WE ARE ALL BLOWN UP - JASON HARRINGTON

Jason Harrington was literally blown up while serving in the military in the streets of Ramadi, Iraq. Jason was honored with the Silver Star Medal for his bravery and quick thinking which saved lives after his Humvee was blown up twice by IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices). 

Using his own story of being blown up in combat, Jason teaches others that we are all blown up in life in some way... the loss of a loved one, a divorce, or even a terrible illness diagnosis. This is his story. 

Transcript

The Critical Mission Podcast – We Are All Blown Up – Jason Harrington

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It's been said that the two most important days of a person's life are the day they're born, and the day they figure out why.

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Hi, I'm Jimmy Lakey, the host of the Critical Mission podcast. I figured out what my why was, I thought early on I might be a politician. Maybe it'd be a pastor.

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Maybe I'd be a preacher. I started a music company. I hosted a radio show.

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But my. Why? It was all discovered on the streets of Africa, in Rwanda, when I met a little child that I adopted and decided I'm going to take care of widows and orphans in Africa. My organization, my. Why is RiversPromise.org.

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What's your why? What about my guest? What's their why? We tell the story of people's why right here on the Critical Mission podcast.

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Hey, everybody, welcome back into the Critical Mission podcast. It's Jimmy. Nice to have you tuned back in. We got a great guest today, but I know you're probably asking. Or maybe you're not asking. I'm going to tell you anyway. What's the cigar of the day?

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It is a Padron 4000. The anniversary series of the Padron’s are fantastic.

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The number of series, a little bit more affordable, and they're also fantastic. There's no such thing as a bad drone cigar pad in Mr. Padron. If you'd ever like to sponsor this podcast, we'd love to have you. We will only smoke drones here unless somebody else sponsors us. Then we'll smoke those cigars because we're. We're easy like that.

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Hey, don't forget, our website is my mission is critical.com. My mission is critical.com. That should link you out to the YouTube page. So you can see this on video. It just, connects with a lot of the resources that we're developing on the podcast. My mission is critical.com. Don't miss that. And, padrone cigars, the cigar of the day.

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My guest here today on the Critical Mission podcast, Jason Harrington. He's a combat Silver Star awardee. Jason. Hello, sir. How are you? Good. Jimmy, how are you doing today? I'm doing very well. Thanks for coming into the little studio. Thanks for having me. we're going to tell a story in a so wild and crazy story. But for those who don't know what a Combat Silver Star awardee is, what is that?

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So the Silver Star is the third highest award for valor you can receive in the military. So

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it's, behind the Medal of Honor, which everyone's pretty familiar with. And then you have this Distinguished Service Cross, I believe is the second winner. Flying cross. I think it depends on what branch you're in. And then the Silver Star is the third highest.

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It can only be awarded for,

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valor about the glorious act in combat. So. So you got the, combat Silver Star where you tell that story in second. How does that happen? Sure. Well, let's go back. So obviously, you were in the military, in the infantry, and, that's obviously that's how you got a military award.

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What did you want to be before you showed up in the military, little Jason? Well, a little Jason. I was raised by a,

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My parents split when I was, like, in fifth grade. So my dad, I live with my dad, and I've a brother, a year older brother a year younger, and then a brother that's like seven, six, seven years younger.

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So,

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my dad was a commercial airline pilot, so I kind of wanted to fly at one point, I think. But as I got older, I got through high school and started college. I was just going to go be like a state trooper or something like that. That's kind of kind of what I thought I didn't really have, like a, I didn't really have like a goal or a drive at that point in my life.

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And that seemed like a good way to make a living. It was, you know, in Pennsylvania at the time, because I was I was, pretty much raised in Pennsylvania, born in Louisiana, lived there till I was about five, and then moved to pay with my dad's job. so I, you know, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but, you know, state trooper started off at 55 grand a year.

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I think at that time, they paid for your you know, to go to the academy and all that stuff. But I did have some money to go to college at least one year in college. So I started college. And it was about two months into my freshman year and I had enough money to pay for a year.

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Some great aunt had left us some money, but not enough for about a year. At that time. And I said, well, what am I? What am I going to do? Like, how am I going to finish paying for college? And my older brother, the year older, he was in the, the National Guard unit and Pennsylvania National Guard and what it was was the the 104th Long Range Surveillance Detachment.

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So what that means is, long surveillance. Traditionally, you would go out in front of the advancing line, which, you know, where you don't have lines anymore with war. But think about an advancing line. They would go out, sneak in, set up surveillance, take pictures, report back until they see back to the advancing front, let them know what they're coming into.

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And so basically, reconnaissance and surveillance, right. highly specialized unit. We had about 50 people in our detachment. a lot of guys in the detachment were former Rangers. a couple S.F. guys had floated through my one team leader at one point was a former Marine Corps sniper. So pretty high tech, high speed guys, infantry unit, airborne.

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So we, you know, practice airborne operations, jumping out of planes. So my older brother was in that he had joined that the year before he graduated high school, did like a summer basic training his junior year and then was officially was in the unit after his senior year and graduated.

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so he says did come join the unit and get a jump out of airplanes.

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You get to shoot cool guns, basically go camping on the weekends. That's what you did. And you went out in the field for for two days on the weekend, once a month. And, you know, we learned how to like, build, hide sides and, and do all that stuff. And he's like, yeah, he goes in, they'll pay for your college.

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So I was like, all right, cool.

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I love geography in high school. so I loved World War Two. Had like, utmost respect for World War Two guys. The cause that those guys fought for is, to me is unreal, right? when you think about what they did and what they were up against. So I always loved, World War two and, the history there.

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So when I joined, I didn't just join for college. I was like, yeah, you know, it's. Yeah, I got to go fight. I'll go fight. That would be, you know, an honor if it happened. So and this was in 2000. So pre 911

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so joined in October. went to basic training actually kind of basic training got delayed for about two years.

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I didn't go to basic training until 2002 because the way the unit was set up, they had to bring me in as a as a parachute rigor and then transfer me to infantry. And that got delayed. But so I still drilled, went to drill every month with the unit, was able to do most of the things they did.

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Obviously I couldn't jump, I couldn't do airborne operations. so I did, you know, was doing all the things pre basic to I went to basic training and, and graduated basic airborne school was officially part of the unit and in about 2002. So

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call came up in 04I think around October of oh four, we got notice that they were going to deploy a piece of our detachments like so that we had 50 like 50 people or so.

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And in that detachment we were running like six man teams. So we had like four 4 or 5, six man surveillance. sniper and surveillance teams.

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They said the first 12 guys, first of all, the 15 guys that raise their hand to volunteer, you'll probably stay together and you'll probably run like a traditional first attachment if you don't volunteer at first and you need more guys, you might get piece milled out and you might get attached to some unit guys you don't know or whatever, and go do whatever they need you to do.

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So the unit had gone to Bosnia, I think, in oh three. So they said anyone had been to Bosnia. You're kind of last on the list to be forced to go if we had to, you know, make you go. So I knew right away I hadn't gone to Bosnia. So I raised my hand right away, raise my hand, volunteered, called my then, now my wife girlfriend at the time, didn't tell her I had volunteered, but told her that you had to go.

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I had to go and then call my dad and kind of did the same thing. Didn't say that I. I raised my hand, but just said they were deploying us, you know, that night, so.

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So we say, where are we going? Well, you're going to Ramadi, Iraq. So Ramadi at the time was the worst city, most dangerous city really in the world, let alone the two wars that were going on. Now they you tell your family, you tell your girlfriend deploying, we're going and then you're calling them from Mississippi for five months in California, right?

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Was the wait making it better for you, making you more comfortable? Were you just anxious to get over there? What was what was that for me? it made it worse because, like, you just wanted to go. And being with the unit, like, we were highly trained. A lot of guys at the background that I explained earlier, you knew we didn't.

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We didn't need this bullshit training. We were going through a Mississippi and, you know, the, the one month in California was kind of get you acclimated to desert type conditions. We were in, basically, Death Valley area where NTC was. So you were experiencing 117 degree weather there. you know, so that was good for the for that purpose.

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But that's probably all we needed was that one month in California. So you head off to Ramadi and after Ramadi, you know, flying to Kuwait, stay there for two weeks, do some training there, then you head into Ramadi, flying in, you fly in, on a C-130, and then you take a hop from the airbase to Ramadi on a on a helicopter.

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pretty cool experience. We had had, two guys on my helicopter that were from my hometown and the National Guard. two of us were on the same block. So you had that feeling like, shit, if this helicopter goes down, it's a it's a bad day. Yeah. Back in New Cumberland. So you knew him. When you have a plane, you knew that the helicopter.

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You knew who he was. Yeah. Yeah. So because he was in the National Guard and, you know, his dad was a, baseball coach in our town for all the years. And. Yeah, I looked at him, he looked at me, and we were like this. This would be a bad day if something happened, but, you know, landed in Ramadi safely.

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got acclimated. did a couple the court ride seat rides when you replace a unit that you're replacing in war? so you go out with them, learn the area, they teach you what they're doing, kind of teach you the ins and outs, where to go or not to go, where the hotspots are, where the IEDs are going off, things like that.

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And that's it's important to know because that is really what kind of got us in trouble for the event. that I'll explain here in a minute. But so when you're over there, you're training you, you're going to replace someone. Do they add someone? All that training or they sit down and go, okay, here's all your training. Now here's what you need to know.

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This could go bad. Make sure your affairs are in order. Do they? How much do they kind of tip your hand to tell you how much danger you're in? So you, you know, before you deploy, you get in the country, you go through all that stuff. You, you know, if you want to write, have a will ready to go.

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A lot of guys wrote death letters, had them, you know, tucked away that that kind of stereotypical thing you see in movies, right, where, you know, if you die, you send a letter, you know, if you're reading something bad is happening today. Yeah. Yeah, that kind of thing. I did not write a letter. I had this, kind of feeling that it was a bad, bad omen to write a death letter, so, I didn't do it.

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So they kind of have a as part of your training once you arrive. Hey, guys, get your stuff in order. We're not here. This is not a trip to Disneyland. Exactly. Yeah, it's, you know, it's the real deal. So. And, you know, it doesn't really feel real. even when you're on base, it doesn't feel real. I'd say the first time it felt real was, the first IED that went off near one of our teams that, almost got almost took out a whole team.

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And then, honestly, the first death, someone you know, that dies is when it really feels real. I mean, Jimmy and Fincher, you guys are a little fucked up in the head. You know, we had we kind of had a poll going on how many people we thought would, would, would die over there based on this shitty training that we had in Mississippi.

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and not training on our guys part. It just, you know, just this stuff was just not high speed stuff. Right? So, but that all goes away once that first person dies, you know? All right. So how long did it take before that person died? Or the first? It goes off, it's just the first day, or you're there for a week or so.

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Kind of. So. Okay, we're making progress. Yeah. The first IED that went off that I recall was probably a couple of weeks. I think we were still doing the, training with the guys that were there that were kind of taking us out.

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we were out doing, like kind of a foot patrol at night, and they walked past walk near an IED that went off, and it's the hole in the ground was so big you could fit about five people inside that hole that big of an IED.

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So, I got a piece of shrapnel from that IED because we were we were in sector, so we joined up with them after they got hit and kind of checked up on each other and kind of wrote back together as what we ended up doing. But

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that's when it kind of got real. I think at that point.

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but then it got really real on September

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19th. So which is the date that I was, I was blown up, my guys were killed and that my event happened that that army, the Silver

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Star was talking about that September 19th. What year? 2005, 2005. A day that will live in infamy in your mind? Yeah, definitely. So

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what happened was, you know, we were running for mayor and sniper and surveillance teams.

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And basically what we would do is we would get dropped off at night. We would go we would preplan a site to go to. So we would take over a house, set up surveillance on, site known for IED placement. So you're trying to catch the guys putting it in the ground, and if you catch them, you know, you shoot them, take the shot or whatever.

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And so we'll just pull and surveillance where you couldn't have vehicles where, you know, insert guys on foot at night and can't be seen, can't be heard. So we would go and places that, you know, it was hard to get to. And that was our main mission. So we'd come off and mission on September 18th, we had gone out, come back the morning of the 19th and the guys were doing the vehicle patrols were getting hit with IEDs left and right.

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So they were a lot of concussions, a lot of guys having to take some time off. So the way our unit ran was any time we went on a mission, we always had a mandatory 24 hours off because of the nature of being on foot. Being in the city with just four people, risk of capture was high risk of, you know, ambush was high without, you know, support from Humvees, Bradleys, tanks, things like that.

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They wanted to make sure we were well-rested before we went out on every mission. So we had on our days off like that. They wanted us to help fill in with some of these Humvees. Humvee units that were getting hit with IEDs. So I guess the night before I didn't I wasn't aware of it. But my buddy Mike, that was on my team, he had volunteered to go out on a Humvee patrol.

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And we come back that morning. My team leader pulled out myself and my buddy Wil aside and said, hey, we wanted you guys to go out on patrol today with Mike. Mike's going. And Lieutenant Dooley, who was the lieutenant of our unit. Now Mike was, he was out of a unit in Philadelphia. Wasn't part of the last detachment that I was a part of.

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He got attached to us at some point in Mississippi, and a well was a was a guy the original first guy. And then Lieutenant Dooley was a lieutenant from the Vermont National Guard that we got linked up to when we when we went into Kuwait, they pulled us out of the PA guard and put us this Vermont unit.

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and they were like a mountain infantry unit. Pretty squared away, guys. So Lieutenant Dooley was from Vermont, so we'd only known him, you know, two months prior to this incident. But he was going to go out. Mike went out and it was up to me and well, to go out, be the third guy to go out in this, Humvee.

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We went back and forth like, hey, you know, you go out or you go out or I'll take this one. And we settled on that, we'll take this one, and I would take the next one the next time we had to fill in, went got breakfast together that morning. Came back. we've been out all night. I went to sleep, woke up around noon.

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From what I recall, my timeline's real fuzzy on the exact times, but I think it was around, you know, noon. when I woke up, we were just watching the movie. I heard a bunch of guys running outside, so knocked on our door and said, hey, Humvee was taken out. We have a couple cars we believe. We think it was your guys in that Humvee that had gone out.

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So, myself and my team leader, rocked up, got out, just grabbed our bags, grab our weapons. jumped in the next Humvee that was going out to help because, you know, you got to go out. you help clean up the site, help secure the site. You want to start knocking on doors and seeing who may have been responsible for it.

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So, hop in a Humvee. We fly down two Humvees. The always had two Humvees together, at least. And so two, two Humvees. we had a lead Humvee, I believe we went down towards the site, saw them kind of police in the site cleaning everything up. kicked in a door nearby. The guy was probably a couple hundred meters away.

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House couple hundred meters away from this massive IED. So the ID that took out Mark, Mike and Will, 6 to 855 millimeter mortar rounds, I thought, you know, to give you an idea,

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a 155 mortar dropped from the air, you know, traditionally shoot them from the air probably as a quarter to a half mile kill radius.

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And there were eight of these things buried under the ground in the dirt. The day I drove, driven over the Humvee was, unrecognizable. It was just shredded metal. to to not be too graphic. Neither one of my guys were fully intact. when they found the bodies and able to recover the bodies. So I think, well, my buddy, my closest buddy that was on my team was probably the closest to being fully and fully intact.

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As the ID had gone off underneath the front right driver's sides and Will was in the Gunners hatch. So he took a little less of it, but instantly killed as well. So we, kicked in a door question. A guy, he didn't hear anything, didn't see anything, which was, you know, total bullshit. You're 200m away from a massive explosion.

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you know, question him getting out of them. We decided to what had happened was they were going over these railroad tracks in these railroad berms and like, these big 20, 25ft berms that kind of separated the town from different parts of the town. They were going over the tracks and they got hit on that dirt road going over the tracks.

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Now, I mentioned earlier the guys that we replace that don't drive on dirt roads, we got complacent. We did it. And they kind of beat us into that, knew we would do it. And so we looped around. The tracks were flying down the road, probably doing about 40 miles an hour. Then just all of a sudden everything just goes black.

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And that's, the best way I can describe it is, you know, I talked about how big those explosions were. I don't remember feeling an explosion. I don't remember hearing an explosion. Just everything. Just went black. And then my ears are ringing. Kind of came to it. I don't know if I was knocked out. Don't remember if I was out for a second.

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I don't know if I was knocked out at all. You know what I mean? Don't really know. dust was everywhere. smoke. you know, because it was in the IEDs under the dirt. It's all that dirt. Like flies up. hit us in the front of the Humvee. Like, underneath the engine compartment.

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kind of came to it.

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Ears, a ring, and kind of had that whirring sound that you see in the movie sometimes, like the shell shock thing they try to recreate came to it. we all asked if we were okay, kind of did the felt around, felt my body parts. That was all there. And then we started engaging potential enemy locations where they would have been heightened to trigger that IED because somebody triggered it with a with a remote control.

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Got out of the Humvee. the other Humvee was following behind us, turned around, hooked up to us with like, a five foot tow strap. And that was our, SOP, our standard operating procedure was you tow back out the way you came in because you assume because you didn't hit an IED like that was the first IED.

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IED you hit, that there would be more down the road, but not from where you came from. Well, they knew we knew that. Right? So five feet away, being towed, dragged out by this Humvee, like, I don't know, a minute later, after we were being dragged, the second IED goes off underneath the rear end of that Humvee, popping both Humvees up in the air, slammed back down.

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again, same thing. Everything goes black. smoke, dust kind of come to it. So to our heads and then like ten minutes. Yeah, 5 to 10 minutes, something like that. And those ladies, they estimated were, 4 to 6, eight millimeter mortar rounds. They were like Chinese mortars they had gotten Ahold of at some point. Iraq had a massive stockpile of, you know, mortars and, and, warheads that they had gotten Ahold of after we cleared through.

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Right. We cleared through so quick, we didn't secure

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a lot of those ammo dumps. And so then the locals went and collected all that. Now, Qaida in Iraq, all those guys had collected that. And that's what they were using to, you know, improvised explosive devices. What that, you know, IED stands

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for. So whatever they could do, they were smart.

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so, yeah, we're, disabled. I get out of the Humvee, my platoon sergeant was in the second Humvee that was telling us. And I get out and I see him laying on the ground. I see blood on his leg. So I go over, check on him real quick. He's like, yeah, I'm good, I'm good. I call the doc over.

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We had a medic riding with me in my Humvee. You know, we all checked on each other or whatever. So now we're sitting there. We've got two disabled Humvees, no radios, no way to radio anyone. Luckily, on the on my last team, I was the RTL radio telephone operator. So I carry the radio with me, but normally didn't take my radio when I went in Humvees because the Humvees had radio.

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So luckily I grabbed my bag with the radio in it and was able to, you know, radio, the higher radio to the Humvee, not have a radio. Well, they had them. They got blown up. Oh, they got blown up. Yeah. Because the first Humvee, you know, it hit the engine compartment. So all your electronics are done. So you had no way to transmit.

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And the second Humvee, hit the rear end where all your antennas were. So, again, there's no power to. You just happened to grab your bag, and I had my portable radio with me, so I was able to pull that out, set it up, establish communication with the base, and then more most importantly, establish communication with the guys.

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We hadn't realized just on the other side of the tracks was where our guys were killed. So they were policing up the scene and cleaning the scene up. We actually were firing rounds underneath the tunnels under the track, thinking that's where the the, triggerman could have been. And our rounds were impacting near our guys cleaning up the scene.

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So we almost had a green on green incident, but me getting on the radio, I guess, they thought, stop, stop fucking shooting. Your rounds are nearest you're going to hit us with your rounds. So, it's part of, I guess, part of the reason they,

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you know, with my award, that's this one thing they, you know, potentially save some green on green incidents and, you know, green on green is,

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Yeah. You hear about that happening every once in a while. It's unfortunate what happens in war chaos, a war. So,

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that we're sitting there for my brain tells me an hour to two hours. I don't know how long we were really stranded out there, but we were kind of hunkered down between the Humvees and the railroad tracks on the other side of the Humvees, where some apartment buildings elevated positions.

00:21:24:00 - 00:21:38:15

not to sloped roofs. Sorry. A little dig on the current situation with the, the Trump thing, but yeah. No. So but you're, you know, you're in a, you're in a low position where you don't want to be because, you know, sniper these snipers over there too.

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so they started sending, people out to help us out, but we were so short staffed.

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So I think that's why we were waiting for a while. So they were sending they sent a, 113 troop carrier down there and very lightly armored. Not one of the up armored things. Remember, in oh five, we didn't have all the fancy up, armored, you know, vehicles. Some of the Humvees weren't armored like they should be.

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They were like they are now. They don't even use Humvees in combat anymore. They got those big V-shaped. I don't know what they're called now. You've been out too long, but, so it comes flying down the road and I see it coming down the same road we are on. They had 13 guys packed this on armored thing and I get on the radio, I'm like, get the fuck off the road, get off the road now go off road.

00:22:18:09 - 00:22:39:15

Because I was just I mean, just thinking, an IED the size of I'd had asked if it hits that underneath that, that's 30 more guys dead. So they stop, pulled off the road and they went off road. It didn't go down the dirt road anymore. So now I potentially was credited for potentially saving, you know, 13 more lives is what they, credit it to.

00:22:39:15 - 00:22:59:15

So, at that point, actually between getting blown up in those guys coming down the road, that's when we actually found out it was our guys that were killed. We didn't know, you know, we didn't know for sure. And then that situation, we were, you know, waiting on the other side of the tracks where they were cleaning it up.

00:22:59:17 - 00:23:21:16

EOD, the guys, the bomb disposal guys, we're doing a post blast analysis. So what they do is they go in the hole, they look to see what kind of IED they were using, trying to learn their technology. that guy saw a secondary IED in the hole. They knew that we did post blast analysis, so they planted a second IED to kill the guy that goes in the hole looking that EOD guy says IDed.

00:23:21:20 - 00:23:40:15

He starts running it. Now, from my point of view, we just see this bomb go off on the other side of the tracks again. Right. And later to come to find out, that was the marine EOD guy doing his analysis. he takes off running in, bomb goes off, peppers the back of his legs, blows his, you know, blows his legs, his pants off a little bit.

00:23:40:15 - 00:24:01:07

And then there's actually a, there was a reporter from the Oklahoma News World Herald there at the time, or Omaha News World Herald, and he takes a picture as the guy was getting a load on the helicopter, they wanted to put on a stretcher. You said, no, I'm walking out here. He turns around and he flicks off the town and, it was captured like it's a pretty iconic image.

00:24:01:09 - 00:24:27:19

And, you know, that was all because of what had happened that day. A helicopter swoops and picks them up. So just a crazy, chaotic, well-planned ambush by by those guys over there. so all that within few hours? Yeah, a few hours. So. Well, sun comes up. Well, so we my guys get there and that 113 we continue to clear kind of went cleared some buildings

00:24:27:19 - 00:24:28:13

or whatever.

00:24:28:13 - 00:24:48:10

Finally got some tanks out there to hook the Humvees up to and just drag them out with tanks. The tanks are pretty solid. They weren't affected too much by IED, so you need a pretty, pretty massive IED to take out a tank. So but we ride, we get back in that 113 vehicle carrier. We we sat it like sardine in there, probably 20 of us packed in this thing.

00:24:48:12 - 00:25:06:17

And to be honest, Jimmy, that was the scariest moment of my life. Like everything that happened leading up to that, it happened when you're unaware, right? It just happens. Everything goes black. You don't really know what's going on. but that drive back in that thing, I mean, I my butthole was as tight as I could possibly be.

00:25:06:19 - 00:25:23:13

that. And then the next time I went out on mission later on, after all that happened, were probably the two most scariest moments in my life. Because now, now you know what can happen and you can't do anything about it. You can't control it. So. So you go back to base. they made me go see medical right away, and I'm, you know, I don't want to be there.

00:25:23:13 - 00:25:40:15

I don't want to talk to anybody. I kind of just brush through medical, you know? Everything's fine. ringing my ears a little bit, some kind of muffling. And then we had to, We had to load our guys up and the like from the body bags, take them out of the cooler, put them on a helicopter and send them to, you know, back on their way back to the states.

00:25:40:18 - 00:25:57:10

So we'll get back to our room. And, and I just think that's where, you know, everyone just there was silence. There was four of us to a room. Will was in my room. So, you know, it's no longer there. snuck some alcohol. We had people that sent us over from the States, you know, had a drink

00:25:57:10 - 00:25:57:14

crazy.

00:25:57:14 - 00:26:16:06

Smoked a cigar. I don't know if it was a drone or not, but, you know, just like to. Sobering moment. You know, half my team was taken out. And my lieutenant, who was I think he was 26. He was a young guy at the time. that was. Yeah. So how much longer were you over there doing?

00:26:16:06 - 00:26:35:10

Did you. So that was September of oh five. We didn't come home till end of May of oh six. So you're early. I'll just reading from. Yeah. So myself personally, you know, that was, we had a four man team, myself and my team leader, you know, only ones that survived that. He was with us, in the Humvee as well.

00:26:35:10 - 00:26:59:03

We'd gone out to. He'd gotten blown up as well. So he. That was in September. so I just started kind of going out with our other three teams. We had we just fill in or just be like the fifth man on the team, and we were looking at putting a another team together, maybe pull some other guys, some of our other last guys that had gone over and got pieced out, we talked about maybe pulling them in, but then my team leader had to go home at the end of October, had some family issues.

00:26:59:03 - 00:27:14:05

So I was the last person there for my four man team. So I just basically just filled in with the other teams because you started sending people home on two weeks, people would get to go home for two weeks. So it's about like a three week process. By the time they left, went home, you know, you got two weeks at home.

00:27:14:07 - 00:27:35:03

So I just became the fill in on different teams and kind of settled in with one team, more or less with my buddy Joe and team leader. Both my team leaders over there were named Jason. So the original guys went over with from the National Guard. How many came home? from our last attachment. Yeah. So all of us, except Will.

00:27:35:05 - 00:27:56:11

And like I said, Mike had been from a Philadelphia unit, so. But, you know, the detachment, the the, the, the guys that deployed on the teams, you know, two guys, only those two guys died. Luckily, no more were killed from us. But I think the PA guard lost in total 70 around 70 people on that deployment, which is, you know, pretty significant.

00:27:56:11 - 00:28:16:05

And then we had fallen under the marine, the Marine Division. The Marines were in Ramadi. We've fallen them their leadership. I think that whole deployment between the Marines and the National Guard, guys that were over there, that we lost, 150 people, I think, in a year. So which is it's pretty significant who came home the next May and what's the next step?

00:28:16:10 - 00:28:31:14

I at that point. So I got home in May I think we got home in June. So by the time I got home it was like end of June. My contract was up in October, my six years was up, come October. So we had gotten three months off. Once we got back, we didn't have to go, you know, go to drill or anything.

00:28:31:14 - 00:28:42:08

So I was basically done at that point. You know, they said, hey, you're, you know, you're good. I was three and a half years in through college at that point, and I had,

00:28:42:08 - 00:28:53:03

my daughter is kind of part of my, my story, not my biological daughter, but she had been born right before I left. So. And then I had proposed to my wife when I was home on leave, and, February of oh six.

00:28:53:03 - 00:29:07:11

So, you know, I was ready to start a family, finish college, start a career. So that's what I did. I, finished school up that year. I was able not to, you know, don't have to work or anything and just finish school with the funding and everything and the money I'd saved over there. So I didn't have to.

00:29:07:13 - 00:29:25:23

I didn't have to work. I was able to move in with my wife, now wife and daughter at the time, and basically just started life at that point. So how much did these events that happened back in Ramadi keep you up at night or change your focus in life, or maybe took away your focus in life? I mean,

00:29:25:23 - 00:29:36:05

that event didn't necessarily mess with my head and like, well, when I went back and forth about who should go on that mission and I had some people say, well, you know, lucky it wasn't you that one had gone out.

00:29:36:05 - 00:29:53:23

But, you know, had I gone out, maybe I did something that made a different turn that never took them to that place where they were blown up. Right. So, you know, it doesn't mean you can't just switch bodies and say, oh, you would have died. You know, you would have been in that position and died. So I never I never really had like survivor's guilt or anything like that.

00:29:54:01 - 00:30:14:08

The hardest part about transitioning is that you go from and being in the National Guard, you're not doing Army every day, you're not playing soldier every day. You're going to work, you know, you're going to school, you know, a lot of guys were cops. A lot of guys were school teachers, etc.. And then and then one weekend a month, you go play, you know, you go play army, right?

00:30:14:10 - 00:30:41:02

It's just like you're a kid and then you go to war. So you come back from this, you're hypersensitive. Everything is a big deal, right? There's nothing. It's not a big deal over there. You know, you have to be aware of everything. Every sound, every, you know, piece of trash in the road could be covering an IED. So you come back for that, and you're hypervigilant and you react to things in a way that's, you know, you how you reacted for the last year or so.

00:30:41:04 - 00:31:03:12

The smallest argument you get, your wife can turn in, you know, turn into a big argument, right? And she wanted things to be normal. Right. And, you know, she wasn't hypervigilant for a year and didn't understand that I was. So it's it. And we didn't have the counseling. We didn't have the war in oh three. This is 0506.

00:31:03:12 - 00:31:24:05

You didn't have the resources that the guys necessarily were able to develop and have and say 2010 and beyond, right? So that was the hardest part was transitioning back to civilian life and then going to college. you know, with antiwar people. And, you know, it wasn't you know, it wasn't Vietnam, right? It was, you know, they didn't treat us like Vietnam, but you still had to be around that, you know, college atmosphere.

00:31:24:05 - 00:31:42:06

Now, luckily, I just commuted and went to class and came home some wasn't living on campus or anything, but that was the hardest part was it took me a good year plus to really kind of like, did you settle back down? Obviously kind of a near-death experience, if you will. One of your best buddies. You had breakfast of that morning.

00:31:42:06 - 00:32:05:21

He died a few hours after you had breakfast with him. Did all of that caused you to rethink the direction of life for the goals of life for you? I want to be a cop. Maybe I'll be an airline pilot. Did you did that switch your mind? yeah. Not. Not necessarily with that. What it did to me was it made me realize that life can go away in a second and it can go away.

00:32:05:23 - 00:32:25:12

And you don't have you don't have control of everything. You know, up until that point, I controlled all my decisions, right? I controlled, you know, I'm going to graduate high school, I'm going to go to college, I'm going to do this. That's the first moment that I realized that I was consciously able to realize that I had no control over that, and that kind of made me rethink more.

00:32:25:12 - 00:32:29:15

So like, I don't want to I don't want to waste my life like I don't want to.

00:32:29:15 - 00:32:47:16

like, I can't stop moving forward, basically. Like, I gotta keep moving forward. And at that point I wasn't really into, you know, part of me wanted to help veterans, but guys that came back with, you know, no arms, no legs, missing limbs that you got, you know, I didn't I didn't really feel like I was hurt, quote unquote, hurt.

00:32:47:21 - 00:33:02:17

You know, I had some I have some TBI, some, some brain damaged stuff from the, the explosions. But I did want to help. But I was so hyper focused on my family. You know, we had had the daughter before we left. we were getting married in oh seven. That following year. We wanted to have a second kid.

00:33:02:17 - 00:33:20:17

So I was really hyper focused on becoming a dad and, you know, finishing my degree and being able to provide for my family. And knowing that as you learn, life could be snuffed out at any moment. That's the cool thing about the podcast is that we have some guys that, you know, go like me. I roam the streets of Africa and have a nonprofit organization.

00:33:20:22 - 00:33:38:23

But we've said since we started the podcast that not everybody's going to start a nonprofit. Not everyone's going to do. Some people just wake up one day and realize my why? I got to be the best damn dad I could possibly be. I got to serve my fellow brothers that suffered in war. Yeah, do that the best I can be it.

00:33:39:02 - 00:34:02:11

It's not like we all have to start an organization or do something that's official. Sometimes it's just being the best dang dad you could be. Because, yeah, you wake up and say, life's short. I've been taking advantage of what I can. Yeah. And that's and that's that's a good segue into my wife and my I would say my first why that I've realized in life was being the best, being the best husband that I could be.

00:34:02:22 - 00:34:23:10

you know, trying to guide my kids, even guide my wife. That and I said in another speech, I did like, everybody gets blown up, right? And you're blown up is different. And then you're blown up as big and you're blown up as small. Everyone gets blown up, your first break up as a 12 year old or whatever, you know, you got blown up right at that point.

00:34:23:10 - 00:34:43:03

That's probably the worst thing that's happened in your life. Your parents get divorced, you got blown up. you know, when you're three years old, the kid stole your toy in kindergarten or preschool. You got blown up, right? You know, kids react in a way that, you know, that's the worst thing that's happened to them. So being able to help, you know, guide my kids that, you know, you're going to get blown up and you can't do anything about it.

00:34:43:03 - 00:34:57:20

But the only thing you can do is keep moving forward. Because if I didn't keep moving forward, if I didn't finish college, if I didn't get a degree, if I had drowned myself in a bottle, stuck needles in my arms, what would I have? What example? What I've been to my kids? What example? What I've been to other veterans?

00:34:57:22 - 00:35:22:06

What would I have been to the families of my friends. The died like they, their kids, their brothers, their, you know, their husbands, their sons didn't have an opportunity to finish life. It was taken from them. And here I survived and I'm out being a shithead. And that's not you're not doing a justice to them, right? So you did keep your head focused and did move forward.

00:35:22:06 - 00:35:41:15

Other guys come back in those situations, don't they? Do hide it in a bottle. They do, other things. You were me story before we started about you stayed in touch or ran across Mike's daughter? Yeah. So Mike was 36, and he was still a little older than most of us when we were there. He was 36 when he was killed.

00:35:41:15 - 00:35:47:00

His daughter was, I believe, five years old. Her name is Sam. Sam and Samantha.

00:35:48:04 - 00:36:01:12

I had not met Sam until April of this year of 2024. Oh, wow. You know, we moved to Colorado about 12 years ago. So, and prior to that just didn't have a chance. So she was five and her dad was blown up.

00:36:01:13 - 00:36:17:13

Yeah. Was killed. So. So she knew him, you know, a little bit. Whatever a five year old can remember at that time. So she kind of. I asked her, she remembered, she remembered things. It was just a planned meeting at the graveside or so at the same time. What happened was my son Parker is, he's 16. He plays seven on seven football.

00:36:17:18 - 00:36:37:08

very similar to River, I think. So he's like, you know, defensive back, wide receiver. So he got involved in at seven and seven and we had a tournament, in new Jersey outside of Philadelphia. and Mike was from Philadelphia and his family was from, from Philly. So we are in new Jersey. I looked up where Mike was buried, and on Sunday was the last day of the tournament, and we were done at about 10:00.

00:36:37:10 - 00:36:54:00

So I'd said to and we were about a half hour from the cemetery heading back towards PA. We have family grown PA, we have family and PA. We were going to go visit family and stuff over there. So I messaged Maria, his widow and Sam and said, hey, we're about a half hour from the cemetery. You guys want to meet up there tomorrow?

00:36:54:00 - 00:37:10:02

I haven't been to my I hadn't been to Mike's gravesite yet. I'd been to my lieutenant Mark Dooley's, buried at Arlington, and then my buddy Wills buried in Redding, PA, and we're real close with Wills wife. Up until she was, I told you before, she was murdered about four years ago. so had been real close with her.

00:37:10:02 - 00:37:26:14

Been to his gravesite, but never been a mix gravesite. So I said, I want to go see Mike. And they said, well, we're about an hour away, but we'll meet you there on Sunday. So we meet them at the gravesite. First time I ever meet Sam. Great kid. you know, with all the cards stacked against her, her dad dying.

00:37:26:16 - 00:37:41:17

you know, I think there was some family issues with other, you know, men trying to step up and they, you know, really didn't. So it was really just her and her mom that move forward after he was killed. So she had all the reasons you know, not to be a good kid, you know, maybe not go to college, not do something with herself.

00:37:41:17 - 00:37:54:07

But I think she's recently or about to graduate and is going to be a school teacher. So I meet her their first time meeting her. you know, we talk about might, you know. Hey, he got any stories? Not Mike. You can tell me that I don't know. And he told a couple of funny stories from.

00:37:54:07 - 00:38:13:06

From, my time with Mike over there, and then, you know, we're getting ready to leave, so I got to give her a hug, and I give her a hug, and she. Just. The way she hugged me was. It felt different. Like just something felt different. Maybe the way she squeezed me or something, but I could feel something different.

00:38:13:08 - 00:38:30:16

And so we say our goodbyes. I get in the car and I start drive. We start driving, on our way back to pay, and my wife is, you know, instantly Facebook friend Sam and she's chat with Sam back and forth and, you know, without me saying anything to anyone at this point, Sam says to my wife and her text, she goes,

00:38:30:16 - 00:38:33:01

I'm so glad I got to meet you guys.

00:38:33:01 - 00:38:52:16

And when I hugged Jason, I could feel I could feel my dad for like one of the first times I could actually feel my dad like, I feel my dad through Jason because I was one of the the last guys to be with Mike. you know, we were on that mission the night before and, and I like and I had said to my wife, you know, same thing.

00:38:52:16 - 00:39:20:05

I felt something different, like two separate things. What those feelings. And, and so you have you had of giving up or taking life focus. Not seriously. The daughter would have never had that moment that. Yeah, almost made that moment closer. Possibly. Yeah. We may not have met. Yeah. So or she, you know whether maybe she had closure, but, you know, I don't know what it's like to lose just a nice memory, a father.

00:39:20:05 - 00:39:39:14

Yeah. Just, a nice memory, you know? So you said something true about your. Why? It's not like we're going to give some website at the bottom and, anything like that, but it's just a lesson that all of us that, like what you said get blown up. Yeah. it could be a marriage, could be a business, could be a job, could be your seven and some car accident.

00:39:39:14 - 00:39:57:15

Car accident? Yeah. And your. Why really is to use your story to tell people. Keep going. Yeah. You got a purpose. You're going to get blown up. You don't know when you're going to get blown up, but it's going to happen. You've been blown up for sure. Yeah Jimmy two times you know. Yeah. Exactly. So you know I continue to get blown up.

00:39:57:17 - 00:40:14:13

Yeah. Yeah. There's some, you know, issues in our, in our family's lives that we've had to deal with. And it's just, you know, every day I got, you know, the Microsoft outing this morning blew me up from work. I wasn't able to work. It's terrible, I know, but, you know, you do. You get you blown up every day and it's, some are some are minor, but some are big.

00:40:14:13 - 00:40:37:08

And, you know, me getting blown up is no different than somebody else, you know, emotionally getting blown up. Right? And like I said before, the physical part of getting blown up didn't hurt. You know, that didn't hurt. I don't I don't remember it really. Us. Yeah. But the, the emotional and some of the, the other stuff that's happened in my life has, has been worse than what I went through in Iraq.

00:40:37:08 - 00:40:54:14

So and so some of the stories that you are able to tell, I know you've done some speeches, you've done some podcast, and that's your message is, hey, yeah, keep going, keep going, no matter who you are. Yeah. You know, it's not a it's not a message to just veterans. You know, veterans. Listen you got to keep going to.

00:40:54:15 - 00:41:13:18

Yeah. But everyone that's that can hear my voice or hear that hear my story. Keep going because it's going to it's going to lead you to something. Yeah. Yeah. That attitude you know, the one I did work with the veteran nonprofit called The Next Objective. And that was the point was, you know, what's your next objective? You know, you take everyone takes two steps back at some point.

00:41:13:18 - 00:41:32:22

Are you going to take the what's your next step? What's your next step forward? Right. So just keep going because you never know when your moment, your moment comes. And that moment may have been at that cemetery. That might be the defining moment of why I lived or why I needed to be here. I don't know. So, you know, those are those questions are higher than me.

00:41:32:22 - 00:41:57:11

They're way above my pay grade. Yeah. I'm a spiritual person. I, you know, I believe in God. And I think that, you know, I don't know, that's I can point to several things in my life on why I lived, you know, and no one deserves to die, you know, no one. And I and I say this, I don't ever want it to sound horrible, but, like, it sucks those guys died.

00:41:57:11 - 00:42:18:19

But I'm glad I didn't write. I'm not that person that says, oh, and take their place. You know, I, I, I want to be here. Yeah, right. It's horrible that they died. But no, I wouldn't want to trade. I wouldn't want to trade with them. Right. You figure it out. So purpose beyond just anything without those experiences maybe would have just what you said just earned that good living.

00:42:18:19 - 00:42:35:10

And $55,000. You've been just a savior. Nothing wrong with being a state patrol. Yeah, because you got blown up. Yeah. You're able to encourage other people in a way that you couldn't encourage them before. Yeah. Correct. And I didn't I changed my major. Actually. I, you know what I do now is I make maps for a living from a given geography.

00:42:35:10 - 00:42:51:12

So. Yeah. Yeah. So the geography and history, it all kind of goes together. But, you know, I got a good job. I love my job. And, but my passion really is, I think, telling my story and just hoping if one person hears my story and says that that guy can do it, then I can do it. That's that's all I want.

00:42:51:15 - 00:43:10:15

You all going to get blown up? Yeah. Jason Harrington thank you sir. Jamie, I appreciate everything through your service to your country as well. That's this edition of the Critical Mission podcast. We got another exciting one coming up. Lots of great guests in the queue. But Jason Harrington, thanks for the day. Don't forget, our website is my mission is critical.com.

00:43:10:15 - 00:43:11:22

We'll see you next time.