just getting free college. No, these guys were going downrange. Um, and I could considered it, said no, I'm either all in or I'm all out.

SPEAKER_00 2:18:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:34

And I didn't go to V8, I didn't go to veteran stuff, I didn't get involved in VFW. No, I'm in college, I'm married, I'm back, and essentially buried it. That was a season, that was a season of my life. I don't really want to think about it. I mean, I was an absolutely different person than I was the 19-year-old kid versus this kid.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:59

Guy who's this man who's seen war now. Is this different, different thing? And then you just what processing after looks like in this. God, for my life, but I know you got a plan. I'm gonna try to figure out what that is or see what that looks like, or try to try to surrender to it. And I became a goal-oriented, ambitious, sharp, high-performing soldier. I was the that casual 17-year-old, not taking anything too serious. I did. I was tuned in, I did really, really well. The NCOs recognize it, my officers recognize it. I had opportunities in the military. Um, and so I went from this light-hearted, casual guy to very focused, yeah, very disciplined. I did my studies, I did the did the right things. I worked really, really, really hard. Um, and I had goals. I was gonna make it happen. I was gonna go chase life.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:07

So you get to Ferris, you're going through how did you graduate Ferris then?

SPEAKER_02 2:20:12

Yeah, graduated Ferris, uh criminal, criminal justice, did a cool ATF at the internship, um, ended up getting a job in market crash in the middle of that. Oh 708 2009. Like our own professors are like, you guys realize there's no jobs, like you're going into debt for nothing. Uh, it was thanks. Yeah, like real estate was bottom out, people were losing their houses. Yeah, Michigan was number one or number two in uh unemployment, obesity, and crime at the time. It was a great place to live.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:45

Um, sounds like a sounds like a recruiting process to bring people to Michigan.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:49

Um, as we moved to Illinois. I got a job doing background investigations for the government. Uh huh. Um, and ironically, a couple. Years later, went back in the army. Second time.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:06

So what like 2010?

SPEAKER_02 2:21:07

14. Oh, 2010. I graduated 10 and 2014 I was back in uniform.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:14

Yeah. Uh, so that was I'd done the civilian thing. I actually interviewed with the FBI. Um, they actually have like a 93% divorce rate at the time. Secret Service was like 97. Tough careers.

SPEAKER_06 2:21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:28

The feds is not an easy job. It's uh it's a tough job.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:33

And so you chose the army with their low divorce rate?

SPEAKER_02 2:21:37

Exactly. So, but when I went in the army, um our marriage was a little stronger then. She knew me then in the army. Yeah, being an army wife was something that she wanted. So I like that lieutenant that I respected so much said, you know, I've I've been a soldier and I want to I want to lead.

SPEAKER_06 2:21:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:00

That uh ISIS was attacking. There was still no closure. The war was not over. Between now and then, um my sister went to West Point. She had deployed in in the army. Uh she's an adjutant general officer, I think, was her job. And uh so she followed, followed in my footsteps and went and did bigger things, even you know, than I did. Um I want to lead from the front. I want to I want to be a part of it. Like there was no closure. Trying to find closure was real was a real thing. I'd been out long enough that I had to go back through basic training.

SPEAKER_06 2:22:44

Not good for you.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:46

But I so I went in at 18 and again at 29. So I had my contract. Um, you know, you pass the board, you pass an interview, you go back through maps. That was hell.

SPEAKER_03 2:22:58

Um about your B allergy again.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:00

Yeah, yeah. I mean, my recruiter, I think my recruiter hadn't deployed and I had, yeah, but the if they recruited an officer, big deal for a recruiter, it's big deal. It's a big feather in their cap if they could recruit an officer. Right. And um, like hey, we can do this. We were thinking about having kids, and I could would basically have doubled my salary as an officer from what I was making. Like what we were both making is I can make that, it can be a stay-at-home mom, we can have kids. Um and then three months later, surprise we're pregnant. And it was still four months or five months before I was supposed to go. So I could have acted out. We had a job, we had a house, we had bought a home. Um financially, we were doing well. Life was life was good. Say, okay, now what? Now do I ship off when she's in her second semester? We sell our house. Do we do all this? It's not just her now, right? It's her pregnant. And I remember seeing the dads in the military. Like, what is what all does this look like? And is this something we really want? And we we'd committed to it. Um, so went back through, went back through basic, had to do the full basic all over again. Well, the coolest stories was that basic. I'm there. I'd earned combat patch, and I'd earned a combat action badge, but they wanted like as I was a trainee, so I didn't have any of my stuff. Right, you can't wear your stuff. I didn't have any of my stuff. They're all oh, we're gonna give you special treatment. And I don't know if they even knew. We we were on these rotating, like the guard cycles, their two weeks out of the year was so we were this rotating, rotating training unit, and I'm there, and I see this drill sergeant over there, and I was like, Sergeant Griff. And this is a guy I deployed with. This is a guy in my platoon, is now a drill sergeant at Fort Benning.

SPEAKER_03 2:25:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:09

Nine years, nine years later, he rubs up, gives me a handshake, gives me a hug. Bullet, million back out. You're gonna become an officer. This is awesome. Man, where's your where's your cab? Guys, you guys know this? This guy's a combat cab scout in front of all these like basic training. And oh, this this guy's recon. He's done all this stuff, and he's like, man, and he takes his cab, puts it on my uniform, takes his combat pet. Man, you're combat, so you've earned this stuff. You know, he quotes the doctrine, like any good drill sergeant who does know his doctrine, you know, boom. And uh all of a sudden they called me recon the rest of the time because they had heard, yeah. I went like we're terrified of drill sergeants. This one came up to you. You would give me this stuff, like you've done some stuff, but it was like big deals. Hey, recon. And then they would call me old man knees, right? Because when you're 29, you're ancient, you know. It's like you got some, you got you got uh, oh man, oh you got you got some city miles. It might even literally crack when you're going from taking a neon patrol to and trying to run with 18-year-old kids. You don't have the same recovery at 29 as you do at 18. And the first time around had done some damage. I didn't know, I didn't really know it at the time, but my some of my stuff was pretty tore up. Yeah, push pushed through it. Um ended up commissioning uh March, I think March 2015, if I remember right. Uh commissioned as a chemical, biological, radiological nuclear officer. Um at the time uh Iran was it was a nuclear threat. Syro was using chemical weapons, Korea was a nuclear threat.

SPEAKER_05 2:27:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:05

So this traditional conventional army, like I was used to gunshot booms, IDs, mortar attacks, RPGs, everybody's known trains how to respond to that. All of a sudden you start suffocating to death or you start seizing, your eyes start watering, terrifying. And these these groups had the philosophy to use it on civilian population, right? And some of the stuff is science fiction, terrifying.

SPEAKER_06 2:27:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:34

Outside the Geneva Convention, this is not honorable war, this is terrifying, terrifying, terrifying stuff. Um, and I ended up getting assigned to an air defense artillery unit. Um, so when I was on Iraq, it was a tactical job. If my entire platoon got wiped out, I probably wouldn't have even made the news. Not a blip, not a blip on the radar.

SPEAKER_00 2:28:00

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:01

So I'm now a chemical biological officer assigned to an air defense unit. So these have radars and patriot missiles. They shoot down missiles, that's what they do. Um, and they are a strategic global asset. So I went from this hyper-tactical job, being some Joe, some scout, and some you know place in Iraq, to now I'm an officer assigned to you know, global strategic thing. So I got this whole this whole view. And air defense is kind of like the Air Force. They had typically deployed to cutter in Bahrain, rotate shifts, you know, and wear kind of civilian clothes in the evenings, you know, non non-combat unit. Nothing most of them didn't hadn't deployed to a combat, combat threat theater. Um, and they were the army was transitioning from combat operations to garrison operations. I had known that I might have you might have not rethought my career path. Um, and then with how things were escalating in Korea, they said air defense, you're not gonna be sitting at some relaxed base watching the skies. We're looking at expeditionary operations of a potential invasion from North Korea to South Korea. And so when you have combat experience and you've run those expeditionary operations, you're living out living at some house without a shower or running water for a for a week at a time and doing all this different stuff. So to be able to bring in to have this view was uh was something special. And when you're a prior enlisted officer, you're managing up to your battalion brigade commander, and at the same time, you understand how Joe is affected at the end of the day. Do the soldiers and families understand what's going on? Do they understand the importance of what they're doing here? Do they understand the why? I I was a why guy. I wanted to know what we are actually doing here. Is it just because your NCO told you to grab your stuff? Do you understand? And some of the the surge brought in some not super high quality humans into into the military that got to hang around because they needed so some of the quality. Some of the quality of of soldiers was different. Um I mean some of the young kids were like toddlers when 9-11 happened. That wasn't that wasn't very real to them. Um so it was a unique, very unique, very unique shift. Um and one of the pivots that happened, because I had wanted to one of my goals then was to special operations, see if I could make it through Ranger School or Green Bray or something along that lines. I had on a training mission in OCS, I rolled my ankle. And I'd rolled my ankle before. I have high arches. I rolled my ankles. And thought it was a thought it was a spray. Wait till officer bullock got through, got through training. They said, uh you might get recycled, or they might kick you out of the army and not even commission you. If you're hurt before you even commit, you know, um, before you even get to your unit, like they're probably not gonna, they're probably gonna medboard you. They're probably gonna medboard you out. So just wait till you get to, I was assigned to Fort Bliss, Texas. Wait till you get to Bliss and talk with talk with the team there. They looked at my phone, they're like, Yeah, it looks like you have a 60% tear in your foot. Um, but you can still pass a PT test. You're still you're still deployable. And I said, Well, I have a year before we deploy. Why don't we why don't we do the surgery, get it right? I I can't pass um like any kind of special operation schools if you're not at 100%. Like those schools break you, yeah, break you anyway.

SPEAKER_06 2:32:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:28

I can't go in with this, with this, with this tear. And they said, no, it's too, it's too, it's too risky. They're like, here's the deal. Like, if you roll your ankle one more time, it could completely tear, and we'd have to medboard you. I was like, oh, like, well, what do I do? They're like, it's not gonna be that. And so I was at the unit for oh, maybe six months at this point. I took my GMAT and I started a master's in finance. And then I became the exo for our unit. So I was simultaneously had like three staff officer jobs, was the XO for a unit, battalion the uh battery commander had back surgery, so I was acting commander for about for about 60, 60 or 90 days while doing a full-time five-week intensive masters in finance program. Yeah. Um, my wife had a miscarriage. Oh all that was happening. Wow. Happening simultaneously, a lot, yeah, a lot of life. Um and uh so I ended up taking a taking a step, taking a step back. Um and it's because you're wasn't the 19-year-old kid alone with nothing to lose. This was right, you're seeing it. Hey Han, I'm gonna be home late for dinner. At one point she said, Ben, stop calling to apologize. Don't tell me you're sorry. This is just normal.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:58

Now, oof, this is what happens to families, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:34:02

We're just garrison, but I tell you, people said a pre-deployment. We were on QRF to go to Korea too. That was rotating through these pre-deployment, is literally worse because they're your training tempo.

SPEAKER_03 2:34:16

Yeah, they're always gone.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:18

And it was rotating from the field, and then we had commanders' audits, all these garrison level staff programs that they said, who cares? As long as we can get downrange, they cared.

SPEAKER_04 2:34:31

Yeah, all the stuff.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:31

And it was some colonel trying to check a box, some battalion commander trying to check a box of whatever else, and trying to manage up and show that they were the most high-speed, high-speed unit with the best digital training program and logistics maintenance program in the whole bag. And so it was literally building programs from scratch, right, writing SOPs, reading doctrine, and trying to invent the wheel a lot of times and staffing and all these things. And um, I was thriving in my career. I could do it all, but it was it was what I noticed is at the expense of my family.

SPEAKER_00 2:35:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:12

At the expense of my family. I'm not Superman. Um, something is gonna fall off. And then there'd be a DOI and we'd get called in on Saturday to have some safety briefing. It's like, I'm willing to give the army everything. That's why I signed up. When you when you commission too, it's like all it, you know, uh standards, no compromise, lead from the front. You have all these little models. Oh, yeah, it's just drilled into your and that I any lead, it became real models, real models for my life. Um, like forward ever, backward, never, like with just that mindset. Like there's drilled in into you, like this is how you think, this is how you operate. Now, and it was I can give everything to the army, they're always gonna ask for more. And I'd see these these majors on on like division staff trying, trying to get some uh I'm blanking on the word now, trying to get KD key development time, hoping that they could get a job or they were gonna get driven into the ground so that they could have a chance to get promoted.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:36:20

So they needed enlisted bodies and officers. The army was trimming, army was trimming. There's nothing like having 12, 14, or 16 years in and being told here's the door.

SPEAKER_00 2:36:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:36:32

So it was, and you don't go to the duty station you want, you go where there's an opportunity to get command or to get development time. And so, how do you manage your career and family? And your moving school is your PCS, and you're and eventually it was this is not thought about legacy ever since my dad had passed, and now it's this is this is not the legacy I want, I want for my family. We made the best of it, made the best of it. My wife, my wife really did we love being a dad, and not a single day, I love being a soldier and love being an officer. But just being in the army was hard. It made it, they made it hard. So when I had dropped my packet and decided to, uh I was a first lieutenant promotable, promotable, and checking the captain's box is one of the big things I'd wanted to do. So there's this if I stay in, we would have done a year-long deployment, would have come back, done captain's career course, and then gone to the next duty station, try to get command. So I looked at what the next two or three years was like and said, Oh, that's the life. We want, we want three more moves in the next 18 months, and then is this what is this what we want to do? And this masters of finance, and I was getting on LinkedIn, hearing about other officers transitioning out, career and potential in the whole bag, and um was fully in. There's a lot of guys who check out and they get retirement orders and they get when they drop a packet, they stop showing up, they get they get sloppy. It's the next guy's problem. I was until the very last day when I signed out, just fully, fully here, and I'll do interviews in the evenings or weekends or whatever I gotta do. I'll I'll do personal resume development, whatever. Um that's with my head held high.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:35

What yeah, what year did you get out? 18. 2018. Yeah. All right. So I want to ask you this question then. You talked about like fully engaged till the day you signed out, you know, you left with your head held high, which is um, which can be an accomplishment. It's very easy when you know you're done to like divorce it pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:55

Can you learn how to play the game? You know how to you know how to you know how to yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:59

So I want to ask this like what was it like for you, because this was your second time in uniform, but now you're signing out. This is the last time you were gonna put the uniform on.

SPEAKER_01 2:39:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:39:09

Yeah, how'd that feel?

SPEAKER_02 2:39:12

Um, not different than getting on that plane and coming back from the first deployment. Like, there's there's no mission accomplished. I had gone in to try to do this lead from the front, special operations, push myself to the max, make Captain this how I this idea of what I thought I'd wanted to do with my commissioned career. This at the same time, I built programs that didn't exist. I had great relationships with my NCOs, great relationship with other officers, the soldiers, the soldiers below me, built a real, built a real culture um from managing up. Um I had torn my ACL and as a first lieutenant, wasn't even promotable at the time, they were gonna make me the rear D commander as a lieutenant because I knew staff, I knew operations, I was new brigade, I knew division, I was briefing. I I was our USR guy, which is on staff reporting, our unit readiness across every level. I knew that report inside and out. I knew all of these, all these different things. I was headquarters XO and acting acting commander. I knew everybody. I saw every personnel roster, I knew the whole thing. He's the most qualified guy to be a rear D commander. He knows everything. There's not gonna be a blip when we leave. Right. And he's responsive. He's responsive. He moves across staff to enlist to brigade all the time. He manages like a million glasses. Balls that none of them can ever drop.

SPEAKER_00 2:41:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:41:02

And I managed to prioritize the balls and know how to be five places at once and set and set priorities and communicate about what needed to be communicated. And then our um brigade commander got a DOI. It's crazy. And a new commander came in and said, no, it has to be a has to be a captain. And so I ended up getting sent to another unit. Um almost pulled my packet and deployed with them because their their exo was amazing. The battalion commander was amazing. There were people in 16 and 18 years saying, best command team I've ever worked with. So it's like who you go, who's on your left and right makes a massive oh yeah, makes a massive difference. Like if I'm gonna go, I want to go with the right. I said, man, I might, I might stay. This is this amazing, good, good culture, good team. Um got them ready for deployment, and then the uh XO got pulled to brigade, the battalion commander, made colonel, and so they were rotating out. I was like, all right, no, right, I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 2:42:18

Time to pop smoke.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:19

Exactly. Pop yeah, pop smoked, um, and did uh did some different officer interviews and um so you still in Illinois then? Um, no, because we had sold that place, left it, left it behind at the women of the army, and we came back. We stayed with my in-laws.

SPEAKER_03 2:42:39

So came back to Michigan when you go to the military.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:41

Yeah, so just trying to figure out where to go next. I was interviewing all over the country. I'd done interviews in San Diego and Dallas, big officer, whole like 50 of you in a room, you know, all officers trying to figure out how do I be a junior officer trying to become a some mid-manager or some whatever at some place. Um and we say we're gonna go where the opportunity is, we're gonna go where the right opportunity is. Um the one thing I knew said I I didn't fully want to take my boots off. I said, I love being a soldier and officer. Not a day, just I know exactly what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 2:43:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:23

Know what I'm doing, I'm answering my calling. There's something deeply satisfying about doing that. Um, I said, but if I get out, I want to be able to serve, whatever that, whatever that looks like. So the career was gonna be a part of my life, but it wasn't gonna be my identity. Like being an officer was right. Like when you're in the army, it is not a job, it is a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_03 2:43:42

Right, it's who you are.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:43

It is the profession, right? We talk about the difference. I think I think if you're a good officer, I think if you're a good leader, the profession and the lifestyle and the career. You treat it differently. How you affect people, how you lead, are you thinking bigger? Thinking, do I want to leave the unit better, the people better than when I arrived? I don't need credit, I want to improve like that. Those attitudes, those attitudes, I think those translate really well. I said, No, I want to be able to um make a difference. And so the first time I got out, I wanted nothing to do with VA. The next time I got out, I checked all the boxes, got all my stuff squared away. Um, as I was transitioning out, I heard more about army benefits and army programs. So I was telling the guys at my unit, here's all this stuff, here's these do you know they'll pay for this? Do you know that they'll do this for you? There's you learn more out sometimes when you're a part of these transition groups, these nonprofits. And I got involved with VFW. I got involved with veteran veteran mentorship. Now I'm a part of rotary, serving in church and all that different stuff. So um found a good career. So still serving, but just in a different in a different uniform and able to be the be the husband and dad.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:06

That I really want to be.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:07

So how many kids do you have?

SPEAKER_02 2:45:08

Two. Two. Two. So that we had that miscarriage.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:12

Then in the army, that was 17, I think. Um, and they said, I got checked after. That was a humbling time. Figure out if you're less than a man.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:26

You know, maybe, and I was resistant to it. I said, God wants us to have kids, we'll have kids. Yeah, we got checked out. He said, There's nothing wrong with you, but for whatever reason, it was you potentially high risk, give a 5% chance of having kids again. Okay, so we weren't really trying. If it happens, it happens type thing. Like we can try and it may not happen anyway. And in 2020, managed got pregnant, and we held our breath the whole time because of high risk. Right, the miscarriage is very possible up to 24 weeks. Yeah, our first one was about six or eight, very, very early on. Um processing that as a couple is a unique dynamic. How men process it, how women, how how you support that. It's not a one-time event. How hers, how I talk about military stuff for her, it was very much, very much the same. I don't truly understand, right? So it's it's like a civilian hearing about the soldier, like you can hear it, but you don't. It's not it's not quite the same. And so we a healthy baby boy, healthy baby boy, and his name is Dean, like our miracle, our miracle of son. 2020 was was at home a lot. The world was shut down, right? You know, for the most part, spent a lot of time, spent a lot of time at home and uh low stress. Stress might have had something to do with it, just where where our life where our life was. Our marriage was strong. Um yeah, and had a had a son, he's five. He's he's five now. Um so it's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:47:06

When was your second born?

SPEAKER_02 2:47:09

He was, yeah. So the first was 2014. She was born when I was at basic training for officer school. And the the second was born uh Ann Arbor area of Michigan. Okay. Yeah, uh 2020. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:47:25

All right.

SPEAKER_03 2:47:25

And so now you're kind of in that area, you're uh doing your job, you're uh giving back through rotary and and other things. So it sounds like everything kind of come full circle for you.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:36

Yeah, yeah, very, very much, very much so. Like there was a time in my life when I'd wanted to bury bury my military experience. Um that was a season of my life. Uh, because some people you'll meet, it defines them.

SPEAKER_06 2:47:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:56

It defines them very deeply. Some people, it's it's like it was the highlight of their of their life. Because when you when you make it through these trainings, when you get all this stuff, even if it's not really external recognition, the set, the sense of pride is truly, it's truly amazing. Right. It's truly amazing. When you rise above, when you're a survivor, when you're part of the 1% that was willing and went and did did the did the job, the hard job. You don't need a thanks because you you can hold your head up high. You know, if you walk with your chest held out. There's some people, it's that's the highlight of their life, or they let that experience define them. For me, I didn't. It was a launch pad, it was a stepping stone like onto big things. It is a platform, it gave me this structure, this discipline, and this mindset. So, how do I apply that? There was a time I was really chasing, oh, like, why am I not super rich and super successful and life going well? I survived that. Why am I struggling with crap now? Like when the economy was crashed and I couldn't get a job. I'm a combat warrior and a college graduate. What do you mean I can't get a job here? Like, are you kidding me? Like, it was yeah, and you know, some of that there's maybe some level of endowment, you know, that you'd get at some time, and uh you know, it was you monitor your mental health really, really pretty close after afterwards. Um because the I mean the hardest thing, hardest thing about being a veteran is the the list of people I've deployed and trained with who've committed suicide is a long list.

unknown 2:49:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:58

The guys that passed in combat, short, short list.

SPEAKER_00 2:50:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:50:04

Yeah, we weren't we weren't ready. We were ready for war. We weren't ready for people to come home for war. Yeah, I think is really the big thing. Well, we have covered a ton of stuff in the last three hours. Yeah, it doesn't even feel like it's been that long. Yeah, um, but I think kind of as we wrap up our conversation today, um, some of the things you've started to say, I think is a good point to ask this question. Okay. And that is, you know, a hundred years from now, when you and I are not here uh and someone is listening to this story, what do you want them to take away from it?

SPEAKER_02 2:50:36

Man, that really is a great question. Um the one one takeaway I think of I think of first is I think of that that kind of casual, casual, comfortable, lighthearted kid who found his calling and went all into it. I don't think you will never regret going all into that that that thing. I believe I believe everybody has a calling. You find it. I mean, for all for me, it was pretty obvious with 9-11 and be I paid attention to that butterfly effect. Like, yeah, this is this is not happening on accident, this is happening by design. All of the signs, all of the signs are there, and I I paid attention to them. The way I met my wife through this random basic training roommate who became my roommate, who happened to answer the phone, who happened to be from Michigan. Any one of six factors is different. And I never meet the wife. We're almost 20 years of marriage now.

SPEAKER_06 2:51:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:51:48

Um, and it's it's amazing the way I got assigned to to this unit or that unit, where I wasn't assigned to the to the green zone unit. I was designed to the Rust of Maya unit. I happen to be on this route at this time, not this route at this time, the whole the whole thing. Um I believe people have a calling and purpose. I think um calling in life, believing you answer that calling, it starts to be a part of your purpose. Um and that that thing can define you, or it can be a stepping stone. I look back and I'm very headheld high, proud of what I accomplished. I'm 40 now, and I'm looking to the next 40 years, and I want I want that to be the beginning of the story, not the not the highlight.

SPEAKER_03 2:52:42

I think that's great.

SPEAKER_00 2:52:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:52:43

Yeah. Well, thanks for spending some time with me this morning and this afternoon, Ben. I really appreciate it.