Host 1:09

Man, this episode has been a long time coming, bro. We were just talking about it before I started recording, and I think I mean you were probably one of the first people I talked to even before I even thought about starting a podcast. We uh this is probably like early 24, you were on the boat. And um then we finally got it going, and I remember I was talking like let's do this story, man. And you were I mean all over the world. Yeah. And then I think when we finally started, like, man, I I really I think when I finally really started pitching you, you were sailing across the Pacific. Yeah, and I remember that's pretty cool, bro. I don't know. That's a 30-hour plane ride. I know you pitched some good ideas. We talked about even doing it on the boat at one time, but I'm like, man, I don't I don't know how to travel with all this equipment.

Eric Shelvy 1:55

Yeah, and the seagulls making noise and pelicans. Or Logan in the background. Exactly.

Host 2:02

Eric and I have been friends for we were talking yesterday, it's been 11 years we met um when we worked together, and we've been through a ton of crap together, dude. The last 11 years have flown by. It was really crazy as we were sitting by the fire last night just talking about all the different things and our lives, and it's pretty wild, man. I'm super uh super thankful to have you here, man.

Eric Shelvy 2:23

Yeah, happy to be here. Yeah, we've been talking about it for a long time. It's it's cool to see it all come uh to fruition. Yeah, it really is.

Host 2:32

Uh the week of New Year's Eve this year, I think you called me like you know, the week before New Year's Eve, and you're like, hey man, I'll do the podcast. If you guys fly out to Florida, uh we'll do your pot we'll do the podcast prep, and then I'll fly do the podcast. And I was I think we it was like three days notice. And I was like, you know what, dude? We got I got every reason to say no and every reason to say yes. Yes, we did.

Eric Shelvy 2:56

I was out for uh I was out for a run one morning and you were talking about doing this podcast prep, and I just had an idea. I was like, that dude needs to come, I'll get him to come here. You know, we're close to the beach. Of course, it's freezing because it's yeah, because that's our life. That's that's the way it works, right? Every time we have guests or something, either the the boat doesn't work or the weather sucks. There's always something, but I just had an idea. I was like, you come out here and then we'll do it. And uh you went there and now we're here. Yeah, man.

Host 3:23

We podcast prep for like, man, we walked through the jungles and then walked all the way down the beach. I think we walked like five miles just talking. It was uh it was cool, man. It was really, you know, I've known you for a long time and I've I've heard, you know, you and I have talked about a lot of things, but you know, in that podcast prep, you know, you I really I spent a we spent four days almost talking in bits and pieces. So yeah, um, so Eric Shelvy, ladies and gentlemen. Eric's uh Eric's our first uh Marine on the podcast. Martin had been in the Marine Corps but didn't go to war. Um Eric has uh just a one of the most unique stories, and Eric's an extremely close friend of mine. So um everybody gets an intro, man. I'm gonna give you yours.

Eric Shelvy 4:01

I can't wait.

Host 4:04

November 22nd, 2004. A photograph appears on the cover of Time magazine. A young Marine, face twisted on a primal scream, captured Mid-Assault in Fallujah, Iraq. His name is Eric Shelvy. He was 21 years old. And if you think you know where the story's going, you're wrong. This isn't a story you can put in a box because Eric Shelvy has spent his entire life destroying boxes, the ones other people build for him, and the ones he builds for himself. It starts with a kid in an elite Jesuit high school in St. Louis, a school where 99.9% of graduates go to college. Eric's the point one percent. He's the one spending weekends in police cars with his cop father, watching drug busts. Nobody doesn't fit the mold, so he enlists in the Marines straight out of high school. The only one in his class goes to Iraq twice. The second time he's a squad leader in Fallujah, 21 years old, leading men through the heaviest urban combat since Vietnam. That photograph on Time magazine, that's him in the middle of it. House to house, door to door, friends dying, the kind of combat that marks you forever. He comes home, gets the embassy assignment everyone said was impossible, Moscow. They told the program, you can't send this guy to Moscow. He's fresh out of Fallujah. They sent him anyway. In Moscow, this combat marine learns Russian and carries a diplomatic passport. He serves in The Hague, then he gets his final assignment, the one he didn't even want, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. He's furious about it. Where the hell is Kuala Lumpur? Yes, the other side of the planet. He had no idea that assignment would change everything. One night in an expat bar, Eric, still learning Russian, still carrying that Fallujah weight, sees two blonde women, clearly Eastern European. He says something in Russian, one of them responds in Ukrainian. I'm not Russian, I'm Ukrainian. Her name is Natalia. She's a stunningly beautiful ballerina, trained in Russia, ballet, performing at a resort in the mountains outside of Kuala Lumpur. She hardly speaks English. He barely speaks Russian. They can hardly communicate. They fall in love anyway. She gets pregnant. Eric's 21. When he fought in Fallujah, now facing a different kind of courage. He makes a choice. He asks her to marry him. He fights the embassy bureaucracy to get her visa. He threatens to knock out the ambassador's door himself if they don't get help. He writes to his congressman, he flies to Ukraine and picks her up, and then he does something that shocks everyone who knew him. He leaves the Marine Corps, the identity he's worn since he was 18 years old. Why? To join the State Department, to make more money, to give his new family, his new wife, his newborn daughter, a better life, to be present, to be a father. He becomes a diplomatic security service agent, protects foreign ministers and world leaders, eventually moves on to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, certified as an explosive specialist, fugitive task force, investigating firearms trafficking, explosives, the career most people dream about. And then at the peak of all, he does the most unexpected thing yet, and he walks away. Eric sells his house, pulls his two kids out of school, flies to Panama, and buys a cellboat. And for nearly three years, the Marine from the Time magazine cover, the federal agent, the explosives investigator, the diplomat, sells around the world with his wife and his children. The Caribbean, South America, crossed the entire Pacific Ocean, the French Polynesia, Fiji, New Zealand, Paradise After Paradise, documented all on YouTube, teaching his kids to navigate by the stars, learning that sometimes the bravest thing he can do is stop running toward the next impossible mission and just live. So here's what makes Eric's story extraordinary. At every single turn, when life tries to define him, war hero, marine, federal agent, husband, father, he refuses a script. He takes what he's learned, he honors where he's been, and then he builds something entirely new. From Fallujah to Moscow, from combat to ballet, from Russian embassies to Caribbean anchorages, from a bar in Kuala Lumpur where he met a woman who couldn't speak his language to selling across oceans with her and the kids. This is a story about a man who's been called the one his entire adult life, the one who gets picked for the impossible assignments, the one who survives in Fallujah, the one who goes to Moscow, the one who gets the career, but it's also about the moment Eric realized being the one for everyone else was keeping him from being the one for himself, for his wife, and for his kids. So he redefined everything. Twenty years after that photograph, Eric Shelby is still destroying boxes, still refusing to be defined by anyone else's expectations, still brave, just in ways that don't make magazine covers. This isn't a war story. This isn't a love story. This isn't a sailing story. This is a story about someone who refuses to be contained. Someone who looks at the boxes society builds, marine, hero, agent, father, the American dream, and says, That's cute, but I'm building my own. Today we're going to hear how he did it, all of it. This is Eric Shelvy, and I guarantee you you've never heard a story like this. Let's begin. Sounds pretty crazy when you say it like that, doesn't it? You've lived a crazy life, dude. Uh never forget the day we met, man. Um, I kind of, you know, we we normally we tell the whole life story here. So, you know, if you could, let's go back to kind of what's your earliest memory. Where did your story start for you?

Eric Shelvy 9:02

So I grew up in in St. Louis. Uh my parents were divorced when I was very young. So I was probably th three years old, I believe. And have vague memories of that back and forth. Mostly of what I remember in uh early years of growing up was you know, go to school, play sports, do that stuff, um, all Catholic schools. And then uh I saw my father once a week. One day he'd pick us up from school, we'd spend the night, watch movies, do whatever. My sister and I and that was it. That was kind of grade school, if you will.

Host 9:39

What was it like getting picked up from school in a cop car?

Eric Shelvy 9:43

Well, I always thought it was like the coolest thing in the world, right? But uh you know, he had a he had a car, he had a marked police car that he gets he kept, right? Like I don't know, some departments still do it now, but he had a take-home car. So and you were a police officer, you know, like a marked police car is like a magnet for good and bad. It's just shit, right? Like it's a magnet, something crazy always happens. And um, I always thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Um, because everywhere we went, you know, sometimes I remember being a kid and you pull up to a stoplight and they're like, Where are those kids in that police car, right? I'd like to bang my head against the window like I was being arrested and stuff, you know, just little kid stuff. And but something always happened, and it was it was always uh it was I always fun, it was exciting. You know, you sit in school and do what everyone else does all day long, and then you have this kind of uh I guess peek into the other side, not understanding any of it, you know, not understanding the the job and really what it is and and what's going on, but I I do remember I do remember that. So yeah, being in a police car as a kid, it it draws a lot of attention.

Host 10:49

You kind of catted this kind of contentious relationship with your mom. Um, you know, obviously you're going back and forth. What was uh what was it like with your mom growing up?

Eric Shelvy 10:59

Contentius is a perfect word for that. Um I don't know if I could I I'd have to I mean we have all the time in the world, right? But um it was contentious to say the least. So I I don't I don't know if I could put my finger on exactly what it was. I think there was a a big falling out with my mom and dad. I I was too young to remember like the arguments or what they were about. I I don't have any recollection of of that. I just know it wasn't um a peaceful separation, if you will. So I I always suspected, you know, I don't know, my mom had a problem with him, which in turn had a problem with me, because I was just a mini me.

Host 11:46

You know, the way You are a mini mini me of your dad, dude.

Eric Shelvy 11:49

Yeah. In a good way. Yeah, and my son's a mini me of me. That's what my wife tells me all the time. He's like, you see you two, you it's like yelling at a mirror between the two of you. And um so I don't have a lot of recollection of that, but there was it was it was a lot of acrimony, a lot of resentment, there was a lot of anger built up, um, it just created created a hostile home environment. And I didn't want any part of it. I didn't like it. Um, and I guess early on I was trying to find a way out of that, I guess. How did you end up at a Catholic high school? So my mom uh was very religious. Uh my grandfather on my mom's side was a highly regarded uh college professor at St. Lawrence University. So my mom and her two sisters and her brother all uh highly educated, all you know, went to top schools, and you know, kind of looking at it back now, I think it it was a different generation. You know, it's kind of that Vietnam era of uh, you know, if you were smart, you went to school, and if you weren't smart, you went to Vietnam. And you know, my dad went to Vietnam. Um and I I think that was probably part of it. You know, he didn't fit that mold of academia and he was a cop, and that was you know, I think it's much different now, obviously, you know, what the military is and what it can do for you. Um but I think back then it was very different. Yeah, especially everybody coming back from Vietnam and You know, I think back then it was like, hey, you go to jail or you go in the Marines. And that obviously doesn't happen anymore. Um but the military was always kind of a it's what you do when you have nothing else to do. And you go be a cop when you'd have no nothing else to do. And I think that was a big point between my father and my mom's side of the family. Makes sense. That's what I always that's what I always suspected. And I I think I quickly re uh came to understand that I was much more like him than I was like her, and you know, I was being force fed, you know, religion and academia, and you have to go to schools and all this stuff, and I just didn't I it I didn't want to do that. And the older I got, the more I realized that that I was not going to do that. When I started having the ability to make my own decisions. Um but you know, I was in Catholic schools and I I didn't dislike it because that's all I I really knew, you know, and so I mean I liked school, like any kid, you know, play sports, you hang out with your friends, things like that. So I didn't like resent the the the Catholic education I had, I just didn't believe it. You know, it's like you go to rel it's like you know, you go to church during school and stuff like that. It's like whatever. It's an hour of no one yelling at me, you know.

Host 15:23

You are probably one of the most intelligent dudes I've met, which is kind of funny to say for a Marine. No offense to the Marines out there. We've made a lot of cran jokes. Uh, but I mean you've got um, you know, I think you've I've got one or two master's degrees. Um and you're you and I have always had like these very in-depth, high-level intellectual conversations. Were you a kid in school that really just questioned life?

Eric Shelvy 15:47

Probably not. Um I think this, you know, and and and I would agree with you, you know, I I enjoy these intellectual conversations. I I enjoy talking to to doctors and and people who do high-level things. Things are just interesting, you know. I I enjoy conversations where I can learn something from you, and maybe you can learn something from me. And, you know, that conversation nowadays just doesn't happen much anymore, you know. And we'll come full circle on this when we get to the sailing stuff and how that community is perfect for that. And I that's one part of it that I really enjoyed. But no, I I wouldn't I don't I did get a good education, but I don't think I realized it until much later.

Host 16:31

Oh, that's that's us being dudes. Um your mom unfortunately passed away in 2018, and you know, you you said it got better before she passed. When did it get better? And and what do you think helped that?

Eric Shelvy 16:45

Well, she had a lot of ideas of what was the right path in life, I guess. We all do for our kids, you know. Now you realize that of course it all comes in a big circle. But she had an idea that, you know, I would go to college and be this academic and be a lawyer or whatever, whatever she had in her mind. But it was like you have to follow this path in order to be successful in life, you know, and that was uh her path, you know, and and her what she grew up with. And my dad's path was different, and that's what he thought you had to do. And we all have our own idea of our path, you know, pathway to success. And but you know, what does success mean? You know, you know, it's like what's the point? You know, that's and you can you can talk about that all day, all night, you know, what's the point and what path to follow? And so I don't think her her her idea of me going to c to college and following this this path versus what I wanted to do and where I felt comfortable, you know, it's it's tough to say. But she had, you know, when I said I when I told her I was going in the military and she's I think as the older I got the more she became to understand how much like my father I was. I think the the more resentment kind of came out. Um I think in her mind it was a bad decision. You know, she's like if you go in the military, you're gonna be a cop just like your dad and you're gonna be making, you know, 30 grand a year and working every Christmas and which was probably true. I mean in hindsight, that's that's probably what was going to happen. And uh, you know, towards uh the end uh tour in high school, you know, and I started um you know, going to colleges with friends, you know, have like their brothers there or something like that, and you go hang out for a weekend or whatever, and and I saw it and it was like just a bunch of drunk idiots puking up natty light on the carpet. I'm like, I don't know, I mean, like this isn't um this is not really for me. And I mean my and my mom flawed told me it's like you're not you want to go to college, you pay for it yourself, you know. So it just didn't do anything for me. It didn't excite me. It didn't um I had no like I didn't want to be a lawyer, I didn't want to be a doctor. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn't want to do. Yeah kind of thing.

Host 19:15

You started doing ride-alongs with your dad at 16. This is a cool story you were you were telling me. Uh your dad worked permanent midnights for like 20 years, so you'd finish your mom's curfew at like 11 and then you'd you're like what you'd go meet up with your dad?

Eric Shelvy 19:27

Yeah, that's exactly what I did. So um, you know, I had a cur, yeah, I guess, yeah, 16, I guess, when I you know, when I started driving, and uh I had a curfew when it was like 10 or 11, something like that. And I I I'm not sure how it started doing that. Um so I get yeah, my dad was a policeman for 40 years. In St. Louis, right? Yeah, in St. Louis, so right out of Vietnam from 1970 to 2011. So he was kind of the the senior curmudgeon of the entire department, you know. And so when I was younger, you know, I had a curfew, 10 or 11, something like that. And I'd be like, well, I'm just gonna go hang out with dad. So I would just go to the police station, one of the substations or something, and I would hang out because I didn't want to go home. And I would just hang out in the police station and and some and at first I was riding with him, you know, we just drive around and he was a sergeant, so you know, nothing was super exciting, nothing got him riled up. Yeah, right. I mean, all hell would be breaking loose, and he was like, uh, he's going 20 miles an hour. And you know, police cars are going 100 miles an hour past him, and he shows up on the steam scene and is screaming at the cops for going too fast. Don't worry about the guy with the gun going nuts in the front yard. He's yelling at the young policeman because they're driving too fast because they passed him, you know, things like that. I just I'm like, I'm gonna be in that car, I gotta go with those, those guys look nuts. So I don't know if I asked, I don't know how it got to that point, but I started riding with the younger guys, you know, it's like that guy's crazy. I'm gonna go out with that guy. And uh, so that's what I did, not every weekend, but quite a few. And you know, I'd go out at 11 o'clock and just deal with all the craziness for a few hours, and then we'd all go have breakfast together at like four in the morning at this local 24-hour breakfast place with five or six cops, and and then I go home at five in the morning, and that's what I did on the weekends.

Host 21:24

You told me when we were doing the prep, like you rode with like two of the craziest cops in this platoon. You described one dude as like short and insane, and the other guy was like a a coke machine with legs. Who who were these guys?

Eric Shelvy 21:35

Uh, you know, I can't remember their names. Um, there were two guys that they were almost like like brothers, but like you remember the movie Twins? Oh, yeah, right? Almost first thing you're named Vito. One guy was enormous, and he was like a gymnast, super strong, real, but very quiet. You know, he just kind of okay, what's your problem? You know, let's write a report about it. And the other guy was like just a pit bull, just wanted to fight everyone. And you know, in that part of the area that I was riding with was a you know, a lot of drunks and drugs, and it wasn't like a a ghetto neighborhood, it was just trashy, you know. Um, so he always everybody wants to fight the police. So I just would always stand there and be like, oh my god, that's crazy. And then and then every once in a while the big guy would just lose his mind, and then he would pick someone up and throw them across the parking lot, and you're like, Oh, as a 16-year-old, that's pretty, pretty crazy. I know you told me like your dad had told the you know the the cops, like, don't let this dude out of the car, but yeah, he would always tell him, he's saying don't don't let my son out of the car. They always let me out of the car. Always. Sorry, dad. Yeah, sorry. And you know, and one, there was a big brawl, and we go to this scene, and this you know, the this was like in the late 90s, right? It was just a the technology was much different. And this guy looks at me, and he this policeman and he looks at me and he goes, All right, man, I'm gonna go deal with this shit. He's like, This is the button to unlock the to unlock the shotgun if you need it. And I'm like, What? I was like, like it's like maybe I'm in order ahead here.

Host 23:05

Hey, policing's definitely changed.

Eric Shelvy 23:08

Yeah.

Host 23:09

Yeah. That's uh it's wild. What were what was like one or two of if you can remember, like one of the wildest things that you saw as like a 16-year-old doing a ride along in St.

Eric Shelvy 23:18

Louis? I mean, it was all kinds of stuff. It is and it's stuff that police officers deal with every day. Every day, all around the the country, all around the world, really. It was a lot of car wrecks and and and foot chases, and you know, just people being crazy in the middle of the night. And um, you just got a front row seat for it. Foot chases got dicey because I'd get out of the car and then someone would start chasing me. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Same team, same team. Like blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I'm a starting son. Don't taste me.

Host 23:49

That's crazy. You also said, like, I remember you told me like it was one of the greatest shows on earth. Is that kind of where you first started getting your taste for like adrenaline?

Eric Shelvy 23:58

Yeah, well, yeah, for sure. I think that I don't I wouldn't say that specific incident, but it was like, man, this is a um, it's exciting. You know, these guys don't make a lot, they work crazy hours, but it was exciting, you know, and it was like, you know, maybe this, this kind of, you know, growing up, my world was was very small. You know, I grew up in the Midwest. It was um I didn't go anywhere. Like, we didn't go on, we didn't go to Florida on spring break. You know, I worked at Jiffy Lube. You know, I didn't I didn't do the the summer trips, like we just didn't do that. And you know, it was like I had a couple buddies and we had some lawnmowers and we cut grass and we had a you know a broomstick and a tennis ball, and we played baseball all the time and and rode our bikes everywhere. And um, so I wasn't living the you know, you know, and you go to the fancy schools and kids do fancy things, and and I was there, but I wasn't doing fancy things. Yeah.

Host 24:56

Um you went to a Catholic school like your whole life. What was the Jesuits' high school like? All boy, I mean, it was like an all-boys school, it was like a thousand people, wasn't it?

Eric Shelvy 25:04

Yeah. Yeah. So um you had to apply for it. I remember that. Um, and all like I had some cousins that went there, and you know, St. Louis is very much a you know, a leftover French missionary city, if you will, from long time ago. So it was a lot of Catholic schools, a lot of old Jesuit schools and um Catholic schools, mariness schools, you know, it's it's there's a lot of that uh going on. So that was just kind of the natural progression. I was like, well, you go here or there, and um I think my mom was more than happy to pay for that, you know, to put me on that that path. So I didn't think anything of it one way or the other. That was just kind of what you did. And I liked it, you know. The school it was it was ch it was tough. Um, but you know, you had all your buddies all day, every day, and um I I it's easy to say, like, oh, it's not like public school, but I I really don't have anything to compare it to. It's just what it's what you knew. It's what I knew.

Host 26:09

What was it like to be like the one kid in your graduating class that wasn't doing what everybody else? Like, did people in your high school think you're crazy for joining the Marines?

Eric Shelvy 26:16

Yeah, yeah, and it was um it wasn't just like oh I went in the Marines, it was like so 9-11 happened, and um so before 9-11 happened, I started talking to I was you know, you kind of you want to do what your father does, and that's what you look up to, and things like that. So I was like, I want to be a cop, like that's what I want to do. That sounds cool, like that sound I feel like I'd be good at that, like kind of it's in my genes kind of thing, which it literally is, and um so I was kind of looked up to like what are the prerequisites for it, and you know, at the time, I think it's you gotta do more now, but at the time I was like, you needed two years of college or military. So I was like, Well, I'll I'll go to the military. I had a friend of mine that uh was talking about the military as well, and we were like, let's go talk to some recruiters. And I was very old for my grade, you know, some kids are younger, some are older, but I was very I was one of the oldest in my class, so I had this kind of um autonomy to kind of just do it, I could do it on my own. I didn't need like parents' signature or any of that kind of stuff. So him and I just went to some recruiting offices and just started talking to recruiters and went to the army, you know. Like, you know, I loved Rambo when I was younger. I was like, yeah, I want to be freaking Rambo, man. That's what I want to be. You don't know anything, you know. We've talked about this on previous podcasts too. There wasn't tons of like military movies out back then. No, there was like Top Gun and Rambo, like that was kind of it. I didn't I didn't think I was flying, you know, at 14s.

Host 27:50

No, and I think that Charlie Sheen Navy SEALs movie probably like recruited three chords of the Navy SEALs.

Eric Shelvy 27:54

Appleton, you know, Navy SEALs, all those big movies, and you know, uh, it just looked cool. You know, you have no idea what that what that really means. Yeah, just like that looks cool.

Host 28:05

How did uh how did why why the Marines?

Eric Shelvy 28:08

So I didn't uh my dad was Navy, his brother was Air Force, his other brother was Marines, but he got I think he he was not in the Marine Corps for very long. I think he got medically discharged like out of boot camp or something like that. Um my grandfather wa on my mom's side was Army Air Corps, I think at the World War II time. And so I didn't know any Marines uh personally. I didn't know anything about the Marine Corps really at all. And we went to this, my friend and I we went to this army recruiter, and we're like, yeah, you know, we we want to be in the army, we want to be Green Berets, and we won't want to be Rambo kind of thing, you know? And he's like, Yeah, yo, that sounds great. And I I vaguely remember the conversation, but it was like, yeah, we got this bonus here and this. And I'm like, okay, that's that sounds cool, you know. The Navy didn't really interest me. I wanted to do ground stuff, um, you know, guns and running around and digging holes. And that all sounded it all sounds cool until you're actually digging holes, and then it's not cool anymore. And um, so we talked to this army recruiter, and then you know, they kind of have them in these, you know, strip malls, and there and there was a marine recruiter. I said, Well, well, and I don't know if the the army dudes told us, but for wherever, I don't know how we ended up there, but I walked in the door, and uh there was a recruiter sitting there, and I walked in, and I I remember it very clearly, and I was like, Well, hey Sarge, how you doing? Because I heard the word Sarge many times. That's in with cops, you know, that's how cops talk. And I said, Hey Sarge, and this dude looks at me and he like stands up and he goes, I'm a sergeant, I am not a sergeant. And I was like, like I pissed him off. I didn't I got one sentence out, and the dude was ready to kill me. And he was like legitimately pissed, and I was like, uh, I want to be that dude. And that was the moment. I was like, no, no, no signing bonuses, no, hey man, welcome. The dude just yelled at me and I was like, I'm in, what do I gotta do?

Host 30:23

Before we start on that, I mean, one of the things that uh I found out about you um was you were an Eagle Scout. Uh tell me about the Boy Scouts back then. Obviously, it's changed now. I mean, you you mentioned you had an awesome group of dads and you guys did all kinds of stuff. What was that experience like?

Eric Shelvy 30:39

I loved it. Um, I mean, I did like Cub Scouts, and that was kind of dumb. I mean, it's like crafts and stuff like that. But when you got to Boy Scouts, you got to start doing cooler things. And like I said, I I don't know what it is now, but back then it was it was very Is this still called Boy Scouts or is it called like all scouts? I don't know what it's called. But um we had a really good it was guys I I all knew. I was friends with, you know, these five or six guys, and a couple of them still friends with today. And they all had like really cool dads, and they were all like outdoorsmen and all this stuff, and we did we just did a lot of stuff, you know. We the summer camps were awesome. We traveled around the country and did some high adventure stuff and went down to um Philmont, which is a high adventure base they have in uh New Mexico, and it's like 80 miles and 10 days and the mountains. And we just did a lot of really cool stuff, and I loved it. You know, we every weekend we were hiking or mountain biking or river rafting, something we were always doing something, and I think that group of dads that I had um were all like uncles to me, you know, and my dad was never there because he was always working. Yeah.

Host 31:55

I I I think you told me your mom wanted year around men since your dad, you know, was was gone all the time. Do you feel like like Boy Scouts and those dads and that kind of really helped fill that void? I mean, what kind of things were they teaching you other than like the Boy Scout?

Eric Shelvy 32:09

I mean, did you feel like they were kind of fatherly dudes that you looked up to or Yeah, I I So my mom had this she had this perception, and this is where we this is I think where a lot of the conflict came from with her and I is that she is in her mind, my dad was absent. And in my mind, he wasn't. I could just call him anytime. He was the only guy you could call at three o'clock in the morning and pick up the phone because he's always at work. Uh you can literally call him at 4 50 in the morning and he's like, hey, what's going on? Oh, meet me at this restaurant, we'll go have some biscuits and gravy. So I never felt like he was absent, definitely not there every day, but I never felt like he was absent. She, I think, thought that I that he was absent, and then I was just a pissed-off young kid, which is probably true. And I needed this father figure to make up this thing. And and she would try and get me involved in like big brother programs. I'm like, this is stupid, man. Like, what's this clown taking me to a baseball game? I don't care about this dude. Yeah, you know. I mean, like I get he's trying, I get it. You know, it's a good program. And but your dad was still like a part of your freaking prison. Like, you know, yeah, so she always tried to push this. I I think that's what she thought that I needed. Um I didn't think that's what I needed. I don't know what I needed, but I know I didn't need that. No. Um, you know, and the Boy Scout stuff, I don't think it was her pushing me to like have these father figures. It just kind of worked out that way. But they were like my friend's dads, these guys I I grew up with, and I knew them all real well. And it wasn't like a oh, you know, I go to Boy Scouts and I have my fathers there. It just kind of they were just like my my friends' dads, and they were all cool, you know. Someone guy was a roofer, one guy was like, they were just cool guys, and and they still are to this day. I mean, I still talk to some of them. You know, I saw Mr. This and he's like, you can call me Bob now. We're we're way past that, you know. But you're in your 40s now, you can't call me Bob. All right. Um, but I never felt like I I think you know, looking back on now, I felt like she thought I needed that, and I did not think I needed that. And I never thought I did. And I always kind of had this thing in my mind, like, I don't need that, I don't need you, and I'll do it myself. And, you know, as this story is gonna progress, I you know, and you know, doing all this prep about this podcast stuff with you, and it's kind of, you know, you remember instances and and times and you know, significant events in your life, but never do you really think about the totality of how you got to be where you are, why you think the way you do. But I think that at that very early age, um, with this like conflict of of oh, you need uh a father figure in your life. I'm like, my dad's at work, he's not dead.

Host 35:22

And I know your dad's like an extremely big part of your life. I mean, right. We you know, we talk about him quite often. I know he's been there for you and when you needed him most. And I think at the end of the day, like that's what really matters, right?

Eric Shelvy 35:33

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously it could have been better, but it also could have been, you know, existentially worse. 100%. You know, I I and I I just think I think her and I saw that that situation very differently.

Host 35:47

Does that has that shaped your thought process on like how you raise your own kids? Like, for example, I know you talked about how your mom had this idea of what you should be in life, and do you fight that for yourself with your own kids?

Eric Shelvy 36:02

I guess, yeah. I mean, I think we all do, right? Whether consciously or or subconsciously, I think you because we want the best, but of course sometimes what we want is based on our own experiences. Of course, exactly. So, you know, like the the way I figured the world out is far different than the way um, you know, my son is figuring the world out because he's been exposed to so much more than I ever was, and that's by design from me. And you know, your parents can't they can't teach you what they don't know. You know, if you're an accountant, you can't shape your son to be an F-18 pilot in the Navy because you don't know anyone.

Host 36:41

Yeah.

Eric Shelvy 36:42

But you know, if your dad's an F-18 pilot, your chances are probably much better that you're gonna follow that path, or you'll be exposed to it, you'll know people, it'll pique your interest. You know, it's just you you can't teach what you don't know, and you can't expose people to things you've you're not aware of.

Host 36:58

Yeah, that's amazing the last five years as I've watched you like transform to be hyper-focused on your family, your kids, and the experiences and opportunities that you've given them, given them. And I've then I've been able to present to see them like during those experiences and even after. And it's your kids are amazing humans. I've I've told it to them personally, but it's it's really cool. It's an opportunity that a lot of people may never have the experience to, but you did, and like your kids, whether they know it now, they're gonna know it later. Like right, they're not normal kids.

Eric Shelvy 37:31

Yeah, kind of my my intention has always been like I'm gonna take the lessons I learned in my adulthood and I'm gonna teach them to you as a teenager.

Host 37:38

No, it's great. It's inspiring. I mean, it's it's given me, you know, my own ideas and thoughts on on how to be with my own kids. And it's uh it's cool. Daddy's hard. Like being a dad is hard. It's if you do it right, right? Like it's easy to plop your kids off, let them watch TV or go stay at the friends' houses. But when you try to be an important part of their life, you know, sometimes it's it's I don't want to say taxing because it's not the right word, but like to be present and to go out of your way to do things with them. Some sometimes, you know, especially if you have a job that's competing for your time or or or whatever. So it's it's been cool, it's been inspiring. Um, talking about your senior year of high school, man. I know you know you made the decision to join the Marines and your mom wasn't super excited about that. Um you know, I think it's it's an important part of your story because I think it starts you know, you've you're the most independent dude I've ever met, which is cool. Um, but you know, some of that was born out of you know almost necessity.

Eric Shelvy 38:32

Yeah. So how did I end up in in the Marines?

Host 38:35

No, I mean I I I think like you know, you ended up making the decision to join the Marines and your your mom wasn't super happy about that, and you ended up having to move out.

Eric Shelvy 38:43

No, she was not, um, to say the least. I think that was I think in her mind that was the worst thing I could have ever done. Um, it was almost like offensive that that's what I was going to do. So I started talking to the Marines and I was like, okay, and you know, you you're up what they call you a a poolie in the beginning, if you haven't heard that term, but so you sign up, you know, as a high school kid, and then you become part of this poolie program. I don't know if it stands for something in my butt. Uh they call you a poolie until you ship off to boot camp and then you become a recruit. So you have this kind of however long it takes for you to s to sign up before you go to to to boot camp. And um, so I signed up and I'm like, okay. Um I think I signed up pretty early. Like, I can't I almost have to go back and try to figure out what those dates were, but it was it was before 9-11. I knew that. So 9-11 happened when I was a senior in high school. So it's like the beginning of my senior year. So I signed up, and then um 9-11 happened, and it was like, oh shit, shit just got real. Yeah. Right? And it was one of those like uh, you know, careful what you wish for because you might just might just get it. Like you're about to get some rainbow stuff, you just don't know it yet. Yeah, my mom was very, very um unhappy about that. And uh, like the second half of my senior year in high school, we just came to a boiling point, you know, and she's like, I don't want you here anymore. And one day I came home from school and like all my shit was on the driveway. She's like, You're going to stay with your cousins. I was like, screw it. I had my own car, I bought it myself. You know, I had a job, I paid for my own gas. I didn't take anything from anybody. I paid my own insurance, I paid everything for myself. I didn't pay for school, but you know, she said, You're out, you're gonna stay with your cousins. I said, Screw it. So I went and stayed with my cousins, and she refused to pay the last part of my tuition. I was like, I'll pay for it myself. And um Yeah, and that's how it was. Look, looking back, I mean, you're a dad and you have you know kids in high school.

Host 40:56

How did like how do you process that now as you're older?

Eric Shelvy 41:00

Yeah, it was it's pretty shitty. I couldn't imagine that in my own life. I I couldn't even I couldn't imagine the circumstances that would have to build up for that to to happen. I mean, I know it it does happen. I mean, you work in law enforcement and stuff happens all the time. Um you know, around the country. But it was just a lot of a lot of anger on on both sides, I suppose. And you know, she wanted me out and I was happy to go. You know, I was 18 at that point because I was uh you know old for my class. So I was like, I I don't need you, I'm emancipated, not legally, but you know, I don't I don't need your signature to do anything. I don't need your permission to do anything. If you then you want me to leave, then I'll leave. Fine. I'll do it myself. And that's kind of the mentality I had.

Host 41:44

Talk to me about 9-11, man. I mean, that's a day for people our age that we remember vividly, um, and it shaped your life. What uh what do you remember about that day?

Eric Shelvy 41:53

Um, so I remember being I was in English class, I was like nine or something in the morning, and maybe eight. Um it was first or second period, and uh we had, you know, big box TVs up in the corner of the classroom, and it came on you know, the news of it happening live. And I I think like most people, you're kinda like you know you're not really sure what you're looking at. Right? And I think it and I remember the teacher be he was really mad, he came and he was like cursing up a storm and uh he's like I can't believe this. He I don't remember exactly what he said, but he was not happy about it, and but I wasn't I guess I didn't quite understand what I was looking at. Yeah. You just knew it was a significant event, and I guess it wasn't a you know, and then they sent everyone home, so we all went home. Um and you know, I don't have a whole lot of recollection. I guess in the coming days, you know, when they you know, when the government gets involved and they start identifying, you know, Al Qaeda and um Taliban and all this all these terms and words and things you never heard before and terrorists and it just didn't exist. My world was like drunks going crazy in the parking lot outside the bar. That's that that was like my world of of entertainment. But this was a whole nother thing, and I I don't think I understood it. I really I really I don't I don't think it you know I I I I'd imagine I obviously wasn't there, but I imagine, you know, if you go back to like Pearl Harbor, you know, what your average citizen was was thinking, but that was different, you know, there were planes with markings on them, like we knew exactly who it was, and we knew exactly what the response was gonna be, but this we didn't know who it was. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but I didn't know. And so I was like, okay, clearly this is gonna change things, but I was a teenager, I didn't know what it was gonna change, or I didn't I didn't realize how much it was going to change my life.

Host 44:05

I remember you you signed up to be a poolie for the Marine Corps before 9-11, but I remember the you were telling me the initially the Marine Recruiter said you couldn't go infantry. How did uh how did all that end up working out?

Eric Shelvy 44:17

So well, they didn't say I couldn't go infantry. So when I when you sign up, they before they sign you up, you have to go down, or maybe after one of the two, but they you have to go down and take a test. It's kind of like um not an SAT, but they call it the ASVAB. It's like an aptitude test that everyone takes. And depending on how you score on that, is you know, kind of what's available to you job-wise within within the military. And you score really high, you can be nuclear, whatever. If you're a dumb dumb, then you you can go to the infantry, right? So um, so I I took the test, and of course, it was for me, it was very simple because it was like freshman level stuff of what I was doing because I went to a you know a good high school, and um I scored really high on it, not like super high, like oh my god, we need to make this guy a linguist, not that high, but high enough to not fill sandbang. This guy to NASA, yeah, exactly. So um I took it and they're like, oh, okay, you did really well. Um, you know, we got all these jobs. You know, this is when the sales pitch starts happening, and I had a recruiter, uh I remember his name was Staff Sergeant Boyd. He was this freaking big, strong Asian dude. And you know, they had like four or five recruiters. In the office. And he's like, so what do you want to do? And I was like, infantry. He's like, okay. And I'm like, no, all the other crew's like, no, man, you score too high. You got to go do this and that. And everyone's trying to recruit me to all this, whatever jobs. I don't even know what they were. And I was like, no, infantry. How do you spell that? Gun. G-U-N. That's what I want. I want Rambo, man. You seen that movie? That's what I want. And um, so at the time, you know, 9-11 just happened. So there was like a backlog. Like everybody in the world wanted to go in the infantry. And they're like, well, it's gonna take um longer to get there. You're gonna have to wait. You know, because there's just no availability. You know, they fill up the spots. So they were trying to push me to these other things because they were available. I was like, no, I don't want to do that. That's what I want to do. So I had to wait uh to go infantry. So I graduated in May of 2003. No, 2002. May of 2002. And they were like, oh, you're gonna have to wait till November. And I'm like, oh man, like what am I gonna do all summer? You know, just waiting, waiting. And so I would call Stats Arm Boy call him like every day. I'm like, Can I go now? Can I go now? Can I go now? And I he got like he started getting irritated with me, but I just kept calling him. And one day, uh like June, like middle of June, I called I called him, I was like, hey, can I go now? And he's like, actually, yes, you can. This one dude just something happened, he didn't go. Uh, you're going in July, like three weeks. I was like, perfect, I'm in. Bag, I got my shoes on, I'm ready. That was it, man. You uh you go down to the MEPS building, it's like the government building, you know, and they give you a packet of paper and a uh a plane ticket, and they just they say go to the airport.

Host 47:25

What did what did your uh what did your dad think about you joining the Marine Corps?

Eric Shelvy 47:28

So I alright I told him I remember sitting out on his back porch and we're talking to him, and the deal was already done. Because I didn't need anyone's permission to do anything. The deal was already done, and I said, Dad, I'm joining the Marines. And he looks at me, I I remember like it was yesterday, and he goes, I think that's a good choice for you. That's it. That's awesome. That was what is I don't really know what that meant.

Host 47:52

It's like you're probably gonna be in jail if you don't. Like, um what was that contrast like? I mean, you had like your mom doesn't support anything, and your dad's like, yo, man, I think I think that's where you need to be. Did that feel did did you have a feeling of like, all right, cool, at least my dad's you know, cool with it, or did you care at that point?

Eric Shelvy 48:10

Or yeah, I mean I I mean, I guess we always kind of saw things the same way. Yeah. You know, uh whether it's genetics or um but we always kind of saw things the same way.

Host 48:24

There wasn't any I remember when I met your dad, like he you're a spitting image of him. It's funny. You guys talk the same, like your dad's cool, cool human being, but it's just it's funny. So like that makes sense when you say that because I can visualize that. Yeah. Um, I mean, you left July 2002, went straight to to San Diego. What what was that transition like for you?

Eric Shelvy 48:44

Uh I I would venture to say it's probably the same transition we all have when you get there, right? You have what did I do, bro? Yeah. So I was I was smoking cigarettes when I was in high school, and my plan was it didn't happen, but so I'm like, all right, I go to San Diego, I'm like, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go out of the the terminal, I'm gonna smoke cigarettes, and then I'm gonna go to the uh what do they call it, the part of the airport for the military.

Host 49:16

I can't remember that. Yeah, like an arrival center, reception center or something like that. Yeah, yeah, that's a name for it.

Eric Shelvy 49:21

Yeah, but there's a uh an area in the airport, you know, for the military. And they're like, just go when you get to the airport, go there. That's what they told me. I was like, okay. So I'm like, I'm gonna go outside, I'm gonna smoke my last cigarette, and I'm gonna go to the reception area. That's gonna bother me, that name. But um, so to get out of the airport, you walk right past this reception area, and there was a drill instructor standing in the hallway, and he looks at me, and you know, you you you don't have to pick us out, right? You're like one envelope with your papers in it, you know, and you just look like a high school moron. And he looks at me, he goes, get in your fucking room. And I was like, that was it, man. I was like, I guess I'm not getting my cigarette, and that was it, you know. And then you just do the whole get on the bus thing and shave your head and all that shit. And that first night, you're just like, Man, what did I do?

Host 50:16

Yeah, you said boot camp. No, it was hard as it should be. It was a big shock, chaotic, stressful by design. What hits you first? Like, what's your like sight sound like that you remember most vividly? Like, you know, when it's time to get off that bus. So whatever.

Eric Shelvy 50:29

You get off the bus, they do the stuff, you know, and you're what you're trying to, this is before YouTube and all this stuff, right? So your resources were minimal as to what you could get your hands on, you know. To you watch the videos, you know, VHS tapes, like Rink Corbut. You're just trying to learn as much as you can. You listen to the recruiters, they tell you, you know, we give you advice and all this. And and so I wouldn't say that stuff was I wasn't I wasn't surprised by anything that like took place, but the level of uh chaos was pretty shocking. I mean, it's like it's like nothing you've ever experienced, and it starts immediately. Like every second of every day is accounted for, and is to maximize stress. Um, so you go and then there's a the first couple nights you spend uh in kind of what they call, I think they call it a receiving platoon. There's a drill instructor, but it's not your drill instructor that you're gonna be assigned for the whole three months. So it's like a couple days, and then they separate you out to into separate platoons, and you get assigned your permanent drill instructors, and they do their whole thing. And it's it's but I remember I remember the first night because they all just kind of get shoved into a room. No one knows what to do, where to go, where you don't know where you're at. You know, they you it's almost like shot. You're just like they make you show up at night. So they put you on a bus, they tell you to put your head down, and they just drive around in circles for like an hour. Like a detainee. Yeah. But you don't, you don't, you come to find out the next morning that the airport is right next to boot camp. Like they share a fence line. Like, do we just drive around in circles in San Diego for like an hour? You have no idea, but it's just to maximize the disorientation and you know, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I remember being in that in that barracks that first night, and you just you just have you just like you might as well just drop me on the moon, man. You have no idea what to do, you don't know anyone. It's people are screaming, it's dark. Like is anybody like stressed out, freaking out? Yeah, I maybe, yeah. I suppose I nothing's I mean, there were times throughout training, yeah, where people just would really lose their minds.

Host 52:41

You said you didn't stick out much, you were just like a normal size kid, you know, six foot white guy. Um did did anybody tell you, like, hey dude, don't you know, anybody giving you advice before you went, like, hey, just keep your mouth shut, or was it just pretty much you figure that out real quick when you show up?

Eric Shelvy 52:56

Yeah, I guess the you know yeah, I people do give you advice, but it all goes out the window. When you when you encounter that kind of stress, um, it does things to the brain, and it it's it's by design, of course. You don't realize that at the time, but hindsight being what it is, you know, you just you just do what you're told, do exactly how you're told, no more, no less, you know, and I was not overweight, I wasn't super skinny, like I was the average height, like I didn't stick out in in any way. You know, I was an infantry MOS. You know, if you get online and they, you know, you know, like the full metal jacket, you know, where you stand there and they're like too fat, too skinny, too fat. You know, they did they do that. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. So they give you uh, they make you say your MOS, you're like infantry, open option infantry, you know, like next, because I wasn't too fat, so I don't know if they still do it, but at the time they would give you these tags on your uniform. And if you were too fat, they gave you a tag that said half rations. And if you were too skinny, they gave you a tag that said double rations. So they knew to give you more or less food at the chow hall. So the objective was to get the double rat tag because you got more food. You couldn't get enough of it. You're burning, you know, 10,000 calories a day. So those were very feistly. It was like the fake idea of boot cam, right? Like get the double rat tags so you could get more rice, like two scoops of rice instead of one. But I didn't stick out in in any way, you know. And you know, the guy says, you know, the guy that's overweight, and he's like, Oh, Marine Corps band, and I'm like, Well, that dude's gonna get screwed with for like the next three months.

Host 54:37

Did that happen? Oh, yeah. That's hilarious.

Eric Shelvy 54:39

Where's my flute player? You know, they gotta run around playing the flute stuff, stuff like that. Oh man. It's all funny. It's funny now, it's funny until it unless until it's you. That's not funny anymore. Uh well, and I'm sure you don't appreciate even the humor even then, you know. You're like there were some of those drill instructors that were I mean, they're all maniacs, but some of them were really hilarious.

Host 55:02

And sometimes you had to refrain from yeah, the level of humor with like derogatory, the way that they mixed it, yeah, especially in the Marine Corps. I mean, it's it's all drill instructors, but the Marines, it's almost like they get an extra two weeks of of how to do that. It's it's nuts. Uh yeah, yeah. I mean, even you know, our friend Carlos, dude, we call him Batman still, you know, that yeah, I mutual now. Like, I still laugh at that dude that he the stuff that he says, man, it's hilarious. Um, dude, you gotta you gotta tell the firewatch story, bro.

Eric Shelvy 55:34

So funny boot cam stories, yeah. Yeah, there's there's a there's a f there's a few of them. I'll tell the funny one, I'll tell a serious one, and then I'll tell the funny one. Please. We had a recruit, I don't remember his name, and um he was having a tough time for whatever reason, you know, and that was not uncommon. I mean, to uh, you know, you lay in bed at night, you know, it's just it's just like the movies. I mean, lay there with you, sleep, you're like, you know, that's exactly how it is, and I think it's been that way for a long time. And you know, dudes, you had a we had a fire watch. I guess I will tell this story, but we had a fire watch. So you explain what fire watches. Well, yeah, so a firewatch, uh, if you've seen FOML jacket, you know, when they encounter you just walk around with this flashlight and his stupid helmet, right? Or and so that's what it is. They they have a fire watch, well they call it firewatch, and there's one recruit that is awake. I think it might actually there might have been two that are awake all night. So you just go down the list, you know, of names, you wake the next guy up. That's a pretty you do for like an hour, right? 30 minutes, an hour, yeah, whatever it was. And um some noise you didn't want to do it, obviously, because every second of sleep was precious. Um, but it was kind of nice to be up because you were it was the most peaceful time of your whole time because the drill instructors are asleep. So you have like an 30 minutes or whatever it was of just quiet. So you could go, you know, you could go take a shit without someone screaming at you. Yeah. Right? Because there's no doors on the thing, right? So you're like, this is my this is my 30 minutes of free time. Yeah. And you know, because they wouldn't let you during the day, you know, that's an inconvenience, you know. So you'd have dudes wake you up in the middle of the night and say, dude, wake me up at 2 a.m. so I can shit.

Host 57:15

Really?

Eric Shelvy 57:16

Yeah, you'd tell the firewatch, if it was one of your friends, like, dude, wake me up so I can I can go to the bathroom and be peace, because you know you're not gonna be able to do it in the morning. Wow. And uh so I was on Firewatch one night, and a couple of the drones, uh two, like two of the drones struck no, it was one. One drone, yes, real tall black guys. He was he was funny, he was crazy, like they all are. But he was he was funny, and he came in in civilian clothes one night and uh breaking like alcohol. But who are you, right? Like, I'm a stupid recruiter, like oh yes, sir, I'm gonna have a good day, you know. You know, this last thing you need is a drunk joint instructor going apeshit on you, right? Like so he goes into the joint instructor room, and now you know I didn't say shit and I wasn't gonna say shit, and like two minutes later, they had you know this long squad bang, you know, like 80, 80 guys, bunk beds both sides, just like the movies. And there's a back hatch, you know, a big like fire door, and it's just banging, bang, bang, bang on this this back hatch. And I'm like, what the f what the hell is going on? So I go back there and I open the door, and I got my stupid little freaking helmet on and my flashlight, and and this is this black woman, and she is raging pissed. And she's like, Where's my husband? And she's yelling and screaming about. I knew exactly who she was looking for. I'm like, she's like, let me in. And I'm like, uh, ma'am, you cannot come in here. I I didn't know what the rules were, but I definitely knew I was gonna be in a lot of shit if I let her. I was gonna be I was gonna be a double rat skinny kid by if I let her in there. So I didn't let her in. And I and I said, one moment, ma'am, you know, let me go get the joint instructor. And so I go knock on the joint instructor's hatch, and I'm like, uh sir, there's a there's a woman at the back door, really mad. He's like, God damn it. And he went out and dealt with that, and uh I never said another word about it. No one ever said another word about it, it just never happened. And um after graduation, and he still never said anything, but he was like, Congratulations, shall we? And we had this kind of like, you got one on me, I got one on you, and I was like, Yeah, but yeah, it's just one of those like really crazy, crazy instances of boot camp where you're just like, I do not know what to do right now. And I think this is I think I'm gonna lose either way. Yeah, you know, kill me or something. It's like why couldn't this have been someone else? Of all the nights, of all the times. And uh, yeah. Got another instance of uh, like I said, this other this other recruit, he was just having a tough time. I didn't know him very well. Um, but he was just having a tough time, and he just one day he just had enough and he just refused to train. And they make it very clear that the only way out of boot camp is to graduate. That's it. If you get injured, you go into another platoon and you stay in that platoon until you heal, and then you pick back up with another boot camp class. So if you get injured, you could stay in boot camp for like a year. The only way out is to graduate or go to jail. And I don't even think you'd almost have to commit like a felony to to for even that to happen. So this one and that like I said, that's that's made very clear. Don't get injured, the only way out is to graduate. And this dude just had enough one day, and he said, I just I refuse to train. And I was like, oh, okay. And uh so then the the company gunnery sergeant comes in and he goes, Everybody, you know, school circle. You know, you bring all the recruits and you get in like a little horseshoe. And he brings this recruit and he's standing there, and the gunnies stand there next to him, and there's two MPs and one of them had a K9 standing next to him. They were like gonna make a spectacle of this. And the recruits stand there, you know, attention. And he goes, he's talking to all of us, he goes, I want to make this all very clear so you all see exactly what's about to happen. And he goes, I'm gonna ask you one more time. And he looks at this crew and he goes, I'm asking you one more time, do you refuse to train? And he goes, I refuse to train, sir. And he goes, very well. And this freaking MP just freaking grabbed him by the arm and bounced his head off the freaking off the marble floor. The dog freaking's in his face screaming, they handcuffed him and they dragged him out of the squad bay, threw him in a police car. I was like, Holy shit. It's like 30 minutes later, that dude was ready to train. He was back in the platoon, like it never happened, all smiling. Yeah, it's like happy to be back. Happy to be back. Winch child. Waterboard him in the parking lot, dude. I don't know what they did, but he came back. He wasn't gone very long.

Host 1:01:57

Did you ever say anything?

Eric Shelvy 1:01:58

Nope. That's wild, dude.

Host 1:02:00

Boot camp, man. You graduate boot camp. Your mom and your dad showed up, which I thought was interesting. Yeah. What was what was that like?

Eric Shelvy 1:02:07

Man, it's hard, it's hard to say because I mean it was cool to see everyone, but your mind is just like in another freaking place. You know, after all that, you know, you're like eating a Snickers bar, you're like just like waiting to get attacked by a journal instruction, right? You just you're in a totally different your mind is in a totally different place. But yeah, it was cool having them there. You know, um Marine Corps uh boot camp graduation is is a a pretty cool event, you know. It's it's you know, marching and bands, it's it's very well done and very you know professional. And so it's it's a cool thing to watch, even if you're not you know a part of it.

Host 1:02:48

I love the army, but the marines, man, you guys do drilling ceremony the best, in my opinion. And the department.

Eric Shelvy 1:02:55

We do a lot of it in boot camps. You do a lot of marching around.

Host 1:02:58

Where'd you go after after boot camp?

Eric Shelvy 1:03:01

Did you go to SOI? Yeah, so SOI is the school of infantry. So in the Marine Corps, if you're infantry, you so you go to boot camp, and then you go uh if you're infantry, you go straight to infantry school, which I think is another three months. If you're not, you go to another school, it's like two weeks, they give you basic infantry stuff, and then you go on to your truck driver's school or or whatever your job's gonna be. You go on special schools all over the country. But infantry school is just uh, you know, at Camp Pellenton, right down the street. So you go home for ten days and come back in three months of infantry school, which is kind kind of like boot camp, but you know, you know, much more freedoms. You're not a recruit anymore, but you're still like in training. So you have more freedoms, you can go out on the weekends, but you know, there's curfews and stuff, but you know, the instructors were they're all maniacs as well. Don't have drone structure maniacs, they're like infantry maniacs, which is kind of a different thing. Yeah. Um but yeah, that I that it that was tough. I thought it was it was cool though. I mean, like tons of just shooting machine guns and patrolling and grenades and rockets and you know, just doing infantry stuff.

Host 1:04:14

Was there a bunch of dudes from your basic training that went with you?

Eric Shelvy 1:04:17

Yep. Yeah.

Host 1:04:19

Um, where was that? 29 palms at Penton. Oh, okay. Um and how how long is SOI? I don't I don't remember. It was three months. Oh, really? Give or take at the time. So, how do you find out like where you're going your final assignment when you're in SOI or advanced training? Do they tell you, did you know the whole time where you were going, or they tell you like at the last minute? No, they tell you like the last day. And what was like training, like based training and school of infantry? I mean, 9-11's already happened. I think by the time you graduate, I mean, we've already got dudes in Afghanistan. Are is any of that trickling down to you?

Eric Shelvy 1:04:51

So I was just about to say that. So when you're in boot camp, you are totally cut off from the world. You only know uh what the journal instructors tell you, and they don't tell you anything. You know, like they have I they had uh I think it was on, I think it was Sundays. Usually there's like an hour of like mail call, and the journal instructors chill out for a little bit, hand out mail, make fun of people, make people read their mail from their girlfriends out loud, hand over pictures.

Host 1:05:17

Definitely remember that.

Eric Shelvy 1:05:18

Yep, that kind of stuff. And you know, maybe they'll tell you like a football score, something like that. But you have no idea um what is happening in the world, like none whatsoever. And I mean, I I I guess when I went to boot camp, it was like no 9-11 happened six months ago, all this Afghanistan, uh bin Laden, you know, you're you're hearing all this stuff, but to me, I it just I didn't understand any of it. It made I knew about it, I was like, okay, Afghanistan. Like, if you told me we're going to Afghanistan tomorrow, like plan a route, you're like, I don't even know where the hell that's at. And I'm probably most people probably didn't at that time, right? It's like now, like Ukraine. Most people can't even point out you on the map. No, right? Because it's just it's not uh it's not relative until it is. Yeah. So there was just talk after you know, Afghanistan, Bin Laden. I was like, Yeah, okay, I'm on board with that. We're gonna go get bin Laden. And then so I get to infantry school, and you know, you obviously you have more exposure, you know. There's still like pre-cell phones and news. Like you didn't know, it's not like today where you can have any information you want instantly. Um, but you know, a lot more people were talking, you know. Now it's now all of a sudden they're these instruct I remember I remember it very well because the instructors started talking about uh Saddam Hussein and Iraq and gas. You know, we did a lot of like chemical warfare training. It was like everything we were gonna do as far as normal training, now we're just gonna do it with gas mask on. Oh god, which is awful in the desert. Yeah, so it just is awful. So, and you're like, wait, wait, what the hell is Saddam saying? Like, what the hell's going on around here? Gas? What is this why is this dude talking about mustard gas? I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. And um, there was a lot of like troop movements that you started seeing like on the base. I mean, like, and not like there's some trucks here, I'm talking like hundreds and hundreds of seven tons with troops and equipment, and just like you could you could tell that there's just a lot of activity going on, but you're still in training and you don't really know what that I mean, and for me at that time, I had no idea what that. That meant like I didn't know anything about Iraq, Saddam Hussein, like that. I didn't I there was a you know four or five months where you're just like totally cut off from the world. You it just doesn't mean anything to you because you have no idea what they're even talking about. No. And you know, you you quickly learn, like you know, the the talk started getting more intense about you know Iraq, and it's like, okay, man, like maybe we're going to Iraq. Like, what are we doing there? Like, who cares what we're doing? They're we're just gonna do it and run around and freaking shoot machine guns, that's what we're gonna do. So I don't I it certainly wasn't like a political thing. You know, that didn't mean anything to you. It was like, you know, how do I get two scoops of rice at the chow hall? Like that was your like biggest concern. So I don't think I even understood politics until I asked you. You did because it didn't matter. It didn't matter. Yeah, so you know, whether it was there or not, and obviously it was, and there was a lot of stuff going on, but um it didn't mean anything to you. You know, this is who we are, this is what we do, and this is what you know. So you're just kind of along for for the ride at that point, I guess. How did you get your assignment coming out of uh school of entry? So towards the end of my training, so I guess this is like December um 2002, maybe January, right around the first of the year of 2003. Um you graduate infantry school, it's a lot, it's a lot more informal than boot camp. It's kind of just like a small, you know, formation and go on. And and everyone was wondering, like, where are we going? What are we doing? You know, and they're like, okay, and they had all of us, you know, a couple hundred, I guess, three or four big platoons, I don't know, something like that. And the sergeant major came out and was like, all right, uh A through N, A through M, you're going to 17, N through Z, you're going to 3-5. Get on the bus. And you're like, What? I was happy because you know, 3-5 or 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines was right down the street at Pendleton, as were 7th Marines was at Twin Palm. So I knew it was less of a bus ride, which was good. Yeah. You know, it was at least familiar grounds. So yeah, you get on the you that's it. You just grab your one sea bag and you get on the bus and you go 15 minutes down the road.

Host 1:10:02

Did you know anything about like there's so much history in the Marine Corps. The Army doesn't do a great job of, you know, keeping track of units, and God, you can't even figure out what unit belongs to who. But it's very that's one thing that's the Marine Corps is very organized, and you guys are very into history.

Eric Shelvy 1:10:16

And I know there's a lot of boot camp that is uh instruction, you know, not all of it's physical. There's a lot of time in in classrooms. Um, yeah, and you you learn the Marine Corps history very well. They they beat it into you, you know, the the the big heroes of yesteryear kind of thing. And um, it's not as complicated to understand how it's structured as a whole. Uh, I think it is a little bit more now, just because all the you know, there's all kinds of different stuff that didn't exist then. But, you know, like when it's like you, you know, you talk about the army and mountains and paratroopers. I'm like, I don't like this dude's gonna like jump out of a plane with a cowboy hat on a horse. Like, I don't really know what what that means. He's an airborne mountain man. I don't know. I'll never forget, man.

Host 1:11:05

I was in a uh uh a DOD school and I had a Marine Gunner Start and I was staff starting at the time, and we were going through this training, and I remember we're driving around this army base, and he was like, Hey, what's the you know 227 uh you know artillery unit? Like, where's the I'm like, bro, I don't know. And then like we drive somewhere else. What's the 5000th MP company? Where's the other ones? I'm like, bro, I I don't know. And he was like, it was mind blowing. There was Rodney Elliott. I Rodney's a Marine, good good friend of mine, but he was like, I remember he was like mind blown, he didn't understand it, and then he like wanted me to give the history of these units, and I'm like, I don't have any idea, man. And he uh because the Marines like very organized, man. It's like you know, three five, it's third battalion, fifth marines, you know, you they're all over there, yeah. And then even the way you guys like number your companies, it's like A through whatever, right?

Eric Shelvy 1:11:53

Right, yeah, because our company is everything's in everything in the Marine Corps uh again, I'm sure it's changed now, but you know, everything's in threes. And you can trace that all the way back to you know the Trojans, right? Like two elements that are stationary and one element that's moving. That's like the fundamentals of tactics. And you know, I had a colonel once upon a time and he used to say, you know, brilliance in the basics. And I think with any unit out there, you know, we weren't special this or special that. We weren't jumping out of airplanes and you know, all that kind of thing. We just we did simple things very well. And I think that's what makes the Marine Corps so effective at what they do. Oh, they are a unique fighting force, man. Yeah, because they just do we do simple things very well, and because we do it, that's all you do is simple things so many freaking stupid times to the point where you just do it without even thinking about it. And you know, when you see it all play out on a bat on like a real battlefield, you're like, wow, okay, that was really effective. Like it it works. There's almost no defense to it if it's done, if it's done well. So yeah, everything's done in threes. You know, there's three guys in a fire team, three fire teams in a squad, three squads in a platoon, three platoons in a company, three companies in a battalion, three battalions in a regiment, three divisions. You know, it's it's does it's so it's very it's very easy, it's much easier to understand the structure, you know, from the ground side. You know, you you have the air wing and all that, and that's different. I don't understand what's going on there, but the the ground side is it's just it's very simple.

Host 1:13:23

Yeah. Um, so you're you end up going to 3-5 India Company, and I think you got there like three weeks before they deployed to Iraq, right?

Eric Shelvy 1:13:33

Yeah, so I get out of training I guess right around the you know, what's this called? January 1st of 03, give or take, somewhere early January. And so we're there for uh I don't know, yeah, four weeks, five weeks at the most, and then we were in Kuwait.

Host 1:13:56

Yeah, and I know that's a long time ago, but like do you remember anything about like I mean, you know, you're you're showing up to your unit and like you're hey man, you're going to warp a shit.

Eric Shelvy 1:14:07

Was that have any effect on you or I wouldn't say it had an effect. I mean I remember it. I remember it very well. Um I mean that's you you're getting exactly what you asked for. I mean I mean, some guys, you know, they spend 25 years in the Marine Corps and never get to do what they they train and train and train their entire careers and never get to actually practice it in in in battle. You know, and that's what we all want. You know, it's it you know, it's it's like if you went to mechanic school and they put you at the front desk for your whole career and you never actually got to fix a car. You know, so you got we got that's what we were there for. That's what we signed up to do, all of us individually. That's what we all wanted. I mean, no one joins the infantry in a time of war to be on the silent drill team. You know? No one wants to go to Washington and spin rifles around. Uh you know, which they did try and pull me for that in boot camp, you know. So to be a silent drill team, you have to be um you have to be an infantry MOS. You have to be, you know, I think it was 5'11 to like 6'1, clean face. Like you had to meet these prerequisites, and I met them like to the T. And they screen you in boot camp, they pull out the infantry guys and screen you for a silent drill team, and you're like, you're just trying to find a way to disqualify yourself. It's like that's I don't want to go to Washington and spin rifles around have at a parade. That's not that's not what I'm here for. I mean, the silent drill team is pretty cool to watch, but that's not what I'm here for.

Host 1:15:41

What uh what was reception like as a new guy into you know a marine infantry unit?

Eric Shelvy 1:15:47

So uh in the Marine Corps we call it the fleet. Like you'll hear the term FMF, the Fleet Marine Force. So it's like you're in training and it's like that's the fleet. So I guess the closest analysis I can compare it to is like if you're in eighth grade and you're talking about high school, right? And it's like, oh man, that's the big leagues, they're gonna you're gonna be the freshman, you know, it's a whole different world, they're gonna mess with you. So it was kind of like that, like it's the fleet, you know, it's like there's no rules, man. They're gonna like beat us, and you you you really didn't know what to expect because you've always been in this this this training environment where instructors, whether whether you know it or not, they're looking out for you, you know, and they're protecting you from whatever, but out there, um, it's not. And I remember it very well, man. And so we had uh outdoor catwalks, you know, it's like barracks, but they were they had outdoor catwalks, so it wasn't inside because it's Southern California. And I remember it, it was like so first thing, I was the second boot camp class to be issued the new digital uniforms. So when the Marine Corps switched from the the tri-color camis to the digital ones we have now, I was the second boot camp class to get issued the new uniforms. So even being a private, you stuck out like a sore thumb because you were freaking wearing a different uniform than everyone else. So there was no escaping that you were the boot. There's there's no way to hide it. And you had this like revolt of all the senior guys that had these you know salty old uniforms, and they just refused to switch because there was like a time where you could wear either one, and um, you know, it was like that was just a way to identify the new the boots, the new guys. So we roll up there, you know, like government buses, man. And it it reminded me of a scene. You remember that scene in Shawshank Redemption where they show up and they're like fresh meat, right? And that's how it was. It was a bunch of Marines half dressed like they just came back from the field, they got cami paint on, they're all pissed off, and half of them are drinking, and and and you show up with this brand spanking new freaking different uniform on, and they're like yelling at you from the catwalks, and you're just like, oh my god, dude, like I'm I'm gonna die. Like the guys are it's like prison. Yeah, it it was it was it was a similar introduction. You just didn't you just didn't know uh what you were getting into, you know. And so they put you in a room. I had uh it was three of us in one room. And then uh what we do, I what do we do? We just I guess we just training, I guess. I mean I don't know, I don't really remember exactly what we did for that. It was a lot of prep, like getting gear, making sure you had where you're like a lot of what they called uh layouts, yeah, exactly. Gear inspections where you lay all your crap out, and I have my flashlight, put it in the bag, you know. It's like like a six-year-old getting ready for a kindergarten, you know. You're like, Do you I have my pencil and you put it in your bag and like I'm ready for war now, have my canteen.

Host 1:18:55

Um, did you know anybody else? Did anybody else from SY go with you to 3-5?

Eric Shelvy 1:18:59

Yeah, N through Z. So at least I mean there's so we went to 3-5 and everyone kind of got split up into different platoons and and stuff and uh stuff like that. But yeah, there was I don't know, probably a dozen of us. Did you get aside like a team leader or a mentor or anything? Yeah, you mean you're immediately put into yeah, you're you're to into fire teams. You know, you're the private of the team. So you again you have three guys in a in a fire team. So you have three fire teams in a squad. So you have three team leaders, and in each team you have a team leader, a sawgunner, you know, carries the belt-fed machine gun, then you have an an A gunner, and then you have a rifleman. So it's privates. So it's like privates of the riflemans, Lance Corpals are usually the machine gunners, corporals are usually the team leaders. Corporal's like a god in the Marine Corps, man. Yeah, that's the best job.

Host 1:19:51

So you show up, I think your your fire team leader was Corporal Servo. You said you you I remember you told me you liked him a lot. He he treated you right, you felt like he was teaching you stuff. What what was he like?

Eric Shelvy 1:20:00

So yeah, my first team leader was Corporal Silva, uh Eric Silva. He was he was nice to me. Um I think I was the only new one in his team. There was a couple of us in different teams in the same squad. And um you had this kind of dynamic at that particular time. You had a lot of Marines that were being stop lost. So you have Marines that their their end date or their um discharge date, their discharge date was ha was right as this was they were supposed to get out, but the Marine Corps said no you're not getting out. So they they held them. They were they well refused to let them be discharged. Because a lot of people think that you you hire you sign the contract for four years. Well, it's really not, it's four years of active and four years of inactive. So anytime in that second four years, they can still recall you, keep you there, or recall you up to that eight-year mark. That's what the contract actually says. So a lot of guys were stop loss, so they were forced to stay in, and a lot of guys were really not happy about it. Like, really not happy about it. So you had this kind of we call them terminal lances, right? So you have this they didn't promote, so these went all four years and they're still Lance Corpals, and they're angry and hate everyone and everything, and the Marine Corps sucks, and all this. So that's like so then a bunch of privates show up with these new digital uniforms, and you're just like a punching bag for all these like really angry dudes. Uh, I was really fortunate because my team leader was not one of those guys, so I was really fortunate. Oh, he wasn't stop lost? He you know, I don't I don't I don't remember if he was stop lost or not, but he was not like uh uh an angry hate this place dude. He was a corporal, he was nice, taught us a lot of stuff, like didn't treat us like shit, like a lot of guys, you know. Um like which is pretty normal for privates, right? That's why you're a private and you're a private until the next private shows up. That's kind of that's kind of you're the new guy until another new guy shows up, and then you're not the new guy anymore. So he was he was not like that. And I got along with him, I I learned a lot from him, you know. Um because when you're coming out of training, you know, like a corporal is, yeah, it's like a god, right? Like they can ruin your life. Not pen to paper, but they can just starve you and run you and sleep deprive you, they can do anything they want to you.

Host 1:22:37

And then Marine Corps, do you have like much contact with your squad leader Patoon Sarn, or is like you work for your fire team leader and that's it?

Eric Shelvy 1:22:42

I guess as a brand new private, like a brand spanking new private, it's really your team leaders and squad leaders. And your team leaders like run your life, and your squad leaders are like like if you're getting torn into by this the squad leader, um, like you did something you really shouldn't have done. Yeah.

Host 1:23:03

Um, so you guys prep uh you you get on the plane, you fly out of March Air Force Base on a big ol' Boeing 747 packed with 200 Marines, dude. What was that like?

Eric Shelvy 1:23:16

So when I was in infantry school, they started pulling guys out early, which was unheard of. And they're like, You're going here. They it wasn't a lot, it was just a handful of guys, and they pulled them out and they're like, You're going on ship, you're going to the Middle East. And that was like, I guess that's when like, oh man, like this is crazy. This like freaking World War II movie going on, like right in front of you. Like it was crazy. And um I obviously didn't get pulled to go on a ship. Um go to 3-5. So yeah, you we drove on a bus to March Air Force Base in you know Southern California, and you get on this big ass. It's a it's a commercial plane, it's not a military plane, but it you know, they had contracts for these commercial planes, and yeah, it was 200 plus dudes with like so much crap just all over the place. Dude, like jamming helmets on the overheads, like the shit's on your lap. They'll you had to put all your guns on the floor, so you've got your feet on them. So every row had at least three machine guns in every three seat. You know, your 250 plus machine guns just laying on the floor of this airplane. What did you do? I always thought it was funny because they told us that uh you had to take your bayonets and put them in your sea bags and check them, put them on the underside of the plane, which I thought was because of FAA. You're like, really? There's literally 200 belt-fed machine guns laying on the floor, and we gotta put our bayonets. But yeah, it was it was an awful flight because you're just you're it's just jammed in there, even for being a commercial plane, because you guys have so much gear and there's like helmets falling out of the overheads, and it's loud, dude. Don't shut up. And you know, the flight attendants are like trying their best to like control everyone, but they can't. And but I I don't we so I ended up doing this four times, and I I get them all mixed up, but it at one of you know, I don't remember which one it was, it might have been the way there or the way back. But uh the pilot, and these are like big planes as well. It's like a it wasn't a 747, but it was a huge commercial airplane. And the pilot was like, Yeah, guys, welcome aboard. Used to be in the air force. He's like, We're gonna fly here and and and make our way to Kuwait. He's like, I'm just gonna leave the cockpit door open if you guys just want to come out and hang out. Uh, just come on up. And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I'm definitely doing that. So I waited, you know, until we got airborne and you know, we're cruising along and went up to the cockpit. And I was like, hey guys, and they had the door, no shit, man. They had the door open, and you just went up there and it's like hung out in the cockpit, and I was like, it's freaking cool, man. I mean, who gets to hang out? Not anymore. Yeah, not anymore.

Host 1:25:59

Especially after 9-11, dude. I'm surprised that's cool, man. Yeah, it's and he's like, look down there, and he's like, What is I'm like, what is that? And he's like, That's the pyramids. I was like, that's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. You land in Kuwait, man. What's going through your brain, dude?

Eric Shelvy 1:26:11

You think you guys are coming off the plane again in a gunfight, or yeah, you you have no idea what to expect. They had us fill a bunch of magazines with live ammunition.

Host 1:26:21

And and just for the audience, the audience, so the audience can understand, we're building up for the invasion of Iraq. So Afghanistan's already happened and we're we're about to invade Iraq.

Eric Shelvy 1:26:29

Right. So this is February of 2003. The invasion happens in March. So we're there for like a month before the invasion happens. So we're amongst the first troops, I guess. I don't know who was there. I know there wasn't a lot. Like all these big camps, you know, that they had in Kuwait, you know, years later, those didn't exist yet. It was just open desert. So we get there and they had us fill a bunch of magazines uh you know of ammunition and we put them on the underbelly of the plane so that when you get off the plane, they can just start handing them to you. So, and in your mind, you're like, I don't do, are we gonna like fly this 747 into like a fucking hot zone? Like, what in the world? It's you're I'm thinking like you're 19 years old. Blow the hatches, get the the floating raft thing, slide down and just start shooting. Yeah, like you have no idea. And I'm sure I think as a private communication isn't probably not flowing down to the lower bottom at all. You have no idea what's happening, and uh, you know, it's like even Kuwait, like I don't know, it's it's it's close enough, that might be a war zone too. Like, you have no idea, you just have no idea. I mean, I grew up in the Midwest, man. I have no idea what you're even talking about. So you get off the plane, and yeah, they started handing out magazines, and you get on these Kuwaiti buses, like you know, with the jingling shit all over them. Jingle truck, bro. Yeah, Christmas Street freaking buses and curtains, and and you know, uh they make you close all the blinds on them? Yeah, close all the blinds, and it was dark, and we just drove into the desert. No idea where we're going. Just a it was you know, you could see out the windows a little bit, and you just drive and it's pavement, and then it's not pavement, and then you stop the bus and you get out of the bus and you look around, and then they're like, Okay. So there's nothing. There's nothing. They just drop you off in the desert. There was there was one like tent. You know, now you know when they started building these giant tents that were 10,000 of them, there was like one tent, and they're like, All right, get all your crap. And our packs were very heavy because we had all the the biochem suits, which like doubled the weight of your gear. So you put your bag and your bag's like a two feet over your head because there's so much shit jammed in it. And they're like, All right, patrol formation that way, and we just walked for like I don't know, three or four miles. Like, not a super long way, but our packs were really heavy, so it was really brutal. And they're like, All right, start digging holes, defensive position, like this, and that's what we did. Just dug holes and sat there for a month. So what were you guys doing every day? Nothing. Waiting. Waiting. I mean, you were doing your watches and your holes with your your you know, your h whole buddy. You know, read books if you had any. Was your whole battalion co located or did they have everybody spread out? It wasn't the whole battalion. There was a it was uh it was just a company of us. I don't know. I the I think the battalion was somewhere around. I think They I think they created a big defensive position. It was just really spread out. It's like a big old skirmish line or something. Exactly.

Host 1:29:45

So you're like just in a foxhole by yourself or with the buddy, or like no, I was with Silva, my team leader.

Eric Shelvy 1:29:51

Just you and him for where you were sleeping at? In the hole. We had tents. At one point they gave us tents and we had tents to sleep in. Uh but you still maintained the the defensive position, like you know, 50, you know, 50-50 or you know, two hours on, two hours off, or whatever. Something to that effect. I can't remember exactly what it was, but chowing on those delicious MREs. MRE'd it up. Every once in a while, Gunny would come with a he would leave, I don't know where he went, and he would come back and he'd have um, you know, those big contractor trash bags, you know, those big like what you for like yard waste, and he'd come back with this huge trash bag full of rice crispy cereal, like 60 gallons of it. And he would just walk down the line with this giant trash bag, and you had your little canteen cup, and you'd just scoop up rice crispy cereal, and then they had some, you know, powdered milk. That was like exciting. Yeah. That was that was a big deal.

Host 1:30:45

So you said I I think I think if you told me like you you would sit in the foxhole, you guys were reading books or doing training runs and like I think at some point you're just like, yo, this is stupid.

Eric Shelvy 1:30:58

I don't know. I don't know. So I think I I I mean looking back on it, so I think the the command didn't know when the order was going to be given to go. And the vehicles also weren't there either. So the Amtrak's tanks um were not there yet. Were those part of your battalion or was that like a second? It's a separate, like tanks are a tank unit until you come together and they become combined arms, and then it falls under one command in the infantry. So if you have you know two, three platoons of tanks, like the tanks will be separated out to infantry platoons, two tanks of this platoon, two, whatever it may be. But and the same with the Amtrak, they're they're their own unit until it comes time for combat, and then they get all separated into the infantry units. So your organic, what we call an organic infantry squad, is just the infantry marines. So you have you know three teams of three or four, so you have 13 is what you're supposed to have. No one ever does, but that's what you're supposed to have, and then you get two tanks, and then you get an Amtrak, and then you get snipers or mortarmen or machine gunners. So so you'll have you maybe your your your platoon or squad will grow significantly in size. So we would say the organic O3s, being the O three infantry MOS designation, we say the org so if you hear that term organic organic O threes, that's that's what it means without all these attachments of vehicles and and special rocket guys or demolition, whatever, would get attached to it.

Host 1:32:32

You're a regular kid from the Midwest, dude. What's going through your mind as you're like sitting in this foxhole in the desert waiting to go to war? I mean, are you guys getting information like, hey, we're gonna evade this country? Like, are you guys getting told anything? I'm just I'm curious.

Eric Shelvy 1:32:45

Um yes and no. It's all like every day you're gonna get gassed, you know, and it's like, oh gas, gas. Every day someone's like, Oh, I got an incoming scud missile. You're like, well, okay. And you like shove a bunch of MMs in your mouth and put your gas mask on. They at some point they tried to get us to start like training again because I I think they want to do it because we're all just sitting around getting fat and doing nothing all day. So they tried to get us to do you know runs and it's like we're not doing freaking platoon runs in the open desert 20 miles south of Iraq. It's ridiculous. I understood why they were doing it, but this is ridiculous. We're not doing PT runs, you know, information. Um, so there was a lot of resistance to that. We did a lot of chemical training, decon, decontamination, like a lot of that kind of stuff. And uh we did some shooting, you know, they created like a little range so you could go out and do some shooting, but a lot of it was every day was like, we're going tomorrow. No, we're not. We're going tomorrow. So that went on every day. That was you know, and it was the beginnings of like the the the information that just flew around all the time. You know, we're going to we're going tomorrow, we're not going tomorrow, the tanks will be here tomorrow, there's no tanks tomorrow, you know, a lot of that kind of stuff.

Host 1:34:07

The Amtrak finally show up, dude. How did that change the mood?

Eric Shelvy 1:34:11

Uh it was awesome when the Amtrak showed up because it was like, okay, now it's getting real. You know, when the vehicles started showing up, and you know, and you got assigned um an Amtrak, and you know, you meet all these guys and they're cool, and you know, they got resources on the vehicles, you know, you can hang out in the back, and you know, to sit in your hole all the time. And you know, so it started to you started to get the feeling that like, okay, um, you know, it's it's getting a it's getting closer. We didn't know you didn't you just you don't you didn't you don't have access to the news, you don't have access to radio, like you're just being told what you're being told, and half of it's being made up by like the Lance Corbled three holes down. He's just like we're going tomorrow, right? He doesn't know. He's just everyone's just making stuff up. And uh I heard I heard from the general like, oh you talk to the general like did he did he send you an email and tell you that we're going tomorrow?

Host 1:35:05

Yeah. When did you guys finally figure out or what was like the final conversation you had before you guys start?

Eric Shelvy 1:35:11

So let's see. I don't know if I remember probably don't remember the exact date, but whatever. No, I don't remember the date. Let's see. At one point, uh the vehicle showed up, like some Humvees showed up, uh, some tanks started showing up, and then we're like, okay, things are like is for real. It's not just a bunch of us, you know, grunts out here in holes. Like now we have like mech now we're mechanized. You know, and that changes everything, obviously. Because it's easy to just tell them a bunch of Marines to walk that way and dig holes, but it's a whole different thing when you know millions of dollars worth of equipment starts showing up. That's when you know things are starting to get real. So we had a I guess it was a battalion that somehow I don't remember exactly, but we got the whole battalion together, and there was a general, and man, I should know this, but I do not remember which general it was. I really don't. I wish I did. I could I could go back and dig it up, I'm sure, but there was a general and he had the whole battalion. We were in the middle of the desert, like an an ocean of dirt, from horizon to horizon. And he was standing on a tank like Patton, right? And he's like, he's talking about, you know, we're we're going, we're going soon, you know, be ready, you know, motivational speech. I don't remember exactly what he said, but um he kind of like he was kind of kept looking at his watch as he was talking, which like noticed for some reason because it seemed out of place. He was like talking and kept like doing that. And he's like, okay, he's like, I just want to show you Marines what you got, you know, behind you. And like right as he's like, I mean, like to the second this freaking F-18 comes over our heads at like probably 300 feet off the deck and just goes straight up. You could like feel the heat off the afterburner, and I mean it's just like almost blows your eardrums out, and it's just like and everyone's like, yeah, right. Like it's awesome, right? Jets are cool, right? And then those bunch of helicopters flew over and fired like a bunch of missiles off, and it was super cool. Yeah, it was pretty cool. It's like, you know, now we're a little motivational time. And I was like, all right, now go dig your holes and sit there for another five days, right? So the motivation wears off pretty quick.

Host 1:37:25

What was it like, man? You guys get the order? Did uh did you guys embark at night or during the day? At night. So you guys finally get the order um to move out. What's that like? You all crammed into amtracks or what?

Eric Shelvy 1:37:39

Yeah, so we sit in these holes for like a a month, give or take. Um and uh yeah, but I I don't remember exactly. We get the order. And it wasn't like Eric Shelby got the order. It was like, hey boot, get on the truck. You know, it's like you're like, okay, I think that's the order. Yeah, I think that's what that means. It wasn't no like writ, like Val here, here, here. Eric Shelby's requested at the border of Iraq, right? It's like, yeah, my time to shine. Get on the truck, boot. You know, you're like, okay, I guess we're going now. And um, so it's not it's I think we mounted up in the daylight and then um started moving like very slowly into the dark, and then you know, it was like drive 200 meters and sit there for three hours. So everyone's just like, you know, you're super motivated at three in the afternoon, but by three in the morning you're not motivated anymore. You're tired and you know, you're sucking diesel fumes all in dirt and dust, getting kicked up by all the vehicles, and and it was just um, you know, everyone was all the vehicles were blacked out. So you could put your night vision on and you'll you could they had lit up infrared. And it was just like a galaxy of stars of just flashing infrared lights from all the vehicles. I mean, I I would couldn't even tell you how many there were, because it was just 360 of vehicles all trying to get through this berm. And you didn't know where the berm was at. You didn't know just like that way, because you could see the oil fields burning on the horizon, and you knew you knew that's where Iraq was at. That's about all you knew. So it um a lot of artillery was coming overhead, you know, out going overhead uh out in front of us. But you didn't know, did you? Like you're you're again like the plane, you're you're like, we're gonna cross the berm, you know. That's the LOD or the line of departure. That's the no going back line, as we called it. It's like once we cross the the the LOD, that that's it. We're in it. And you're thinking, like, man, as soon as we take two steps across that berm, it's gonna be like freaking Way City. Like, that's what you're expecting, right? There just that there's gonna be a thousand soldiers shooting at you as soon as you step foot across the line, and that for me didn't happen. No, you're just like there's so much dust, and and and so in an Amtrak, I was a machine I was a sawgunner at the time when we invaded. I carried the the belt-fed machine gun. So I was standing up. You know, you have a couple guys in the turrets, and I was standing up with my machine gun, you know, as like rear security, which I liked because it sucks standing up 20 hours a day, but at least you could see you weren't jammed into this metal box with no windows. Yeah. So at least I could see what the hell was going on. The guys were always yelling at, you know, yelling up, like, where are we? What do we see? What's going on? And they're like, Are we in Iraq? And I'm like, I don't know, maybe I still it looked like a pile of dirt back there. So we might we might be, you know, you're thinking it's you're thinking it's like the Great Wall of China. We're about to just blast through, right? And it's like a pile of dirt. You're like, I think we're in Iraq now. Like, are we here? I don't know, maybe.

Host 1:40:49

Uh before we dive into this um into this invasion, let's let's take a quick break. Yeah. You're in the Amtrak, man. You guys are about to cross the the LOD, the line of departure. You got a good gas mask story though, dude.

Eric Shelvy 1:41:11

Yeah, we were talking about it earlier, and I said, this is a funny story. I gotta tell you. I tell you about Private Shelby's time to shine. So we're in our holes, you know, in Kuwait. And at one point there was it's daytime, uh, you can see far, and there's a vehicle, clearly a military vehicle, driving out in front of our position, maybe like hundreds of meters, like way out there, and it's kicking up all this dust, and everyone's like, What the hell?

Host 1:41:34

What hell is that?

Eric Shelvy 1:41:34

And at the time, at that particular moment, we had gas masks on. So we didn't we didn't put the full suits on yet until we invaded. So we the you put your gas mask on and then you put your poncho on, right? So you have this poncho, and which no one's worn a poncho since the 70s, right? But we had ponchos. So that was gonna protect us from nerve gas ponchos with holes in them. So I'm I'm sitting in my hole, got my gas mask on, I got my rifle, and I got this poncho hanging over me. And they're like, uh I can't remember what second fire team, like, Silva team, take your team out there, see what's up with that vehicle. So I'm like, this is it, man. This is my time to shine. Like, I'm gonna save America right here, right now. And this this one vehicle out here driving around in circles. So I go running out there, and as I'm running, and my my poncho gets caught in the filter of my my gas mask, and I'm running. I can't breathe, and I'm trying to get this thing out. I'm just I'm joking to death as I'm trying to chase this guy down. I'm flopping around like a flag in the wind. And it's two uh British guys in a Jeep.

Host 1:42:47

Almost saved the world and suffocated yourself in the same place.

Eric Shelvy 1:42:50

International relations, right? Like, gentlemen, have a good day. What are they doing out there? Oh no, lost, probably. Yeah, who knows?

Host 1:42:58

Do y'all know where Iraq's at? Yeah, it's that way, dude. Yeah, bro. Follow the follow the oil trail.

Eric Shelvy 1:43:04

Yeah, exactly.

Host 1:43:05

So uh, I mean, you guys crossed LOD. I remember you told me, like, you know, I think we're doing your podcast prep, like in your mind, like you were ready for a D-Day, and then it was like this silence, man. Like you were just driving. Um, I think you said like the first week, nothing really happened. I mean, you guys were kind of driving through open desert or down big interstate highways, like what what kind of stuff? What were you seeing?

Eric Shelvy 1:43:28

So the first uh well, I didn't know any of this at the time, obviously, but there was basically two big columns of Marines coming up from Kuwait, and one was to the east and one was much more central, and I was in the central one. Again, at the time I did not know any of that. I didn't know you knew you were in an Amtrak. I knew I was I was there was a tank going that way, and I was to follow that tank. That's the extent of my instructions. When tanks start shooting, you start shooting. Yeah, the first I don't know, three, four days, it was just like open.

Host 1:44:01

What good?

Eric Shelvy 1:44:02

No, go ahead.

Host 1:44:03

Well, what were like what was getting passed down at the squad level? Like, like what is getting told to you guys? Like now you guys are invading, you're in amtracks. Like, what's your orders? Is are you guys getting an ROE? Was there a brief? Like, I I guess I didn't think about that till right now, but I'm super curious. ROE. We had ROEs, they had these ROEs are rules of engagement for you guys.

Eric Shelvy 1:44:21

Yeah, so rules of engagement, like what to do with the enemy. And we had these like cards that set a bunch of shit on them, and they changed like every three days. It's like today you can shoot a goat, but tomorrow there's no shooting goats allowed. Like, I don't think anyone knew. I don't remember anything specific. Like, if they do this, you're allowed to do this. It was just like uh this is very general, but it was like if you engage the enemy, then engage the enemy.

Host 1:44:48

That was kind of the general but like nothing at like the platoon level from like your your lieutenant or your platoon sergeant, like it's just there was I don't think they knew it.

Eric Shelvy 1:44:57

I the general order was go to Baghdad. We're going to Baghdad and we're gonna kill everything in the way and that's between here and there. It's very marine of you. Yeah, I mean that was I mean, like you're not gonna like shoot unarmed people and like you're not gonna do that stuff, obviously. But like you you're gonna go to the target, and we're if we're going to um encounter an enemy and we're gonna deal with them from here to there. That it was a very it sounds very loose, but I again I you know I've I've listened to some of your podcasts, and you got a lot of guys with a lot of cool stories and special this and delta that we we were not that.

Host 1:45:36

We were just like I think and I think that's why uh you and I were talking beforehand. I think that's why it's like not only do I love your story, but I think it's so important, right? Because I I have had a lot of special operations guys on here, and they're they're part of the war is is important, but like this was more of everybody else's experience, not everybody. It's special, you know what I mean? Like it's small, like the infantry, the marines, you know, active duty army coming in and large forces, like that's the bulk of what a most people did in the G Bot. Um, and so I think it's really important to tell the story. And again, man, we're gonna get into you know some of the nuances of your personal story and a lot of the different things that happened. And, you know, it is it's not as sexy. I mean, it's definitely, you know, the Marines did a lot, accomplished a lot, continue to do a lot. But um, you know, I think it's why it's so important um to tell like this story, and it's why I really wanted to tell your story because it is different, but it's important to hear that other side because you know, listening as I ask you about what's it like to get you, you know, the orders, and maybe you did, maybe you didn't, who knows? It was however many years ago, but it just goes to show the chaos of war, especially when you're a 19-year-old kid with a bunch of I mean, dude, if you look at your I mean, the only old people on the platoon or the platoon seren, maybe a squad leader that's salty, everybody else is probably like and the old salty guy's like 27. Yeah, dude, you know, like you look back now at our age, like it's a bunch of kids, bro, invading a country. Are you even old enough to have a gun? Like, I remember when I became, I don't know, man, an E7 or E8, and you start looking at lieutenants and captains, you're like, that dude's a college kid, man. Good god, that's who's really in charge. Because when you're younger, you don't really think about it. When you get older and you're like, those are kids, bro. These kids leave me. When you start becoming older than the officers, that's when you start to be like, wait a minute. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but uh anyway, you you know, couple a couple days of um highways.

Eric Shelvy 1:47:22

You started to say, man, you you you know what ROEs?

Host 1:47:24

Like, I don't I don't I don't remember.

Eric Shelvy 1:47:26

I know we had we there was a lot of instruction, this that cards, rules of gate, we had all that stuff. It was changing all the time. What they said, I don't remember. Yeah, yeah. I really don't. Um I expected you. I'm just curious. Yeah, I mean it's it's um you can write whatever you want on a card, but when you get out there, it's uh they're shooting at us. Eric, pull your card out. Like card says shoot back. Like, no, it's not like like when it's when it's time to um engage in um in deadly force, like there's no doubt in your mind that it's that yeah, there's no question about it.

Host 1:48:05

I remember you said you could see like you know, attack helicopters, you know, three to five miles out just going to town.

Eric Shelvy 1:48:11

Right. So you know, in my column, again, I didn't even know this other column was out there. I I think the army was you know flying in on horses out of airplanes and stuff. Aircav. Yeah, air calves with the speakers and well, but no, I you didn't we didn't know any of that. So it's like going we're going to Baghdad. Like, okay, are we going by ourselves? Like, I don't know, okay. It didn't matter. Yeah, you know? Um and there was just thousands, I mean it was so we had I want to so um it was probably two or three or four tanks, and then you had a cat platoon, which uh was a combined arms team. Basically it's a hum Humvees with uh missiles and Mark 19 grenade launch, you know, bigger, bigger weapon systems that are mounted on on vehicles. And and then you had the Amtrak's the infantry uh platoons behind them. So and we kind of flip-flop to like what vehicle was where. So I we were up in the I was usually up in the pick second, third, first Amtrak. So a couple tanks, handful of Humvees, and then Amtrak's So the first couple days, you know, um you have some of these I guess the first thing you really encounter is these big oil refineries. You know, and you you you're driving, it was some of it was open train, eventually we got to some yeah, big highway, and it was like it looked like kind of like video out of like Desert Storm, right? Like dudes waving the flag, you're like I don't know what this guy's doing. He's like walking his donkey down the side of the road, like we just pass him, let someone else. Um we're just gonna keep going until we encounter resistance. Like we're not dealing with uh you know people surrendering. That's that's not what we were doing. That's for uh MPs to deal with or something. So yeah, we had a couple days of open terrain, um a lot of dust, a lot of dirt, you just open open um just open desert. Nothing special about it. Did you guys uh was it like four to five straight days of just you know where you guys drive downtime or you drive all day, the vehicles stop, you know, they set up defense, you go out, you dig a hole, sleep 50-50 all night. So you're standing up for 18 hours a day in the vehicles, you're sleeping, you know, one hour on, one hour off. Um I don't think I took my boots off for a week. I mean, you had no idea. You're you're you're your your mind is uh prepared to deal with or you're anticipating, I guess, the craziest of things to happen. You know, that the enemy's gonna just jump out of a bush and you know you just you don't know what to expect. Yeah, and also part of it's just like fear, you know. I I think there's some genuine like fear, maybe there's some genuine like anxiety, you just don't know. And that that kind of I think that's what we were all kind of experiencing. I don't I wouldn't say more fear, it was anxiety of just the unknown. Like when is this showdown gonna happen? Cause we you know, we flew 40 hours to get here, we sat in the freaking holes for a month, you know, and now we're just driving around in the freaking desert. At what point is are we gonna encounter what you know we thought we were gonna encounter? But it didn't take long for that to happen.

Host 1:51:40

Yeah, walk us through your first contact, man. That was a pretty wild story.

Eric Shelvy 1:51:44

Yeah, so the first the first time we encountered like um real enemy, I guess you could say. Um so I I I mean I guess most people r have seen images of Iraq over the years. So you have a um I don't know, four-lane, two-lane road, like concrete paved road. Then you kinda have these drainage ditches huge on each side, and then they go up, you know, berms and they they go back on the other side. And um I was standing up um in the back of the amp track, you just staring into nothingness like you always do. And we w which we've been doing, you know, for five days or whatever. I was I looked forward, so you have I'm gonna standing up out of the back of an amtrak. There's probably one or two am tracks in front of me, some Humvees, and then some tanks up ahead, so I can see the front of the column. And I was just I for some reason I was just looking forward at the column of vehicles, and I see like this red glow go like across the top. Look, looked like uh a firework almost, like a red, like remember the old uh rowing candles? Oh yeah, it was like that, but it was kind of it was up over the Humvees, like maybe 300 meters, 200 meters in front. And I was just like, I kind of remember looking at it for a second, I was like, what is that? And like it like in a split second, it just all hell broke loose. And what it it was, it was an RPG that had fire been fired over the tops of the Humvees. And then it was just like all of a sudden, within like a half a second, there was just enemy everywhere, like everywhere, all over, shit flying all ding ding ding ding off the vehicles. And um, so the plan was, or what we not the plan, but what we trained for is that when we encounter the enemy, the amtracks, you know, combined, you know, they all have to be on the same page. So you have there's no doors on the amtracks, there's a big ramp that comes down on the back. And they'll they're designed to come off of ships and go up on the beach, they're not designed to be driven for 600 miles inland. Yeah, the Marine Corps set a bunch of records. Like that's the furthest inland the Marine Corps had ever been in its entire history. Wow. So yeah, just kind of like interesting stuff. So these these vehicles are designed for the ocean and the beach, and then go back to the ship, not drive all this. So the tactical plan was the Amtrak driver would turn the front of the vehicle towards the enemy, ramp comes down, and then the Marines peel out of the back on both sides and go to the front of the vehicle, and then we have a line, if you will, and then we bound and leap forward, close with and destroy the enemy. With over uh fire from the Amtrak's, which have 50 cals on them. So that's the general, that's the general plan. And we had practiced it before, you know, um many, many times. So this RPG goes flying over, um, and then it's just like all of a sudden it's like bam, then all lots of machine gun fire uh starts coming all over the place, and there's a dude just like right next to the Amtrak. Like right, and there's kind of a platform on the top where these big metal doors close when they go off the ship so you don't freaking sink. But we open them up, you know, when we're on land. So I'm standing up and I have my I have my machine gun here, and it's got you know bipods on it, and there's this dude that is so close to the vehicle. I don't know where it came from. I just like it's just one of those things where you're staring off into nothingness, and then all of a sudden all hell breaks loose, and you're just like, well, where do all these people come from? And so I have this machine gun up like this, and I'm trying to shoot this guy, and he's so close to the vehicle that I can't get the barrel over the edge of the vehicle, and the whole vehicle just like jolts, and the I think the driver saw him and just ran him over. So he was like all up all up in the tracks, guts, and it was it was pretty crazy. And and then I saw another guy, and I tried to shoot, and my gun did not fire. And you know, just you're driving in the dust for days, you know, it gets in dust. So it just doesn't work, and I'm everyone and everyone down below knows all hell's breaking loose, and they're yelling at me, like, what do you see? What's going on? I'm like, give me some some oil, you know, gun oil. And some guy hands me a jug of this stuff, and I opened up the the top of the the gun, and I just squeezed all of it, just a big squeeze of oil into the gun, put the rounds, slapped it down, charged it, and it's like as soon as I did that, boom, the ramp comes down. It's like then we all start peeling out. So I'm like, this is really bad. So I've tried to shoot this this gun twice now, and it failed to fire both times. I just squeezed a bunch of oil in it. I'm ready to go. So I'm running out of the back of this thing, like at the enemy who's in these ditches along the road. So we turn 90 degrees to the right, you know, all the vehicles do, and just dump out like 200 Marines, right? All just like just on. It's like a turkey shoot. So I come out of the back of the vehicle and I'm like, this is really bad, you know, because I'm running out of the, I'm running at the enemy with a gun that I know does not work. Like I've tried twice and it didn't work. And I have no means to like correct it once you leave the vehicle. It's like you're gonna sit there and take it apart and you know, analyze the problem, right? So uh I run out, just you know, exactly what we practice, we do, and I run out, slap the bipods on the ground, get in the prone. And I saw a couple heads, you know, shoulders, because you can you can you know they're in the ditches. And I look over at my squad leader, like this all happens in like three seconds, right? So like all the things that you know they say will happen to you when you encounter this type of instance. Uh, you know, the fight or flight, the auditory exclusion, the lack of motor skills, like all that shit happens. All of it happens. I don't think there's any, I think it's a chemical response. I don't think there's anything you can do about it. Um, but with lots of training, you can still do things because you've you've been you've done it so many times. So anyway, I look over at my squad leader, and he just happened to be like, we're off to my left, and he's over there and he's like banging his freaking rifle like on the ground. He's like, it doesn't work. Nobody's freaking guns work because we've all been driving in the dirt for five days. All the dust off the vehicles. And he's over there and he's banging, and I'm like, I look at him, and I look at this other, and this there's a a dude, a bad guy, in the ditch that realizes that no one's shooting at him. Because we're all like, one guy's banging his gun, I'm looking at him, and he's he he quickly realized this again, this is all in seconds. And he realized that no one was shooting at him. So he's running, and then he stops, and I see him look at my squad leader. So I I kind of watch, I just kind of all watched this all happen. I got my thing, I look at him, and I look at him, and he realizes him, and so he looks at him, and I and I pointed the the gun at him and I pulled the trigger and it worked. So the oil worked. I was like, oh, thank God. So he looks at me and uh he's like, you know, squatter's like, yeah, good, you know, because that dude was gonna shoot him for sure. Like, no question about it. But that's just business, right? So we we move forward, we go down in the ditch, we go up over the berm. Um lot of guys, a lot of dead enemy, all in the ditch. Uh, some are still running, uh running the whole company got online and you guys just started laying the hate down. Yep. Yeah, and it was like a freaking turkey shoe. I mean, we killed hundreds in seconds. Seconds. Um, some guys ran, some guys were captured. Um, it was pretty crazy. Um, you know, I remember coming, you know, I go down the first ditch to come up over the bigger berm, you know, let's say it's 15 feet, they're pretty big. You gotta climb up them. And I go down into the second ditch, and then it levels back out with the field. And then there's a I cut as I come down, and you know, you got these mop suits on all this chemical shit, these big freaking boots. You're it's a it's a shit show, just trying to move. And so I get down in this ditch, and I and there's a a culver, you know, like a big drainage culver, and this guy like comes out of it, and he was he was older. He was much older than me, obviously, but he was older, he was like an older guy. He wasn't like a 23-year-old, he was an older guy. And I looked at him and I had this machine gun and I had it at my hip. And I look at him, and he kind of like froze, and you know, that moment where it's like the big eyes, right? And it's like that split second of like, that's it. And he kind of froze, and I I hesitated for a second because he wasn't like an imminent threat to me. And that's like I froze. I'm like, all right, well, someone's we'll just arrest him or capture him or whatever. And then another Marine came over to the top and just plugged him. And I was like, okay, moving on. Now we go this way. And um, yeah, it was pretty, pretty wild. I think there was uh I don't I don't know if it was the one I saw. I think there was there was I don't think there was a corpsman that was killed um up in one of those Humbees in front of me. I didn't I didn't know him. But that was I think our first casualty, I think, in the battalion was that day. And I think an RPG just went through the through the door of the you know, we didn't have uh armored vehicles or any of that stuff at that time.

Host 2:01:50

Yeah, I remember something interesting you told me about that incident too, is like you would look down on the ground and there was like a rocket casing. Yeah, yeah.

Eric Shelvy 2:01:58

No, it's like I said, you know, you get that um, you know, it it all happened, it must have happened in in less than 30 seconds in totality. Um maybe a minute, you know, and then I remember sitting there at the end, and uh, there was another, I don't even remember who it was, there was another Marine right next to me, and we're like, man, this shit was crazy. Like, really, that was crazy. And I kind of like looking around, and it's just like uh exactly what you would expect. There's bodies everywhere, and it's like, oh, no, okay, now what now what do we do? And I'm like, man, I'm like, I'm really hungry. I remember thinking, I remember very specific now, because you get this huge adrenaline dump, you know, because your body thinks it's like an extreme danger, which it is, so your brain just like dumps all this adrenaline, and that's why you you know you lose fine motor skills and all this stuff, and because you're just trying to suck all the blood into your center because it thinks it's uh you know in danger, which which is all accurate. And um I remember thinking, like, man, I'm really hungry. And then I looked around and there was a I kind of like looked back at my path that I had, you know, I had run from the vehicle, and it wasn't far. But I looked back at it and there was a a casing for a rocket, not like an AT-4, but like one of the bigger rockets. And I was like, and they're really loud. You know, when you fire one of those things, it's it's an explosion. It's not like it's not like Top Gun, man. It's a freaking giant expl It's like a pound of C4 going off on your shoulder. And I looked around and I was like, man, fuck who fired a rocket. I I didn't even hear it. Someone fired off a rocket within seven feet of me, and I was totally unaware of it. I didn't even hear it go off. I don't even know what he was shooting at, but he must have been shooting at something.

Host 2:03:43

Yeah. What uh did you process that day at all? I mean, especially now as you look back, I can see you go back in your mind and like relive that moment. But like Did you ever process that? I mean, or was there even time to? No time.

Eric Shelvy 2:03:55

No.

Host 2:03:55

Just on to the next thing. On to the next thing. You guys had a pretty big did that with that engagement, was that during the day or in the evening? It was in the day.

Eric Shelvy 2:04:02

And you guys had a big sandstorm that night, didn't you? Yep. So there was a lot of really iconic uh photos of this horrendous uh sandstorm that went through that area. And um so right after that, right after that fight, get back in the vehicles and we're just on to the next, right? And then um the sandstorm, before we got on the vehicles, the stamp store started kicking up. And that was also the instant. That same battle was where Shantash had all his Was he your lieutenant? He was not, he was the lieutenant of that cat platoon, the Humvee platoon in front of us. So there was uh a lieutenant, Brian Shantosh, it was a pretty famous guy. But during that same battle, he uh you know earned the Navy Cross, and you know, his whole story is kind of a whole crazy thing. And he's a he's a part of my story be not because of that instance, but he went on to uh become a captain. He became my company commander, my captain in in the next deployment in Flugium. Yeah, we'll cover that. So we'll go, yeah, go back to that. But so right as that battle ends is when this standstorm starts kicking up, and um I I you don't think much of it at the time, I guess. So you get back in the vehicles and you know, again, you know, no idea where you're at. Like where that battle happened, if you gave me a map right now, I would have I would no idea where that happened. I couldn't even give you a hundred-mile radius of where that took place. I have no clue. I don't know what road that was, I don't know what city was closest. I have no idea. So we get back in the vehicles and we start driving again, and yeah, this this sandstorm starts kicking up, man. You cannot see your hand in front of your face. It was crazy how how low the visibility was. So they we go, I don't know, a couple hours, I guess, down the road, and we set up, then the vehicles stop, and we are gonna set up this defensive position like we do every night. Vehicles kind of you know set up defensive positions, we dig a fighting, you know, fighting holes or skirmishers holes, you know, and then do your 50-50 watches all night long. And then you wake up and you do it all over again. So we drive for, I don't know, a few hours, we stop, and uh you know, you can't hear anything because it's just this rumble of the the diesel tank, you know, the amp track. And this one of the am trackers, what do we call them trackers? One of the trackers was like, get out of the get out, or like open the ramp. He's like, the ramp is open, and you're like, you like put your hand out, you're like, holy shit, the ramp is down. Like you, it was so dark that you could not tell if you were if the whole backside of the vehicle was open or not. That's how dark it was.

Host 2:06:58

Yeah, Iraqi uh dirt storms, they're like biblical, man. It's like stuff you see in like the mummy movie type. Right. It's it's wild.

Eric Shelvy 2:07:08

Yeah, it was. And um, so yeah, they're like, get out, like, okay, we get out. And so we all, you know, we had two like sticks of us called, you know, so one guy gets out and you just kind of like held your hand, we just held on to the guy in front of you, so you didn't like get run over, basically. And so then one guy would walk out of the vehicle and kind of run his hand down the side of it, and we just laid down all kind of right next to each other. And it was me and another guy, and we just put the bipods down, and I just put my helmet on the buttstock, and I just and I had a we had a a poncho liner, just like a blanket that and I had me and this other guy, and it was cold and windy, and we had this pond, it was just two of us, and man, we just we just hugged each other all night long because we were freezing. And you have this this uh 50 cal off this amp track, is do do, and you know, when you're that close to it, it's and it's on top of you, it's just like it's like your heart skips a beat, right? Because the concussion of it just like shakes your whole diaphragm. And then they would shoot a like a flare, you know, a pop-up flare, a little parachutes, and it would go, I'd watch him and they go poof, and poo, and he would just go out of sight, it was gone. And then the lieutenant was back behind us, and he started yelling about enemy tanks. I don't know where this all came from. They're like, Enemy, there's an enemy tank battalion closing in our position. You're like, oh my god, dude, like you for real. Like, I cannot even see my own feet right now. And you think an enemy, a bunch of 60-year-old tanks is like coming down on us. And that that was it. You like he's probably hearing that on the radio out of mouth. I'm sure somebody's-I mean, it's not making it up, of course, but it's somebody saying something somewhere. You know, I'm and now hopefully the aircraft can see all this stuff because you can't see anything. And then the you know, the 50 calts shooting, and you're like, That dude can't that dude's not shooting anything, he can't see anything. You know, if the tanks can see stuff, if the tanks start shooting, you know stuff's real because they have you know really cool optics and thermals. And you know, if the tanks are shooting, then they they they can see stuff. Uh no one, none of us can. So you you essentially just wait for the tanks to start shooting, and then you're like, God shoot wherever the tanks are shooting. Like, that's that's where we're going. So, yeah, that was a really scary night, too, man. Like, that was uh and we got it. We when it the sun started to come up, the storm passed, and I was there's like I don't even remember who it was, but the dude I was snuggled up with all night, he looks at me and he's like, Where's the poncho line in this little blanket we share all night? I'm like, I don't know. It blew off in the night and we it just was gone.

Host 2:09:45

And I'm sure it must have gone miles. I'm sure you guys are like utterly exhausted too. Because you're not getting you're not getting real sleep ever. No. Yeah. Even when it's like your turn, like you might get a couple hours, but at some some point your brain will probably shut off a little bit to survive. But you know what I mean? Then you're waking up, and so it's yeah.

Eric Shelvy 2:10:00

I mean, I remember uh getting really bad um what they call them like blister holes, you know, on your feet. Because I don't think I I don't think I took my boots off for like six days. I never just I never took them off. This isn't the type of situation where you take your take your get in your sleeping bag, take your boots. No, you literally have your gun and you just put your helmet on the and you sleep like this. Cause you don't know. You don't know if dude's gonna start like I mean in your mind you're thinking like Guadacanal shit, right? Like you don't you don't know, you have no idea what you're up against.

Host 2:10:37

Well, and even the like you go back like again, man, you go back to the late 80s, early 90s, even the movies, like it was Vietnam. So, you know, it's like most of the movies were kind of Vietnam movies, and it was, man, guys in the middle of the night, you know, in the wire. And so I can imagine.

Eric Shelvy 2:10:52

Yeah, you're thinking like Charlie Sheen up there, right? Like, you know, with the freaking Claymore waiting for the dudes to walk in front of you. So you you just don't know, and you don't want to be the one standing there with no boots on when all hell breaks loose, and you're trying to find your boots in the dark. So you know when I don't know what other guys are doing. I never took my boots off until the point where it was like really painful and I like had to like actually address the issue. But and we you know, you when you started getting in there and getting a better feel for how this was all gonna go, you know, you started to take better care of yourself.

Host 2:11:20

Yeah, not too long after that, man. Um you guys are heading up another road and a and a tank gets attacked and catches on fire. Will you talk about that day? Yeah, so this was Silva Day, yeah.

Eric Shelvy 2:11:34

So um I guess this that was like March. So we go in in March 20th. This first gunfire is probably the 25th. I think that was around I remember it because it was that sandstorm was pretty significant. Um so maybe a week later, five, six within a week. And we're doing the same thing every day. Um get in the vehicles, we drive, if we encounter an enemy, we engage. If we don't, we you know make defensive positions and then do it all over again every day.

Host 2:12:09

And at this point, you're kind of I think if if I remember during our our prep, like you guys were countering resistance, but not like hardcore resistance, like not like fighter fighters, right? Right until the same.

Eric Shelvy 2:12:20

So that like that first gun battle, I you know, the guys had like um they had uniforms on, or most of them did, or like they were half dressed kind of thing. Uh they appeared to be like regular army uh you know, like regular soldiers from the Iraqi army. So we hadn't encountered any um of your like jihadi crazies yet. We hadn't so it was like you had this kind of escalation as we moved further north. You had like, you know, people surrendering, whatever, some some regular army, okay. We dealt with that. You know, some might we had you know one casualty, um, but it was like, you know, a bloodbath, really. And then so yeah, maybe a week later, within a week, and we're just doing what we're doing, driving up the road like we do every day on our way to Baghdad. I don't even know what road we were on. I look back now 20 years, and I see these maps of Iraq and you know, the red line, blue line, you know, and all this stuff, and I'm like, I guess I was in that one somewhere. No, I have no all you ever knew was like um, you know, we're a hundred miles from Baghdad, we're 80 miles from Baghdad. Like that was. kind of like the the I don't know what the word that was the only way to know was how far away from Baghdad we were. That's all you knew. What city you were in, how from you couldn't pronounce even if they told you you wouldn't pronounce it or know it or it was just go to Baghdad. That was it. So yeah we're going up to we're going up the road just like we do every day and you talk about this tank and um that's again it's one of those things I was standing up like I did every day and I looked forward and there was a one of our tanks on fire up ahead of us which is very very crazy you know very not normal you know like um and it to backtrack just a hair. So you have as we're moving up in front of us you mentioned the helicopters so you had attack helicopters marine attack helicopters kind of um I don't know two three four five miles out in front of us just shooting rockets at things shooting who knows what they're so by the time you got up there there was you know vehicles destroyed maybe there's some old enemy tank you know under like two palm trees that's all shot to shit you know so I think the helicopters were were dealing with with that kind of stuff and so you really kind of knew that was kind of a little foreshadowing that you knew when the helicopter started shooting up ahead of you that you were about to get into something so that was kind of like you got a little a little bit of a heads up that like there's resistance up there of some sort we don't you don't know what it is. It's just like drop the ramp that's it drop the ramp and run out there and and shoot everything like okay I can do that. You know so we're driving along and I looked ahead and I saw yeah it was at one of our tanks and it was on fire. And I was like man I I remember just thinking like that's weird. Like how why is one of one of first of all how did this tank get here before we did so somebody must have been crisscrossing or somebody got in no clue. You know that was my first thought was like why is this tank here and why is it on fire and why is it by itself so it's by it's by it there's nothing else around it's just on fire. So I don't know I don't know if hell is my could have been mechanical for all I know and the thing caught on fire itself. I don't know but it didn't look like it looked like it had been destroyed. So and then uh kind of like the previous battle um you know a very similar thing happened just driving along I'm like that's a weird looking tank on fire and then all hell breaks loose right it's just like instant and you do what you do you just start shooting you turn the vehicles the ramp comes down and you do exactly what you do what we were trained to do what we did last time and so on. This one was a little different because this first berm if you the first ditch if you will had water in it which changed the dynamic. You obviously can't run through the water but it had this little foot bridge kind of whenever where my vehicle stopped maybe 30 to 30 40 meters to this side was a footbridge that went over this over this creek or body of water whatever you want to call it creek it's like a that's a drainage ditch with water with you know six foot cattails um plants in them and so you have a ditch of water a little shelf and then a berm and then just kind of like the other one. It was just on the other side of the street this time. So we we dump out get like we do we're like okay we can't see over the berm so we need to get to the berm so that we can engage the enemy because we can't see you can't you can't shoot through the berm obviously but the the vehicles can because they are higher. So the vehicles are just going to freaking town tanks in the tracks and we're like okay we're get to that foot bridge so we get to we go down you know 30 meters cross the foot bridge and then go back this way to get back in front of our vehicle so we're all online again with each other so we don't all start shooting each other. And which worked out well I mean that and there was another movement another platoon that was moving kind of up this way um so I crossed the footbridge and and I guess I was the second guy that well that peeled off to the left so Silva, Corval Silva, my team leader was right in front of me. He peels off to the left I peel off right behind him and we're just running down this you know shelf to the berm and the enemy's on the other side of it. So between us and the vehicle is this water and then the vehicles so our focus is out over the to the other side of where the enemy's at so we're running down this thing and I heard a gunshot there's a lot of gunshots because it's 50 cal is firing right over your head so it's just like thumping your whole body and he just and Silva just dropped just like right in front of me. He just kind of like flew back and he kind of like looked at me as his eyes started like go up into his head and he just like dropped right at my feet. And I was just like you know this all happens in fractions of a second and I kind of like looked down at him and I'm like what the what the fuck? And I and as I like saw him he drops I look up and there's a dude in the cattails in this body of water who got in between us and the vehicles which is a very bad place to be you know what I mean so I had a this built belt fed machine gun and I could only see half of them so I just let every I shouldered that thing weighs 35 pounds. I shouldered that thing like it weighed two ounces and let every single round that that thing was holding gone. Give me more and I let 200 rounds go at that dude. But it was kicking up you know a lot of dust because it he was down in the water and uh so I couldn't see if he was still standing there or not so I just kept shooting until I ran out of ammo. I was told that we did go up and check him out and he had a gazillion bull holes in him and but they took Silva and and got him out you know immediately and um but the fight doesn't stop. You know it's like you just that's bad get the Corpsman step over because you can't you can't deal with him until you can deal with this you know because then there's gonna be five of us laying here. So we have to deal with that. They take him and uh you know we deal with the enemy that's still out there and this is this is not GIs right this is now we're dealing with dudes in black jihadis who knows where they came from but insurgency type people before there was an insurgency if you will so they took uh Silva away and um I was in a position where I was just kind of laying suppressive fire while another unit was moving and and they dealt with whatever was out there that was all dealt with and no no I never saw Silva again he died right right instantly right there so yeah that's a that's a bad day man how did you process that one after everything died down I guess a shock really you know it's you know it's it's it's another unit it's another Marine it's it's all that until it's it's you know until it's you until it's your unit and he was my team leader so it was you know it played um it was a significant event obviously but for a lot of the other guys they were like his friend you know a lot of his peers that were before you know senior to me so those guys like I was obviously distraught obviously because I just watched this happen right in front of me but um the other some of the other guys were like really fucking crazy about it. Like that was really it really fucked guys up. I mean I I I guess it I mean of course it affected me um I I think it affected some of his closer friends better but like to me he was my team leader.

Host 2:22:17

He wasn't like my friend we've been in the Marine Corps for four years with you know like it clearly um was upsetting but to those guys it was like devastating did it really hit you man like to see somebody like your your leader man like you know I remember when I was a young private I I looked up especially to my team leader and my squad leader and like uh and my squad leader later became opportun but those dudes were like some larger than life figures in my life then even as I look back now uh to see somebody that you kind of look up to that you know had taken you in and um yeah I I mean did you end up taking over the team or uh briefly I think uh I I uh briefly I I did and then they brought someone else over um I don't I like someone else did come over but I don't remember who and it was ten there was a big shakeup thereafter.

Eric Shelvy 2:23:12

I think I ended up did get becoming a team leader in the aftermath of of that.

Host 2:23:18

Yeah you you I think you told me during our prep that that he was stop loss and in reality he probably should have never been there.

Eric Shelvy 2:23:26

Um how do you process that now I don't know um I don't how do you process I don't know do how do you or do you at all? I mean if you process it or you don't process it is it does it change anything? You know I mean he died as a marine in combat you know he wasn't murdered on some street corner you know I mean there's that it doesn't change the fact that he's not here um he's a hero man I mean but yeah I mean it it's it's easy to be like um you know oh yeah I'm gonna die in war and I want to die but it's it changes your perspective when you see it happen you know there was a great scene um you know in the movie Troy I don't know if you remember that movie was a great movie when he's like you know nothing about war and you know nothing about love and and you hear their screaming and yelling and I remember watching I watched that movie and I was like man that true words have never been said because it's it's not you know there's nothing there's not it's not to say that it's not honorable because it is but war is violent.

Host 2:24:37

War is often romanticized.

Eric Shelvy 2:24:39

Oh absolutely and you know I think about you know like processing how do I process it like I I I guess one way I process is that I compare it to the past you know and it's like like we as a species are so I mean he was shot and killed like many others are and were and are every day. You know and it's in most cases it's instant because it's a high powered piece of metal at supersonic speeds. But can you imagine going back a thousand years where we're gonna get like 8,000 people on a field with clubs and we're gonna just beat each other to death I mean I couldn't even fathom how violent that must have been or even back in World War II of dudes running around with blowtorches like just torching people you know this just the brutality of of it all I mean can you imagine like let's get 8,000 dudes on a field with sticks and we are just gonna beat each other to death with baseball bats. War is the worst in humanity. It's unbelievable when you when you think about it and so I don't think it makes it not not to minimize any of you know what happens now or it's I that's how I I guess that's how I process it. I say you know it's it's awful and it it will and it's about you know as the story goes on it's gonna get a lot more awful yeah um but I don't know if I at the moment at the time did I process it?

Host 2:26:05

No because you don't have time to it's on get back in the vehicles let's go unfortunately on this podcast we've talked about folks who's lost their that have lost their life made the ultimate sacrifice for this country and their brothers sisters um Silva was really well liked um his whole family was military I think his brother was a Marine his sister was in the air force what was he what was he like as a as a person I know you didn't get to attend um you know his funeral that's how it goes you're a war um but yeah man it's your opportunity just to give your your thoughts on him the human right the warrior the marine but him as a person man I mean I I remember I remember when we were prepping this man and I I you know I I watched you in your head process that you know and really think about it right because that it's probably not a place you spend a lot of time in your head but you know he he treated you well right especially as a new boot and there's a lot of guys coming to the unit you get trashed and oh yeah you know you've heard a lot of those stories but it seemed like he really you know whether he cared about you or he was just a good person or both yeah I think there's I think uh I mean for him both I think he was a good dude he was a good dude to me and I think he was a good dude to everyone else I think that's why he was um you know I think that's why he got along with everyone you know I I only I could only see it from my perspective but I could I could see what it did to the other guys in the platoon that were his you know generation if you will and uh you know after that incident um all the the the boot games the private bitch get the water jugs you're the bitch you know you're the private all that shit was gone that changed everything the whole dynamic of the platoon totally changed after that all those games were over with it was now it was all of us versus all of them and it doesn't matter whether you're a two-star general or a private like bullets kill equally you know and uh so a lot of this stuff just went out the window yeah I think about like you know the pre-GWAP military right we're in the training military and you know all the games you play and hazing and right yeah all that stuff was over with at that very moment that makes sense man because then you realize like it's it's not a game like war was never a game to begin with but you can't understand it until you've been in it. Right. And it's really hard you know I I know you and I have talked about this in the past too it's hard to explain again man and and you and I both are not one to run around and tell war stories. And this isn't a war story podcast although it is we're documenting history but it's hard to explain war to people who've never been there because to your point man it's brutal it's chaos it's chaotic um it's sad you know and there are people look man I'm not anti-war dude there you know they're there's evil in this world right and I don't want people to get that confused but sometimes it comes a great toll and I know you and I talk and I think about war way differently than I did you know I'm 47 now you know that's why they have 18 year olds in the Marine Corps because if you got a bunch of 35 year olds you'd be like I ain't doing that shit are you crazy? Yeah I thought it was cool man I mean you told me I I think the squad went over and and got you know that they got the buttstock off that that uh the enemy combatant's rifle and yep some guys went over there and cut the buttstock off that weapon that killed him and then gave it to his brother. It's honorable man that's at least yeah um did you guys have any kind of memorial in country for silver is it just on to the next man on to the next yeah and that was one thing I mean you and I've both worked in law enforcement as well and it's like I I remember the finality of it. I I joined I mean I ended up going to war later on but you know when a police officer or you know somebody in law enforcement's killed in the United States like it's like a week or two of mourning bands around your badges etc etc and like a war man there is no time for any of it. There's none of that no there's none of it you get to process that eight six eight months later yeah or years or decades. Yeah or you never process. Right. Was that the same battle that you had uh a friend from infantry school he got shot to and I think he stormed up a machine gun nest or yes yeah so that you know we were in the um what they call like this oppressive fire like you know we're shooting here and this other element is moving so if I'm shooting at you you can't be shooting at me we can't be shooting each other at the same time no right it's not the way it works if I'm shooting at you your head's down and vice versa and there's this trade off so the more I can shoot at you with overwhelming firepower I can take an entire platoon and and close in on your position from a flank from the side and you're totally unable to stop that from happening because you can't move because I I have overwhelming firepower on top of you.

Eric Shelvy 2:31:22

So I I didn't see it happen. I I knew he got you know a friend of mine that I was in infantry school with that whoever was out there because I never got past the berm um another platoon went out there I don't I don't know but I know he got medavax some helicopters came in he got shot I think in the shoulder or something like that and um I think some other people got hurt I don't know exactly who but some helicopters came in and they threw a bunch of people on helicopters and and that was that you know and just kind of figured out in the shuffle kind of thereafter yeah and I know Silva will forever live with you bro because that was your birthday.

Host 2:32:00

Oh yeah you covered that wow that was your 20th birthday and um yeah that's I'm sure a day that you'll always carry with you. Yep. Do you ever talk to his brother any of his family members or anything?

Eric Shelvy 2:32:14

I haven't recently I used to when we went back to California he's from uh California Southern California so a bunch of us went out there and yeah you talk and he's from a small town um in Southern California kind of out away from the ocean and um yeah like his his brother was in the Marine his sister's in the Air Force like all of them like every one all of his brothers and sisters are all active duty military and you know I got to meet his mom his mom was you know at Pendleton when we came back. Super cool yeah I mean it was really cool that she was there it was nerve wracking for me. Sure. You know I didn't know if she was I didn't I didn't know if she was like gonna hold me accountable for that you know what I mean like that's uh I mean I know what happened I was there and there's I mean there's nothing any

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Eric Shelvy 2:33:05

that you you could have done differently that would have changed the outcome other than you know there's nothing you could have done. But you don't know that you don't know you know it's been this is you know six seven months later you know and you're like man is this mom gonna like hold me like personally accountable for her dead son you know and that's that shit's in the back of your mind yeah man because like being in the military there's always consequences for everything so like even though it's war and whatever you don't want to process that in 20 and you're like man something bad happened am I gonna get in trouble you know but it's I can imagine I mean I don't think I don't no one was worried about getting in trouble but I'm you know yeah it's like you know you you that crosses your mind like you know and it it's you can second guess yourself to death but

(Cont.) He Refused to Be Put in a Box | Marine, Diplomat, Then Gone | Eric Shelvy (Part 1)

Eric Shelvy 2:33:48

it's pointless you'll you'll you'll you'll end up at the bottom of the barrel doing that shit. I mean really I mean 22 a day with it then that's that's how you get there. What uh how was his mom? She was very nice. You know she was super happy to see everyone. I think sh I didn't know her but I think she knew a bunch of the other guys that you know were of his same time time frame and it was it was good to see her. I mean it was nice to meet her her you know the his brothers were really cool and I'm sure they needed that as you know as maybe as much as some of the the other guys needed it I'm sure they needed some kind of closure you know or at least to see the people I I just can't imagine what that's like as you know somebody who has kids know. Yeah. I mean for me I think I just you asked us a lot how you process like uh I think for me I just chose not to like it was probably easier it's easier that way. Yeah you know I suppose it's you know uh you know inevitably I suppose you do one way or the other but I mean for many many years you just I just chose not to I think that's that's a normal reaction I think a lot of people do that. Yeah I mean and as busy as we were um it's not like you have uh all this downtime to sit and contemplate it right you you just you just don't you know it's it's not like we stayed at that that location for days we were gone in hours moving again like where that happened again I have no idea where that happened maybe if I had some satellite imagery I could find that footbridge and put it together but you'd have to tell me what road we were on because I have no idea somebody probably does but I don't what uh what was the rest of that deployment like so we get to Baghdad I don't know a couple weeks later maybe um we didn't stay in Baghdad very long we we we never went like we went through like parts of Baghdad but we didn't go through like downtown like where palaces and um you know they were tearing statues down all that I didn't see any of that uh we went through Baghdad we were there for like days and then we went further north up to Samara and we were up there for a couple weeks maybe and then back down to a town called Diwania which is south of Baghdad and that's where we kind of established we took over some former army base and that's where we were kind of based out of for the rest of that deployment kind of doing um uh like police type stuffers and you know they we were still wearing like soft hats we you know you know uh open door Humvees like uh IEDs really weren't a thing yet so you know I've heard guys say this uh I think I'm wondering it might have been Your podcast, the guy was talking about this, and I was like, Yeah, that's ex exactly what happened. There was like this like Baghdad fell, and then the fighting kind of stopped. There was like this lull of you know, maybe six months, whatever it was. We're for like Saddam's forces were gone, and the insurgency really hadn't started. So there was this gap of time where it was like we just run around like snatching up looters. Like we were doing more of like police type stuff than we were doing like gun rolling gun battles kind of thing.

Host 2:37:13

How was that too? I mean, did you feel like you guys were trained for that, or you're just like, ah, you just kind of do it's you just kind of do it.

Eric Shelvy 2:37:19

You just kind of do. I mean, pointing a gun at someone and putting flex cuffs on is not super complicated, right? Like especially with somebody like grew up doing ride-along, so it's probably I mean, it's it's not like you have to uh you know, like give them a warning and no, you just eight guys jump out of a hump you know, a seven ton and jump on top of a bunch of people running around with air conditioning units. Like, it's not that complicated. Like, yeah, we're not we're not writing reports about serial numbers and so it was it was pretty it was pretty cool. Like there was no more like combat for us after there were some some some smaller skirmishes um before we got to Baghdad and some other small towns, um, but nothing nothing major. Like a couple, I don't know, a handful. Let's just say a handful of of gunfights of but there was nothing super major. And then we went down to D1 and we stayed there for months.

Host 2:38:14

How how long was that first deployment?

Eric Shelvy 2:38:16

Eight months.

Host 2:38:18

That's a long time, dude.

Eric Shelvy 2:38:19

Yeah. How long did you go without getting a shower, dude? Um I don't know, three months maybe? That's a while, dude. We found yeah, three months without a shower. I had um I mean, I remember uh right after you know Silva was killed, like you know, you talk about significant events in your life that you remember, you know, like your kids being born, you know, your 16th birthday, whatever. So for me, from the world, the the crazy world of this mind, one of a significant life event for me was the day we got to take the chemical suits off. I remember it like it was my wedding day. Like today is the day we burn these freaking chem suits. April 5th, 2003. I remember it we pulled out our desert camis, and they still smelt like you know, laundry detergent. You're like, this is the greatest day of my life, is I'm gonna burn these freaking rubber ass boots. And it was just like a giant pile of rubber boots everywhere. So every time a gun fight happened in that open terrain, everyone's objective was to because if you lost your gear, this is this is dealing with a company gunny, right? If you lost your gear, you got in trouble, right? If you lose your gear, it's a big deal. Um, it's not, but it is in the Marine Corps. But if it's a combat loss, what we call it a combat loss, it's totally acceptable. So every time a gunfight broke out, and I'm not exaggerating, it was it was funny, but not funny, but practical. So a gunfire breaks out, all hell breaks loose, and half the Marines are trying to kick those stupid rubber boots off and throw them in the water so that when the fight's over with, like, oh, it's combat loss. I don't know. There's no more boots, so I don't have to wear these stupid rubber boots anymore. So everyone's trying to just lose their gear on purpose because everyone's tired of wearing these freaking rubber boots or they're they're clown boots. They're these giant rubber like chem boots that go on top of your boots.

Host 2:40:16

Yeah, and then you have to like strap them and then your feet sweat inside of them.

Eric Shelvy 2:40:20

I mean, to your point, man, they're if you step in water, then water fills up in the thing. Now you have cinder blocks on your feet, and um, I mean, I remember being waist high in one of these little, you know, these little ditches of water, and I couldn't get out. And I had I took my machine gun and had these bipods on it, and I would just swing it like an axe, and I would try and dig it into the ditch and pull myself out. Yeah, that was it. Just trying to get rid of those boots, yeah, wearing that stuff. But yeah, so the rest of the time was kind of policing, you know, um, nothing super crazy, just typical goofing around stuff. And um, we're like, yeah, we won. All good, let's go home, you know. You know, so we were the third battalion of 5th Marines, so one five, two, five, we were all there. So, in order to restart this cycle of someone being in the rear and replacing everyone, you know, again, someone had to leave first, so it wasn't us. So one five left before us to go home, and then so that when we left, they could come back and replace us and start the cycle all over again. Because we were all there at one time, so there was nobody to relieve anyone. So someone had to stay until the cycle repeated itself, and that just happened to be us.

Host 2:41:34

So you guys stayed there the longest?

Eric Shelvy 2:41:36

Yeah. So I mean, I guess one, five, I don't know, maybe they were there five months, six months, and then two, five left like a month later, and then we stayed left like you know, and no one knew. Like, we're like, when are we going home? Like, okay, Baghdad's ours, you know, we won. Okay, let's leave. Yeah, like let's get out of here. Like, what are we doing here? We can run around chasing looters around, we can do this in America. You know, it's crazy as I look back to at that war.

Host 2:42:02

It's almost like they never even planned for that, right? It's just like, yeah, we're gonna take this country, and like, no, we do. No, I don't know, man. Yeah, it's you look back and you're like, how did it's like you know, when we pulled out of Afghanistan? I mean, it just looked like we knew that was coming at some point, but it looked like the most unplanned, unprepared. You're like, how does that happen? Yeah, we have a whole Pentagon. There's like whole sections of people that do plans, and yeah, it's wild. Um what was it like coming home from that deployment? I mean, like, dude, you've just spent eight months, you know, months without showers, combat, you know, losing people, war. And you come back and you're like, back in America, where half the country probably doesn't even know what you've been through.

Eric Shelvy 2:42:46

Um I don't know. I mean it was there was kind of a couple different things kind of going on at the same time. You know, it's like we won, we did our jobs, you know, we went to Baghdad, we were going home, war's over, let's go home, you know, and that's kind of what we all thought. And then we get home, you know, there's some memorial type stuff going on, families, you know, a lot of that. And then there's but very shortly after getting back to the States, I mean, very shortly, like weeks, um, you start hearing these like rumblings of like, we're going back again. And you're like, what? Like, we didn't believe it. Like, no, dude, we're not going back. And we won. Like, what why would we go back for? But there's there's there's rumblings. You're starting to hear this, like, we're going back again, we're going back again. And um, yeah, it was true. Yeah, I remember you telling me. We were all very surprised, like, we just didn't understand. I mean, we you understand now, obviously, what was happening, but when we left, it was like a bunch of looters running around, like, okay, hire some cops and let them go beat up leaders. Like, that has nothing to do with us, you know. Because again, this, you know, IEDs and trucks blowing up, but that shit was not happening yet. Are you guys starting to hear rumblings about the insurgency? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Uh yeah, things are changing very quickly. You're starting to hear like IED. Now we're getting classes and courses on IEDs and explosives and all stuff that um, you know, we just didn't deal with before. It was open terrain. Um, some of it was urban, uh, some of it was not, but it was just I guess general fighting, I guess, in an in an open terrain. This that this is something totally different. IEDs and uh this is something very, very different. And I think that, you know, there was a lot of army, I believe, that was still there. So when the Marines left in 2003, we were amongst one of the last Marine infantry units in the entire country, like maybe two battalions in the whole country. And we weren't doing like infantry stuff. And I think the Marine Corps was like on its way out completely. I was like, okay, army, come, you know, big army come in and do your thing and rebuild this place and do, you know, all that kind of stuff. Um, and then you like hearing all these rumblings about we're going back, we're going back, and it's like, I'll send the whole freaking Marine Corps back in there. It's like, okay. And it was like, you know, the Marines have uh Al Anbar, you know, Fallujah and Ramadi, and the army deals with Baghdad, and that's I guess how it broke down.

Host 2:45:26

You get back, you get promoted to corporal. Uh how did that feel like, especially like, you know, corporal's such a key position in the Marine Corps?

Eric Shelvy 2:45:34

Uh yeah, I was very I was very proud to get that. Yeah, I was a mer I got uh a meritorious corporal position uh promotion. It was uh I was probably a little junior to get it. Like uh I probably should have had another I guess in the normal timeline of how long it takes to become a corporal, I was before that. Before that timeline, it was a meritorious promotion. So and I was uh, you know, you know, Sean uh Captain Shantosh from OIF-1, he became our company commander, and he's the one that promoted me to corporal.

Host 2:46:12

Oh wow.

Eric Shelvy 2:46:13

And uh, you know, there's a there's a tradition, you know, because when you become a corporal in the Marine Corps, you get what we call the blood stripe, the red stripe down your blue pants. So when you become an NCO or a corporal, you get the blood stripe. And as the old tradition goes, you know, they they they pin your chevrons into your collar and then you smack you on the side. And that cat man, he hit me so freaking hard on my on my leg to like blood stripe me. I almost fell over in front of the whole freaking company. I was like, God damn. I'm like, damn, Captain hit me so freaking hard, man. Well, he was a Mustang too, right? He was a Mustang, yeah. So it was it was really cool, man. I I um I felt like I earned it. I felt like uh I felt like I was good at it. I liked uh I liked leadership positions, I liked the chaos of combat. I was good at it. I like the the crazier it was, the more I liked it. The more chaotic, the better.

Host 2:47:14

Did you feel salty too? I mean, now you've you've come back, man. I mean you've you've seen some shit, but you've also been in some stuff. You've kind of I don't want to say proven yourself because that's not, I mean, everybody went to war, uh, but I mean, I mean, did you did you feel different?

Eric Shelvy 2:47:30

Yeah, I guess. I mean, you felt like you mean you clearly knew you went through stuff. Um, but I also think we were all very humbly aware that uh more stuff was coming. And you know, the dynamic of the platoon completely changed, you know, six months ago we were the private nobodies, and now we're the team leaders, and we're having a whole group of brand new group of private nobodies.

Host 2:47:53

Yeah, because I would imagine you got a lot of guys that were stop loss, right?

Eric Shelvy 2:47:55

And they were all gone immediately.

Host 2:47:57

Everybody left. Yeah. So now you guys are the leadership from the Yeah. What was that like? Uh did you feel the weight of like having new guys coming knowing what you know? And these guys, I mean, this is you a year ago.

Eric Shelvy 2:48:12

I I didn't feel the weight of it. I felt like it was a great opportunity um to to like we didn't like I was I did not like that hazing shit. Uh I thought I was stupid. I didn't, it didn't serve any purpose whatsoever. Um, you know, this is not Vietnam, man. This isn't like uh we're not getting drafted here. Like some of these guys are sharp, like we're here to learn and do the job. Like I didn't like it. I didn't think it did anything. It just brought morale down and created a divide. And I mean, there's there's some traditions that are like cool, you know, like uh promotions and things like that. But like just general, like, let's just fuck with the boots for like a month relentlessly to serve no like why don't you teach them how to do some shit before you fuck with them? Uh oh you know, I mean they are privates, and that's yeah, you can always screw with privates, but um I think because we had like so my generation is now, and I use generation, this is like a year, you know, six months generation, not lifetime generations, but that's a lifetime of war, though. Right. So so we became kind of the the leadership element of the platoon, and you know, we got a new lieutenant, we got a new captain, we have a crazy, you know, we have Captain Chantosh, who's you know, proven, right? Like, and everyone knew about him, you know, in his actions in that very first gunfight, he ended up getting the Navy Cross, which is a pretty big deal, you know, it's just shy of the middle of honor.

Host 2:49:31

And he had a especially in the Marine Corps, because the Marine does not hand out awards like other services, dude. It's like very I think the Marine Corps and the Ranger Regiment are probably the two places where like they just don't like it.

Eric Shelvy 2:49:43

Just to give you an example, uh, in that when I told that story about the the very first gun fight I was in, and my squad leader, you know, looked at me and his shit wouldn't work, and I shot this guy. And uh I got um for that actions on that day, that instant, that thing, I had a uh I didn't get a medal, I got a letter of appreciation. And I still have it, it's got a coffee stain on it. It's a letter, it's a letter of appreciation. It's like killed this, ran over this, stopped this, like save a squad leader's life. Letter of appreciation is like thanks, bro. Sign general, whatever. It's like really needs like some Lance Cobel just wrote this thing like 15 minutes ago. Yeah, but yeah, they're right. The Marine Corps doesn't hand out uh medals like other branches do. So when there's a big medals, they get handed out, they're it's pretty cool, it's usually really well deserved. I mean, and at that time, like I mean, and and you know, when we go on to Flujo, it just gets so much crazier. But even in then, it's like, man, you could have handed out bronze stars to like 40 people if you wanted to, like easily. I mean, a lot of actions were were worthy of bronze stars, but maybe two officers got bronze stars and you know, a bunch of purple hearts, but they just don't hand them out. So when when a big medal like that gets handed out, um yeah, it's a really big deal. As it should be. Yeah, and you know, and you go on, you know, we come back to the states, and you know, when those medals were handed out, you know, that's kind of a story unto itself, you know. So we're these rumblings of uh going back to Iraq. I I don't remember what point they started talking about Fallujah, but um we definitely knew we were going back. We didn't it wouldn't so we ended up we did go back, and we were only back in the states for uh let's see, April, six months before we were back again. Something like that. It's like April to October, six months, and um so we were out at 29 Palms, which is another big Marine Corps base out in the Mojave Desert.

Host 2:51:45

Super beautiful, beautiful place, yeah.

Eric Shelvy 2:51:47

Yeah, when you're not sweating your ass off, right? Yeah, it's in the middle of the desert, and it's where you do a lot of the combined arms stuff for the actually use jets and helicopters because they're just a range, you know, it's not a rifle range that's a hundred meters, it's a range that's like three miles long. So, you know, you can use tanks with live rounds and helicopters with live rounds. So you get to do a lot of really cool stuff, but yeah, you're in the middle of the desert, it's a million degrees. Um, but yeah, like we were just at one of those ranges, you know, training again to go back. And um, yeah, it was the first sergeant or somebody was like, ah, company from I think the whole battalion might have been out there. No, the company was might have been a company, but anyway, it was either a company or a battalion of us, and we're out there, and first sergeant was like, no, it had to have been the battalion. So it had to have been the sergeant majors. He's like, everyone formation right now. So, like, what are we doing? Why are we having this freaking stand to freaking formation in the middle of the Mojave Desert? Like, what are we doing? We don't do formations like that when we're out training, you know, in the dirt. And uh so none of us really knew what was even going on. I didn't anyway. Somebody did, I didn't. And uh I look out and there's like three uh helicopters uh Hueys coming over the horizon. What the hell is going on? And uh they land right at the range. And uh it was the commandant of the Marine Corps, the four star. I was like, what the hell is going on?

Host 2:53:24

And it called out some names and some dudes, and it were That's a really big deal because the the Marine doesn't have the Marines don't have generals, like Army's got eight million generals. I mean the Marines.

Eric Shelvy 2:53:33

Yeah, it's very rare to even see a general, much less talk to one. Oh I think I've probably in my entire time I probably only saw three generals my entire career. You know, Air Force, they have them working at the quickie mart, they're all over the place. But the Marine Corps just doesn't. So to to have the Commandant of the Marine Corps fly out to a range in 29 bombs. They just it was really crazy, right? You're like, what is going on? He's over here chuckling.

Host 2:53:58

Yeah, dude. That's that that's like the marineism. Yeah, they're just working over at the quickie mart, dude. Can't even keep it together, dude.

Eric Shelvy 2:54:04

He doesn't fill all the boxes like so uh yeah, but joking aside, he um he handed out two Navy crosses, one to Captain Chantosh, one to a friend of mine, uh Perez. We were in infantry school together from that second fight where Corporal Silva was killed. Um and uh a whole some bunch of silver stars and bronze stars and all kinds of stuff and some promotions. And yeah, but that's when you know Chantosh became like super famous, you know. It's um I wouldn't say became super famous, might be strong, but he had a lot of attention because that's a big award, you know. That's uh and that's just shy of the Medal of Honor, right? Like so, and then he became well he didn't, I guess he already was, he was our company commander. They fracked him, they took him from lieutenant, made him a captain, and there's time to go to Fallujah.

Host 2:54:55

How did that feel, man? Watching, you know, Lieutenant you know, now he's like the company commander, and and you know that's the guy that's gonna be leading you. That's gotta be a good feeling because you know, there's at least you know you guys are under good leadership.

Eric Shelvy 2:55:08

Yeah, you know, I have to say, um, of all my time in the Marine Corps, at least in the infantry, um, leadership was never an issue. Like every officer, like the vast majority of senior enlisted um officers, I mean, they were just like top-notch guys. Smart, educated, you know, super good shape, like tactically sound, you know. I I never ever felt like my leadership failed me. I can honestly say that. Through my entire time I was on the infantry, I felt like I had the best um leadership you could get, especially in the officer ranks. And I think that goes back to, you know, and I used to talk to some of the lieutenants, you know, and they're like, this guy's naval camp, this guy's VMI, and these are like, you know, they're lieutenants, but they're still like badass lieutenants, right? You know, and they're gonna go on to be generals and shit someday, and and we're gonna go on to be, you know, gunnies and sergeant majors and things like that. You know, it's just this this era is spawning a total change in in the entire core, you know, of um even generationally from you know, drafts and and go to jail or go in in the Marine Corps. Now it's like you have corporals with master's degrees, and you know, it's a totally different thing. You have highly educated, you you have what I like to call the perfect combination of highly educated maniacs, and that's a very lethal combination.

Host 2:56:40

Yeah, I can tell you, man, uh I've I was privileged enough to work in a lot of joint environments. Um, I've met a lot of Marines. Uh I have a true affinity for the Marine Corps. I didn't, I was in the army, uh, you know, I did my thing, uh, but every time I ran across Marines, especially as I climbed up the enlisted ranks, man, to your point, they were some of the most professional, uh, very smart, um very quick to tell you they were Marines, like you can pick them out. You know what I mean? Like they just you guys are a very unique breed, uh I've but I've always gotten along great with the Marine Corps. You know, there's always that inner service bullshit that we do to each other. Until it's time to get to work. Yeah, man. But Marines are I mean, I I ran into them at schools, on deployments, just really good human beings, man, to your point. I I I have a really close affinity for the Marine Corps. Um, when did you guys finally you know cement? Hey, this is what we're you know, this is where we're going, this is what's happening, and now you're in a leadership position. And um, are you finally at the point where you're getting more information for this trip versus the previous one?

Eric Shelvy 2:57:43

Yeah, quite a bit, quite a bit more. Um not just not just because uh uh I was a squad leader, um, but just because in I in general we had more intelligence, right? So we had there's still guys on the ground in Iraq. Um, you know, they had a uh a bunch of Marines push into Fallujah in the beginnings of 2004, and they ended up getting pulled out. I think there was a lot of I don't know all the details, but it was a lot of casualties and it was kind of a political thing. I don't I don't know. But I know there was Marines that went into Fallujah, but there were still a ton of civilians in there and a lot of people got hurt and they pulled the Marines back out, and there was a lot of um come to find out when we met those guys because we were the ones that relieved them. There was a lot of um a lot of guys really upset about that. Um and rightfully so. That they had gotten pulled out of Fallujah? Yeah, because they went in and took a bunch of casualties and it was all for nothing, and they got pulled out, and you know, and they so it's understandable why they were why they were upset.

Host 2:58:39

Was it because they couldn't hold the city and the Of the insurgency?

Eric Shelvy 2:58:42

No, I think it was just a lot of civilians were getting killed. So it became kind of a political thing. But again, that's not my like pentagon analysis. That's just the rumor mill. Um but yeah, we were getting much more intelligence. Like there was video, there were people on the ground, or you know, we're getting IED classes and and the tactics were changing, and you know, the jihadis and the uh you know ISIS and the Mujahideen and you know, these groups of maniacs and you know, Fallujah, it's gonna be, you know, this is like the Alamo, you know, and this is you had all these um, you know, heads getting cut off and these kill rooms and uh all this, you know, Sarkawi and you know where they hung these contractors off this bridge. And there's a lot of really violent shit going on in Fallujah. And uh it's like, man, 3-5's getting tagged for it. It's like here we go again. You know, but I felt I felt confident, you know. I felt like, you know, oh in the big in OIF 1, it was like, you know, from staff from lieutenants to privates, we were all figuring it out for ourselves. But now we are not. Now we have six months to, you know, get the leadership to learn new things, and then we can teach all the new guys the lessons learned from the first time. Like you don't need to carry that, you don't need this. This is what we need. Don't do that. You know, there was a lot of lessons learned there. So there's a lot of knowledge that got passed, and like, no, no, what we call them fuck fuck games, no hazing, like no, we don't have time for that stuff, man. This is like people are gonna get killed before we don't have time for this.

Host 3:00:14

Yeah.

Eric Shelvy 3:00:14

So, like a lot of the you know, mandatory haircuts and freaking uniform inspections, that we were not doing any of that stuff. Like, we are preparing for the battle of our lives, and we don't have time for that crap.

Host 3:00:26

I remember something interesting that you told me when we were prepping. Um, you know, with Shantash being prior enlisted, um, which is what we call a Mustang. We alluded to earlier, a Mustang is an officer that used to be enlisted that becomes an officer, um, you know, Navy crossed. And I remember you said that he was built for Fallujah to take you guys to Fallujah. What what what what what made him built for it?

Eric Shelvy 3:00:48

I it's hard to say. I mean, I didn't he was my captain, right? So we weren't like friends, sure, right? He was he was uh he was a sergeant with the authorities of a captain, which made him really relatable to NCOs, and he was very, very focused on NCOs and corporals and sergeants being NCOs, non-commissioned officers. And that's where it met the road, right? Like because if you have highly trained corporals and sergeants, squad leaders essentially, that can go out and make the decisions on their own with the authority to do it and the competence to do it correctly. That was his big thing. He he he knew how important that was, and a lot of our training focused heavily on NCOs and lieutenants because those are the guys, and he and rightfully so it was entirely accurate. Uh, that's the were the guys that were making the decisions. You know, and you compare it to like the army, like you could be a 20-year-old corporal like I was and calling in artillery missions. You know, I mean, in other branches, you have to be a E8 with 15 years in to be able to call in, you know, fire missions for artillery. But you can in the Marine Corps, you can do it as a 20-year-old because we've been trained to do it, you know, and the authority is there to do it. So I loved it. I mean, as a squad, like I had all the authority, and I was king of my world. I that was it was the greatest job I ever had. And I got to take all my kind of lessons learned and experienced from the first go-around, and and I so I had like my I had I got promoted before some of my peers, so I made some of my peers team leaders, and they were friends of mine, you know, and it wasn't like oh, I'm corporal this and you're Lance Corporal that. Like, yeah, we have shit to do, but we were peers. Unofficially. Officially, we were not, but unofficially we were all peers. Like we had served together before, we uh were in combat together in OIF-1, like we all trusted each other. It's like we'll spread some of these these new boots out so they can they're not all together being morons. Um, get them trained up, and and we were we were ready for it, man. And then we had, you know, uh an officer leadership, you know, a captain who was as as combat able as they come, you know. He had this big medal, which the medal, I don't know what it meant to him. I um I don't think I mean for us, I guess from my perspective, it was like that's really cool, you know? It is. It's like, dude, it's really cool to get the Navy cross. Um but in reality it didn't change a damn thing. Sure. Like, no, you going in that house? Me too. Yeah. You gotta, you know, it was it it just didn't matter. Um and he didn't make it matter. And that I think um, you know, I think that made a difference. He was not arrogant about it or any of that stuff. It's and that's who he was, and that's why we all loved him. You know, that's why we all respect him. And when he said, you know, we were training or like doing tactics or something, it wasn't like this is what the Marine Corps book says, and we're gonna follow this handbook. No, it was like this is uh I see that we're gonna do this and jump over this thing and we're gonna kill everyone. You're like, yeah, that sounds like a good plan, let's go. He was more about getting it done on his way, and it in and um, you know, it was he he was very tactically sound. It wasn't like, well, I think we should, you know, take the circle of the map and move it over to the it wasn't like that at all. It was like there's a bunch of bad dudes in that house. Let's get two platoons and go there and kill everyone. You're like, Roger, that's sir, let's go. We're in. And he was in the front with like a pistol, and his radio was out here trying to keep up with him. So, you know, he was uh he was easy to follow, man. Yeah, and he you knew uh he would because if he was right there with you, and we all were, and it wasn't just him, it was the lieutenants, the colonels. I mean, to to be 10 feet away from a colonel in an all-out gun battle is tort is never happens, but it does. And us in our in my world, it does, because he's right over there. I can see him. So, you know, it just uh it's like I tell my son, you know, when you I say when guys who do real shit, they just don't talk like that. And Seantosh doesn't talk like that. A lot of us don't. Yeah, and that's when you you know, guys who who do real stuff have nothing to prove. There's no egos, there's no we just have a job to do. You know, we're all here because we wanna be. You know, we're good at it. And we've got, you know, some uh some some some experience now.

Host 3:05:44

You know, so we're gonna go we're gonna go to Fallujah. You got a new battalion commander before you left, Colonel Malay. Um, you got a lot of cool things to say about him. Um tell us a little bit about him, because he was your he was a 45 battalion commander when you guys went into Fallujah. Correct.

Eric Shelvy 3:05:59

Uh yeah. Colonel, uh Lieutenant Colonel Malay became the battalion commander, I don't know what month, but sometime between OF one and two, right? Before we go to Fallujah. Um, it's not like I knew him personally, all right?

Host 3:06:11

Like um but I think your perspective was like a squad leader in the battalion.

Eric Shelvy 3:06:16

Yeah, you are a little closer to the to the brass, as you say, you know, when you're a squad leader, because as a squad leader, it's kind of where the officer and enlisted meet, right? And from a from a tactical perspective. So in garrison, so you know, at your base in California, you know, you got the staff sergeant, the gunnery sergeant, the first sergeant, you got there's 10 enlisted people, and you're not just gonna go up and talk to the captain. But in combat, that changes the squad leader to the lieutenant to the captain to the colonel. That's it. That's the gunnery sergeants, the staff sergeants, the first sergeants, they become logistics and support. They become logistics and support. And the the the so where the chain of command where the officer meets the enlisted in combat is at the sergeant level, it's at the squad leader. That's where that all comes together. So those were that's where those two things meet. That's why it's such a cool position. Because if I have a if I have an issue, now if I need uh some logistical support, not to say that a platoon start is just a logistics guy, they're a huge asset, sure, you know, and they um but if you need logistical things, you have to go talk to to Gunny, right? Like you don't go ask the lieutenant for more ammunition, you ask the gunny. But it was, you know, if we were talking about battle plans or patrol routes, as a as a corporal, I could go right to lieutenant, you know, hey sir, we need to what about this, you know, whatever we need to talk about, which I liked. You know, it was cool. So it was only one step to the captain. So if I got to be in a position where talking to the company commander um became a common occurrence as to where as a private, you wouldn't you would never talk to the company commander. Sure. So yeah, to answer your question, I got sidetracked. But so we get Colonel Millet. Um, I didn't um know anything about him, or um I just knew he he gave a couple speeches, a couple motivational talks, and they were um I don't remember everything he said or what he said. I just remember being like, man, this guy's for real. I remember thinking that. Whatever he said that made me think that, I that's what I carried with me when it was over with. So he he was he was all about tradition and and honor and professionalism and and just being badasses. Like he was just that kind of guy, and he had all the authority in the world to do it, and uh, it was super cool. Um he did a lot of shit we didn't that we didn't like. He's an officer, that's what he's an officer. Uh he took us all up to uh a base uh to do a cold weather training package in like July to go to Fallujah for some reason. So we go up to um oh, I can't even remember the name. It's up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains up in California.

Host 3:09:08

That's the Marine Corps like Arctic Warfare Score or like Mountain Warfare or something like that.

Eric Shelvy 3:09:12

Mountain Warfare Center, that's what it's called. So yeah, it's awful. So like base camp is at like 9,000 feet. So you go up there, you can't even breathe. You're like trying to walk to the child hall and catch your breath, and you have to catch your breath as you're trying to eat because you can't breathe, and you got all these like freaking snow boots on and all this shit, and and uh they're trying to teach you how to like snowshoe and put skis on all this crap, like, dude. Like, my whole platoon is a bunch of Mexicans, dude. Like, these dudes have never seen snow in their whole lives, and we're like, right? You have like a bunch of good old boys and a bunch of Mexicans, and we're like in skis up here, like we don't know what we're doing, man. Like, if we're going to Korea, somebody better tell us. Like, we need a heads up that we're going to Korea because we're all gonna die in the snow before we get there. And uh yeah, it was we spent like two weeks at base camp and then we just went up into the mountains, like I don't know, 3,000 feet, just like straight up, miserable, pumping machine guns, freeze, like 10 feet of snow. It's awful. It's the most awful training I've ever been through in my life. So cold, you know, freaking weapons are freezing. You can't even you can't use MRE heaters because they don't work at that temperature and altitude, and there's no, you know, you got the water buffaloes, the trailers, you get water. Is that it? You can't use those because they freeze, you know. So you go out training for the day, and you gotta leave one guy stays behind in the hooch and with uh a metal can and he just scoops snow up, melts it, and fills canteens. That's all he does all day long. It's a great job.

Host 3:10:38

Uh huh.

Eric Shelvy 3:10:39

Nobody bothers you, you just make water all day. Melts. What did you do today? I melt the snow. Yeah. Filled up canteens. But I'm sure the real reason he did that is to try to bring you guys. Well, of course. Yeah, it was just uh it was a freaking man test. And uh, you know, I don't think any of us understood that at the time. You know, we're just like, this sucks. What are we doing in 10 feet of snow if we're going to the desert? Um, but yeah, it was I think we we took a lot of casualties in that training. Cold weather casualties, cold weather casualties, dude. Like dudes like igloos collapsing on guys, and we're doing like, like, why are we doing like avalanche rescue poles? Like, what are we doing out here, man? That's funny. Uh it's like dudes, like, what happened to you, man? It's like, I'm snowblind. I can't find my glasses. I was like, You got medevac is just snowblind? What are you talking about?

Host 3:11:27

He uh he did a warrior's night. I thought that was pretty cool. Uh, you want to talk about that just for a sec?

Eric Shelvy 3:11:32

Sure. Yeah, so like I said, he was all about uh tradition, and um he was all about this like this kind of this warrior mentality, and you know, it was really respectable and it was really cool, and it really added a lot of I think I don't know what the word would be like, value or pride, maybe is the better word. Camaraderie too. Camaradery. So he set up this warrior's night, he called it. And it's you know, we're in California, and we have the base has you know 20 miles of beachfront property in Southern California, right? So we had it was mandatory. Um, everyone had to go. It's kind of in this huge uh cove, I guess, ocean cove, if you will, high you know, beach with some high bluffs around it. It's a Sanover? Just south of there. Yeah, on the yeah, close close to there. And um, but they had games like gladiator games, man, and uh you know, Tug of Wars, and uh they had a like a ground fighting competition, like kind of before like MMA and all this stuff was like a real big deal. And um, you know, it I thought that was cool. I didn't do it because I would have got strangled in about two seconds. I'm not a jujitsu guy, but it was cool, but it was E3s and below, so Lance Corbels and below could only compete, like no officers or uh anything like that. And uh whoever won got a seat in jump school and their own custom M4 that they got to keep. Wow. Not like take home with them, but they gotta have like an engraved or something's it's cool. But that was cool, man. Like, you know, the Marine Corps doesn't we don't go to jump school because it's an army school. And it the only time you get to go there is if you're in some, you know, some re special unit, or sometimes they'll use it as like a reenlistment bonus. Something like that. Like, hey, if you re-enlist, we'll send you jump school, something like that. So that was cool. I had this dude got a seat in jump school and they brought some pigs out and uh like freaking no shit, like roasted them on the beach and kegs of beer, and but it was all professional and did he bring a horse? Yeah, so he brought so 3-5 our call sign was the dark horse in Fallujah, but it wasn't in OIF 1. Um, I didn't know this until he it happened, but he brought out this guy and he introduced this guy, or you know, the whole battalion. You're talking like a I don't know, six, seven hundred Marines on the beach just fucking doing warrior shit. It's cool, man. It's like the ultimate ultimate camping trip. Like no one was allowed to leave. You slept on the beach. Um, you know, they had guardian angels, they had Marines with weapons like up on the bluff, so no one could come anywhere near us. Um and it was just like our games. This was our our party, this is our barbecue. And he brought a guest, and I can't remember his name, but he brought the original battalion commander of 3-5 from Vietnam. And during Vietnam, 3-5 was the dark horse. And that very moment we renamed 3-5 back to the dark horse for Fallujah.

Host 3:14:54

Yeah, and this guy didn't didn't Colonel Mulley like get a dark horse or something like a freaking black stallion.

Eric Shelvy 3:15:00

I love it. Like a real like this was like enormous horse, right? Like a real freaking thing was like eight feet tall. Had a stallion. It was it was cool. Must have instilled like some real pride. Yeah. I I and I, you know, hindsight being what it is, I think I think he was much more aware of what we were about to get into than we were. I think he knew what the orders were gonna be. I think he knew what the intelligence was. Um I think he knew there was gonna be a lot of casualties. I think he knew that this was gonna not be like before. I think he I think I don't know, but I I think he knew that shit was about to get very real, very quickly. And this was one way of of building that uh a spirit decor and that camaraderie. I got I mean a lot of guys were really pissed that they had to go because it was like on a weekend and they couldn't go home and stuff, but it was really cool. And I'm really glad we did it. Um we did another one afterwards, after that deployment. Yeah, we'll talk about it at the end.

Host 3:16:11

Yeah, before we dive into the deployment, it's gonna be a heavy part of the interview. Let's uh let's take a quick break. Well, man, we're uh we're gonna have a heavy conversation. Um, you know, we talked about your train up. You're you're back from OIF 1, you find out you're going back into Fallujah, you're not home six months, you get the word you guys are going back, you you fly into Fallujah, um, or back into Iraq, actually. Um where'd you guys go? So what's going on?

Eric Shelvy 3:16:46

So let's see what month is this. This is November, I believe. November of 04. No, it wouldn't have been November. Maybe September of 04. In the fall of 04, we go back to Iraq. We go straight to Camp Fallujah. So at the time they had a huge base right outside Fallujah. Camp Fallujah was like a city. Um we arrive, uh, we spend very little time in Camp Fallujah, and immediately they had there were a couple marine units that were already there, and we had a we had basically two missions, right? So you have Fallujah, I don't think I do this backwards on the camera, but you have a huge intersection of two major highways, right? The lateral one goes to Baghdad and the other one goes north and south. And at the side of here of this lateral road, which we called Route Michigan, is a main road that goes right through the center of Fallujah. And on the other end of Fallujah is a river, and that river where the bridge crosses it, that Route Michigan, that's the bridge where they hung those contractors off of. Yeah, the Blackwater contractors. Correct. So you have uh at this intersection, God it had a n, we had a name for it, I can't remember. Um we had at this intersection, we had a huge defensive position kind of into this uh intersection. It was a it's a big intersection. Imagine, you know, two four-lane roads coming together, highways almost. And so we had huge bunkers built up on both sides of the road with a platoon of Marines uh in bunkers, huge Hesco bunkers, you know, those big bins they fill them with dirt, and they built these like giant bunkers out of them. And and then you had some tanks out in front, out in front of the positions. And it was just like it looked like a it looked like a scene out of a video game. Like every building was like totally destroyed. Um it was just like a turkey shoot. Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's not.

Host 3:19:04

And it kind of set the scene too. So Fallujah won it happened. So there was another Marine, um another Marine element had gone there, attempted to take the city, you know, whatever happened. Right.

Eric Shelvy 3:19:14

So in the spring of 2004, and I don't know, sure, I don't know what actually happened. Um, this is just the rumor mill. I know the Marines went in, I don't even know how many units, like at least a at least a couple battalions, I would think. They go into the city, um, something happens and they come back out. Or they got pulled out. They didn't come back out, they got pulled out. Um, so they took part of the city, but they they were with they withdrew, and then the city went back to being whatever it was.

Host 3:19:46

And and a lot of people are familiar with Fallujah, but for my younger listeners, too, like at that time, 2003, it's four, right? 2004. Yeah, that was like the holdout in Iraq. It was the foreign fighters, the worst of the worst. Yes, um, it was like hardened insurgents that were there to die for the cause. I think it's important to paint that picture.

Eric Shelvy 3:20:08

This is a headquarters of ISIS.

Host 3:20:10

Yeah, there you go. I think it was our Kawi. Before it was ISIS, yeah.

Eric Shelvy 3:20:14

At the time they Al Qaeda and Iraq AQI, maybe we were calling it we I you know it we were calling it the Mujidin. Yeah, the Mouge, bro. The Mouge. Um, I don't even really know what the hell any of that stuff ever meant, or yeah.

Host 3:20:29

It's no, they were just I I just it was the worst place in Iraq. I think other than Ramadi, like Alam Al Ambar province in 04, was that was the wild west, man. Yes, it was, and you're gonna go into it. I don't want to interrupt you, but I kind of want to set

Eric Shelvy 3:20:41

the stage as you as you as you kind of tell the story because it was I mean it was a hot hot bed yes so you guys are um so my understanding is the city was effectively almost surrounded right correct so so at the so there's a lot of stuff that happened before we got there so the Marines went in the Marines came out there were still civilians there I don't know all the details I wasn't there um I know when we showed up the city was surrounded totally surrounded by American military uh like we had the roads closed like there was units all around uh I think they were dropping flyers into the city basically telling everyone to leave so by the time we got there there's the city has no electricity probably no water it's quiet it's dark it's there's no traffic there's no civilians there's no nothing there's just a hornet's nest of bad dudes in and around here somewhere in this in this city and this city is it's not very big maybe two by five miles right it's like a perfect rectangle almost and it's it doesn't like fade off into the suburb it's like there's the line and it's a building lots of buildings and nothing uh there's like a train tracks here there's a river here and a big highway here and that's effectively the the lines it doesn't sprawl out like most cities would it's very very densely populated uh the buildings are all smashed together you know three stories high um so there's a lot of population per like square kilometer whatever you want to per mile whatever you want to however you want to calculate it was incredibly dense for its size so we arrive and it's the city is a f of cut off and you know what we were told was like we dropped flyers and we told the citizens like uh leave or die because we're coming so you have two options and if you want to fight then stay and if you don't leave and I think there was a wind this is all what I heard of course but you know there was a window and a bunch of people left obviously everyone left and whoever stayed they just cut it off and that was it so they had uh so we had two kind of missions when we first arrived we had this forward base at these this main intersection and then we had a section of highway that ran north and south on that major highway where we had positions uh every few miles of Marines uh forward looking if they'd call us we'd stop traffic uh basically we were out there making sure they weren't putting IEDs out on the roads because there was a lot of convoys and stuff moving around you know like IEDs for example like that's something um I never really dealt with and I've seen it happen uh I've been around when it happens but we never drove anywhere we walked everywhere everywhere if we drove somewhere it was in the middle of the night totally blacked out with like three trucks on this deployment in general well besides the invasion we were in Amtrak's but there was no IDs then but I I've never been um I was never in a a convoy that like got blown up because we never went in convoys we walked everywhere everywhere it's like 10 miles an hour walking armies driving around freaking Kool-Aid you know on patrol and we're just walking and they don't they don't you know and you're you you take even a squad of of Marines you take 12 guys and you spread them out over 400 meters you know even if you blow up your IED you're gonna get like one guy and then you got like 10 more to deal with because they're gonna see you and they're gonna chase you. Oh you know um I remember uh back into OIF one you know we were or no what was yeah yeah it was OAF one and uh you know in the beginning the the Marine Corps didn't have um you know tan boots for guys like it was just like a mismash of uniforms vehicles you know if you go look back and look at all that footage you know we're wearing green chemical suits desert helmets some guys had black boots some guys had desert boots it was like a mishmash like I didn't um you know because I told you I got issued the digital uniforms so we weren't gonna wear those so they're like there's two big bins and you just walked over and like grabbed two pairs of pants like for like used pants and that's how we rolled so if you go back and again into that and even into to the fluja time and stuff into the OAF2 you know they called it at the time you see this mishmash of vehicle colors you know like I remember being with an army unit or crossing paths when it with an army I have no idea what you know but I remember talking to them and they rolled up and I was like oh man you guys got green vehicles because they always had desert or tan painted vehicles and I was like you guys got green vehicles and I was like no dude we just spray painted them I was like why he's like because we got intel from some guys we captured that the green vehicles chase you don't shoot at the green vehicles because they stop and they run after you with guns and chase you down. Oh wow which is goes back to the amtracks right so there was also some speculation that you know back to that OAF um a couple of those big fights that LAR Light armor reconnaissance which from a distance could look like an Amtrak but they have wheels they don't have tracks but there's only four guys in there right so they just drive through exchange some gunfire and drive through and and so this is rumor mill but it it probably came from a source they grabbed up some guy and they're like yeah um you know we thought they were LAR not knowing what LAR is of course but they thought they were just going to shoot at the Marines and then they were going to keep driving they didn't know that they were going to stop and 200 guys were going to come out of the back and chase them all over the place. They weren't expecting that and I think that probably contributed to that turkey shoot you know in in the beginning so it's just kind of interesting how um you know these different units are doing different things and how this is all like getting mishmashed up into this time frame and the insurgency is building up so that there's a total change from one to two right so we're on the side of the road just looking for IEDs but again I watched IEDs um but I never had I was I've never been in a convoy that's got blown up yeah which is I guess a good thing so you you guys you got the city surrounded you got bunkered positions you guys are watching what's going on in those those couple weeks there's a lot going on um I think the command is really trying to figure out what the enemy's gonna do um we know we're gonna attack the city we don't we know we're gonna do it we don't know when we don't know how or any of the details but we know it's gonna happen and um the command I think is trying to figure out the same thing what the enemy's capabilities are you know they're showing us videos of you know there was like a couple F-18s or whatever that dropped some some some 500 pounders like on a house or something in the city and and it was like a daisy chain boom doom doom doom doom for like two blocks. You know it it just happened to detonate this chain of of roadside explosives you know and it and it obviously it was from a distance and from an aircraft and stuff but it's like man like these dudes may have like every 10 feet like we trapped you know that's that that's what you're you know these guys are clearly here surrounded they had the option to leave they didn't um this is not local militia right these are like maniacs that are here for the cause and um they're here to fight but you know what so are we and uh so there was a lot of that kind of stuff you're like okay um it's a totally different thing than the beginning you know we know how to fight we've been trained to fight we have the the the right mind but it's gonna be a different kind of fight and I think that became pretty apparent pretty quickly that uh you know six months earlier we were chasing looters around with soft hats and no doors on Humvees you know buying chickens on the street you know rotisseries and shit like that right and now it's like it's a totally different thing man helmets armored everything um it's a real deal you know real legitimate uh combatants you know real snipers and dudes that that want to fight that have a little bit of training behind them and you know they have this Zarkawi and they're cutting people's heads off and you know I imagine a lot of your younger viewers don't remember that but that was a big deal at the time man like I mean watching people's heads get cut off when on YouTube or not YouTube but the beginnings of that platform type you know you could go on the internet and find this stuff and I was like holy god man it's really crazy. Yeah they were grabbing contractors anybody so we knew the fight was coming so we had you know for the first month before we go in the city we had you know uh basically those two missions so we kind of bounced around between between the two so we'd spend some time at uh for the life of me I can't remember the name of it but um you know at this at the the intersection and you were you it was just like a bombed out like totally bombed out section of the city and uh we kind of had like a little foothold into it and you just kind of sat there you weren't doing much you had like three or four tanks and essentially you can't see anything especially at night you know you got your little 20 year old freaking night vision goggles that you can see 10 feet with and you know you essentially you sit there and wait for the tanks to start shooting because they got thermals and all the super fancy you know optics. So when the tanks start shooting then it's time to start shooting and but that was kind of a it was almost like a like a known distance we call it KD range like a known distance you know 100 meters 200 meters but it was it was like a known distance we're like up guys there and we had everything marked out and everyone had you know their sights trained in to the right distances and how far are you how far away from you guys from the edge of the city were you? We were 100 meters less less 50 meters. Um they had this minaret you know tall part of the mosque that had speakers on it and they would just blare shit on that thing to drive us nuts and it it was effective you guys had a like an incident you guys were either under a bridge or staying under a bridge yeah so there was kind of a lot of stuff that happened before this really kicked off um one instance uh so on this on this north south running road we had um these positions I have to be like three or four it's like a s a squad of us here squad you know over five miles or whatever it may be of of road that we're gonna cover and so in the corner of the city where there's two on the north part of the city you have train tracks then you have this highway system that runs north south and there's the part of this highway runs over the train tracks and it's like a proper highway like you'd have in the US you know big for concrete pillars it's it's not some rickety it's a proper four-lane two separate um concrete bridge like you'd find in any modern country so I'm up at this little position me and my squad and um you know uh a bunch of 20 year olds you know and you're a squad leader right yeah yeah yeah and um so we get a call on the radio I had you know a big radio that could talk to the lieutenant um and he called me and he goes hey we just got a call uh up on the road above your position there's a dead dog in the road you know uh go go make sure it's not an IED go up there and check it out so this road is on a huge burn maybe 30 feet it's up on a big pile of dirt as it builds up to go over the train tracks so we we go we go check this dog out because um I hadn't seen it with my own eyes but there were rumors that they were taking dog carcasses and cutting pulling the guts out and putting um munitions explosives in the dogs you know you see a dead dog on the road you don't think you don't think anything of it drive right by it blows up so we go we go up to this road and I had a I had a Lance Corporal or a maybe even a private I can't remember at the time Smith I go Smith go up there and see what that dog's doing right that's what privates are for go up there and see there's a bottom of that dog so Smith go up there and see what's up with that dog he goes alright he goes up there and he's you know peeking his head around and then like a typical freaking private like picks up by the tail and like swings it around and chucks it off the road I'm like Jesus Christ man like just go look at the dog you don't have to swing it around like it's a freaking rabbit and throw it 20 feet so anyway no big deal um so we go down it's quiet we're I mean we're right on the corner maybe there's a hundred meters to the like the corner of the city to this bridge this roadway bridge that goes over these train tracks and it's quiet and we're out our little OP our observation post is kind of on the other side. So we have us the road the city the train tracks so we go under the bridge just check it out like we're over here let's just go poke around see if we see what's up you know and so we go under this big bridge and it's a again it's a big highway bridge like you'd have in the States big concrete pillars so I had uh one of my Marines uh Lance Corporal Rund who was one of my team leaders I had two team leaders well two Lance Corporals Lance Corporal Miller and Rund and me the corporal and that's not normal in a normal squad you have a sergeant squad leader and corporal team leaders but we had a corporal squad leader and two Lance Corporal team leaders and we were all in the same like infantry school and stuff together so we all knew each other for a long time and we were all together in OAF1 and uh these guys were awesome they were excellent team leaders they were tactically sound we all known each other real well you know and that's a big I think that's very important in a small unit like that when you know each other real well you trust each other um you've just been you can if you've been doing anything together long enough you start doing it without thinking about it you know so we're under this bridge and run goes uh yeah I'm gonna trying to get my sights right on my gun or some shit he wanted to make sure that something was on a scope or he wanted to cite something and he goes hey I'm gonna take two pop shots at that light post out there and make sure this scope's accurate I was like okay no whatever I'm kind of just leaning up against one of these you know three foot diameter concrete pillars under the bridge not thinking two shits about it pow he lets one go pow lets another one go he's like I think it's good and like I mean within a half a second the entire corner of the city just opened up on us there's like five of us we didn't even take the whole squad there's only like a fire team plus me right so we go and it just I mean there must have been at least half a dozen machine guns open up instantly on I think him cracking a round off made them think we saw them which we didn't and they responded unbeknownst to us so we all are just like oh my and we just got lit up so we're all hiding behind these pillars you know when you're a kid and you're like playing the shadow game and you're trying to like hide behind the tree that it was like that of just bullets flying all over the place and up ding ding ding bouncing all up into this concrete and I'm looking over at one of the other guys and he's just like God damn it shelvey and he's looking I'm like what did I do? And we're both just kind of looking at each other our bullets are just flying all over the place in um you know trace around when they get separated from the phosphorus and the phosphorus starts bouncing all over the place. It's really you know the bullet hits whatever and then the phosphorus bounce off of it and it goes flying in the air it's really not the bullet it's just part of the so this shit's flying all over the place couple RPGs come in uh hit um hit like the berm on the outside boom you know and we're just like fuck right so I get on the radio I left the guy back at our position I call him I say man I said get the lieutenant on the radio bring frickin' everybody down here everybody tanks because they're right down the street there's like five tanks like a quarter mile away they can hear this going on they just don't know what's happening so I'm like hey we're under this bridge we're essentially pinned down that all hell's breaking loose we're totally outgunned um we can't retreat because there's just so much machine gun fire coming at us um we and you you're you're they're coming from the city but you can't tell there's 6,000 windows and you know you have no idea it's not like you can sit there and like try and figure it out right that's just a wall of bullets coming at you. So I'm calling him saying hey get get the lieutenant bring everyone in here get the 10 you know artillery you know we had all this stuff pre-marked this was easy to do to just start making it rain just I just need to stop for like 10 seconds so we can bail out of here and um it then just stopped like it just got super quiet and all the gunfire just stopped and we're like okay and then we uh we return fire so it was like you know this lull in the fire right and so we all return fire for a barrage um we stopped no response quiet again so we had this like they got a bunch at us we got some at them and then one of the guys gets up to move one of my guys and uh man like one one shot one rifle shot and it just I mean it must have missed his head by a foot and ringed off one of these pillars and he dives on the ground you know taking cover and we're like oh shit this is a sniper a a good one at that and we heard rumors that there was this Chechnyan sniper in Fallujah and we heard these these stories and it's not like we we could see the guy and like he was holding up his ID right but that was a hell of a shot you know um and we're like okay nobody move like nobody move this dude's got us zeroed in so I'm you know all you have is the radio at that point but it's not like they can start running at us so we can hold you know they're not gonna overrun us they're just shooting at us from a distance so I'm on the radio going like send everyone man get everyone over here and in the in the in the bridge instead of one big piece of concrete with four lanes it's two separate pieces of concrete with two lanes and there's an opening in the middle so I hear a truck coming I on top and I hear a vehicle and I'm like oh it's everybody it's all cavalry's coming right we're gonna jack shit up now and it's I look up and it's the lieutenant and the radio operator. That's it. I'm like where is everyone? I'm like get out sir you know sniper he's like what what's going on what are you guys doing down there because it's quiet right he's like I'm like you should have been here 10 seconds ago right all hell was breaking loose and he's like he's looking around he's like okay he's like there's a train coming and I can hear I can kind of hear this rumble this train's like I can see there's a train coming when the train comes just bail out take you know you can hide behind the train and and and fall back I'm like okay excellent that sounds like a good plan and then uh well I thought it was like a train with a bunch of cars and it was like a small locomotive by itself so it's just like one guy you know so just one locomotive I'm like well that wasn't enough to get out of here so I was like okay new plan who's got smoke so uh a handful of us had smoke grenades any color it doesn't matter just start throwing them we just threw like all the smoke just started throwing smoke grenades all over the place and trying to smoke out the whole underside of this bridge which probably what we should have done in the beginning but um and then we bailed when we bailed out and no one took any more shots at us and that was it and um lieutenant like go back to your position something like that. We didn't really talk about it we didn't have like a debrief of what what really maybe we did. Maybe I told him what happened and I might have left out the part about shooting at the light post. Uh but uh I I think I briefed him briefly just kind of like yeah we were over here dealing with this dog we just got lit up I don't know what happened we returned fire kind of what is you know what I just told you I'm like okay go back to our position we're exhausted you know this went on for a few hours probably um and as you know you know 30 minutes of this stuff is exhausting you know a five hour gun battle is like a lifetime you know it sucks it out of you so we go back to our position and uh you know just me and my squad this little this little OP up the road and I had a guy on firewatch not looking for fires of course but I had a guy on watch one of the privates And I hear him challenge somebody that is walking up on us.

Host 3:42:45

He's like, Hall two goes there.

Eric Shelvy 3:42:46

And I'm like, what the f we're like in the middle of nowhere by ourselves, right? So we'll everyone just starts scrambling, like grabbing rifles, but it's like, it's on, man. Like they're gonna bum rush us. You know, like the freaking Japanese man rits up bayonet time. And uh the response was like, uh, it's this call sign. I can't remember what it was. And I was like, call I I recognized it. I was like, is that like the general? He's like, yeah. And and it was like a whole little entourage, the middle of the night, middle of the darkness, no lights or anything. This came walking us, walking up on us. You know, they identified themselves, and it was a general. And I was like, Whoa, what the fuck? I'm like, uh, I'm in my mind, I'm like, we're in a lot of trouble for shooting light posts. And like I was like, we're in a lot of trouble for shooting light post. Because I kind of, you know, like I said, I left that part out, but that wasn't the case. And it was, I can't remember what general it was, and um he was super, he was awesome. He's like, hey Marines, he's like, you know, what happened today? I just gave him a very brief, like, hey, we're over by this bridge, all pill breaks loose, you know. He's like, I think like brass wanted wanted that. I think they were really happy that happened because it gave us a little bit to um it gave them some idea of like what kind of response we were gonna get when we attacked, you know, whether it be intentional or not. I suppose it's really irrelevant how we got there, but I think they were happy about it that we kind of picked a f picked a little fight. And um, so he's you know, I got this general, his little entourage of all his majors and whoever else is with him. And I tell him the little story, and he goes, So he's like, What what were you guys needing when you were there? And I was like, I was like, I'm gonna be honest with you, sir. I'm like corporal freaking nobody, right? But I'm just gonna tell it to him like it is, right? Because we almost all got freaking killed today, and I was asking for help. And I told him, I was like, I was like beyond you, sir. I was on the radio asking for help and nobody showed up. I was like, I know I have the maps, we have all these um all these buildings pre-targeted for artillery and aircraft, you know, just because it's a corporal asking for help, like, doesn't mean you can't drop some freaking bombs out of an airplane. You know what I mean? Like, here's the building number. I'm not making it up, you know. I mean, I don't think I said all that, but I essentially was like, sir, you know, we could have used some artillery. You know, we asked for we were asking, we were no legitimately pinned down for a period of time, and I asked for artillery and tanks, and we didn't get it. No one came. I mean, no one got hurt, luckily, but it like it could have been it could have been very bad. So he's like, all right, Roger, that marine. I'm like, all right, sir, and he left. I'm like, having, you know, it's kind of crazy to like just have a fucking conversation with a general in the middle of the night, some OP. Um, but I was honest with him, you know, obviously respectful, you know, but I was honest with him. I was like, sir, we just we needed, we asked for help and we didn't get it. And uh he's like, okay, have a good night. And uh he left, and I say about I don't know, maybe an hour later, we were all kind of just sitting around, tired, you know, tired from the day. And uh, what is that? And then you can hear helicopters in the distance. I'm like, someone give me some MVGs and night vision. You know, they're all blacked out, and I look up into the distance, and there's like eight Cobra helicopters coming over the horizon, and they go right over the top of us in formation, like this big V formation of helicopters, and just unleashed like 70 rockets into this corner of the city. I mean, freaking everything, every the whole entire payload of all those helicopters just got unleashed in like 15 seconds on this corner of the building, and we're like, yeah, that's awesome.

Host 3:46:31

I'm really tired.

Eric Shelvy 3:46:35

So that was pretty cool. You know, it's like, hey man, um, I'm a corporal and that dude is a general, and I asked him for something and he freaking gave it to me. That doesn't happen anywhere. Oh, you're right. It doesn't. You know, if 20 years later, I'm having to provide receipts for freaking oil changes, and this guy just gives me 12 freaking helicopters. Yeah. You know? So that that was awesome, and that's what I loved about um the Marine Corps, and especially at that time, and the way the way we did business, it was just getting the job done. But at the story, that that that oh this whole story doesn't even end there. This is like this is all like 16-hour time frame, right? So the next morning, so come to find out this ended up being like a much bigger event than us just fucking around with this dog. And uh they got a lot of attention, I guess, back in headquarters. And now everyone wanted a piece, you know, I guess. Whatever, I don't know. But so the next morning, uh, Captain Chantage comes down. I'll never forget it. And you know, we he's a captain, I'm a corporal, but we had like we had a like kind of a bro relationship as as much as you can with your commander, you know. Yeah, he was cool until he told you exactly what to do, and then you just shut up and did it, you know. And uh he comes in in the morning and uh we're all still tired of shit. We all get up and he goes, he goes, Shelby, uh, get your guys up. We're going back under the bridge. And I looked at him and I was like, Are you serious, sir? And I I must have said it in like kind of a smart ass way, and he goes, get your fucking guys up and let's go in 10 minutes. And I was like, Roger that, sir. I mean, I know exactly what's gonna happen. So does he, but I didn't really I didn't know what his big plan was. I was like, why are we gonna go fucking do exactly what we just did yesterday? The exact same outcome is gonna happen, right? But he had a plan, I just didn't know what it was. So he says, get your guys up, we're leaving in five. I was like, all right, guys, get up, let's go. You do and you come with me. Let's go. You know, I left a couple guys back, and you know, four or five of us went and did exactly what we did the other day, the day before. Going to the bridge, except I stayed further back this time. I was like, I'm gonna stand behind this pillar and you can go over there. So he goes to the other side of the bridge, beyond the pillars, and just stands there with a pair of binoculars. Right? Like Captain America was feet spread out. I was just like, I he's like, he's like, I dare you to shoot me. And I was like, here we go. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, you know, and then he did exactly what happened the day before. It just unloaded. Like he comes running back, and we all you know bail back. And uh man, I tell you, it must be.

Host 3:49:20

Did you guys drop smoke to get out of there again?

Eric Shelvy 3:49:21

No, we just took off running. Just took off running. Like, we're not messing around, dude. Let's just run. If you no one got hurt, but it's like if we get whatever, we're just gonna run. And um, because most of us were pretty fur, we weren't as uh as committed under the bridge as we were the day before. This time we weren't like leaning up against the thing, like having a cigarette, right? We were all just waiting for it. So um, man, it must have been five minutes. Within five minutes, there was there were I don't know, eight tanks up on the road. There was F-18s, there was A-10s, there was shit flying around. Uh everybody, helicopters, mortar teams were out. I mean, and they was just like on for like the next six hours.

Host 3:50:08

Really?

Eric Shelvy 3:50:08

On tanks were just boom for all day. There's they were bringing Hum V trailers up just full of tank rounds, filling them back up because they're just running out of ammo, just going to town, aircraft dropping stuff, freaking drones flying around. Yeah, it was it was and we're just kind of sitting back, like, we're just gonna hang out back here. Like, you let me know if you need me, me and my rifle. You know, you got eight tanks, I think you're doing okay. Yeah, and um yeah, they just had a freaking just straight up freaking gun battle for like the next six hours, and and they were shooting shit at us too. They were shooting mortars and um all kinds of stuff, man. It was um, you know, we kind of hung back. You know, there's again there's this like 30-foot berm where the road builds up over the tracks, so we're just behind that. Like you can't shoot us from there, but they started lobbing mortars, and that's different, obviously. Um yeah, I mean, I was looking at there's a group of Marines, like maybe four or five guys, and they were just kind of standing in a circle and um talking, you know, while this is all going on. And uh I for some reason I just happened to be looking at them just like just at that particular second, I glanced over and it was like boom, and they just like they were all gone. Just like a puff of cloud dust. And a mortar landed like right on top of like four or five of them standing there. I was like, cool shit. Um, all right, the fight's on now. Um they weren't my guys, they were guys I knew, but they were at a distance a little bit. So we get back up on the berm, like, okay, we're gonna get in this fight and we're gonna get some too. And um had one guy get shot. He got shot right off his barrel. You can't make this stuff up. It hit his, he's standing there and it hits his two or three barrel, which is the grenade launcher on the rifle. It ricochets off and goes right through his leg. Clean through. And another company of Marines got into the mix of this somehow. And I didn't know them, but like we all got mixed up. And this there's a lieutenant that I happen to be, you know, laying down with, and he's like, Hey, he's like, Are you with India? And I was like, Yeah, and he goes, I think one of your guys got shot over there. And I was like, What? He goes, Yeah, you over right over there. And I'm like, I go run over there, and it's one of my guys, uh Turpin, Cody Turpin. He looks at me and he goes, I go, Are you all right? And Doc was the corpsman was already there, and he hit him with the morphine already. So as soon as I get there, I'm like, dude, are you are you good?

Host 3:52:34

He's like, Man, I'm awesome.

Eric Shelvy 3:52:37

You know, he's like all drugged up, and I'm like, You're not awesome, you're freaking shot, dude. But uh they sent him to the hospital and he was back like in a week. He he was clean through, you know, all muscle, was no major bleeding or any of that kind of stuff. So he got pretty lucky. Um couple other guys, I think, got hit. A lot of vehicles got shot up. I think that sniper was like freaking doing it to it. You know, he he hit a couple people and some vehicles and things, but nothing really crazy happened other than uh how'd those dudes fare from the mortar um? They've all lived. Uh one guy lost his eye. I must have like landed in the mud and kicked all the stuff straight up and not out, and they were all incredibly fine. Wow. One guy lost an eye, but that he didn't have his glasses on. That's uh that'll be another story.

Host 3:53:24

That's uh that's coming. I mean, you're a corporal, 21 years old, squad leader. Who who were the guys in your squad?

Eric Shelvy 3:53:30

So I had uh I had three teams. I had, but I left a handful. Well, I guess I take that back. I had two teams. I had two team leaders, I had uh Lance Corporal Miller and Lance Corporal Rund. And again, those are two guys that I had known from the previous deployment. We all knew each other real well.

Host 3:53:51

Rund and you went to SOI together, didn't you?

Eric Shelvy 3:53:53

Yep. Yeah, yeah. So and then I had a couple other uh privates and Lance Corporals that I they needed guys to stay behind to Camp Flugia to do camp guard, so I gave up um a few of my guys to do that, which made made my squad actually very small, which I really liked. I only had two teams instead of three. I was a corporal, so I didn't have all these attachments of all these mortars, and the lieutenant was dealing with all that stuff, right? Like, so I so we I was very small, I was very light, I was very fast. Um, we could clear rooms quick. We we could do stuff faster because we were we were much smaller and lighter. We didn't have gaggles of guys following you around with rockets and all this other stuff.

Host 3:54:38

What was some of the conversations you're having with your guys before you guys are going into the city? I mean, because at some point you guys find out you're going in, right?

Eric Shelvy 3:54:45

Yeah, I mean And not like what was your exact words, but you know, I'm just trying to Yeah, so I think as we as we get closer to like okay, we're really gonna attack this place, I think we started to get in kind of a better idea of what was the mindset of our enemy. And this was uh, you know, we were seeing some of this video from aircraft, and you know, we were actually getting like legitimate intel reports from wherever the hell they were coming from, you know, and all these special units doing all this stuff on the inside, and we were we were getting exposed to a lot of information that we weren't in than OIF-1. OF1 was follow the tanks. This is a different thing. Now there's a lot more intelligence assets, there's um, but it doesn't really change our mission. You know, it's like, yeah, you can tell us about all the the the tactics of the bad guys in there, but it doesn't change. We're still gonna go in there and we're still gonna go in and door by door by door and we're going to every room and we're going to deal with everyone that's in there. You know, and I think we never talked about it. I don't remember ever like talking about it openly, but I think there was a a pretty good understanding that we were gonna take a lot of casualties.

Host 3:56:07

Was it just a feeling you guys were getting?

Eric Shelvy 3:56:09

Yeah. I think we all kind of knew um that this was not a IF1. These guys were here to fight, they have the ability, they have the means, and they certainly have the mentality.

Host 3:56:23

What kind of intelligence were you getting coming out of the city from either headquarters or whatever?

Eric Shelvy 3:56:29

I don't remember anything specific um like this. It was just kind of like a lot of stuff like there's tunnels that are connecting houses, uh, a lot of IED stuff. They were showing us a lot of booby trap stuff. Um, you know, we just kind of had this idea that I think it was accurate. Um, I don't think a lot of it happened because I think some of the guys that were supposed to pull the triggers on these things bailed. But it was a lot of ID, a lot of booby trap type stuff. Um, you know, and that was the that was this that was the scary stuff, and then these guys are gonna just fight to the death, and we knew that. And that's it's one thing in an open field, but you know, you take uh three or four guys and put them in a 10 by 10 room with automatic weapons, and you say, Let's see what the last man standing is. Uh that's a totally different thing. That's a totally different thing. Yeah.

Host 3:57:23

Um, you ended up with a photographer that was in your squad when you for the first two weeks of you guys entering Fallujah. How did that happen?

Eric Shelvy 3:57:31

So I know I keep saying so lightning, stop doing that. But um we had so before we there you go again. Before we went into the city, uh, we had a lot of media attention. One, you have this like what is uh shaping up to be a pretty monumental battle, you know. Uh we also have Captain Chantosh with you know his Navy Cross had a lot of attention, and his story uh was publicized quite a bit, and um, I think it drew a lot of attention from the command and the media. I don't think he enjoyed any of that personally. I don't think he cared. Um, but it it is what it is, and it did, it drew attention. So we had uh, and I think that the outside world knew this was gonna be a very uh pivotal event. I don't think we understood that from that perspective. I think we knew we're gonna have a good fight on our hands, but we weren't like, wow, this is really gonna be part of history. You know, I don't I don't think the guys on Iwo Jima were thinking they were gonna be part of history. They're just like, we're gonna run on that beach and kill everyone in there. I imagine it was very much the same mindset, and you know, they're in these these boats just getting dumped on the band. I mean, I couldn't imagine, you know, and not that this was anything like that, but it's very similar in the way you're like, wow, we're gonna run in there and we're probably gonna get freaking punched across the face a couple times, you know. Certainly not at that scale, but I I I imagine that had to have been a very similar mindset for those Marines that were like, uh, this shit's about to get real, you know, but we're doing it anyway. You going, I'm going. Okay, let's go. You know, I like to believe that at least that a lot of what they were thinking is well what what we were thinking as well. Different, different battlefield, but similar. Yeah. In the mentality. You know, none of it, neither one of us want to go, but because you're going, I'm going.

Host 3:59:31

Well, and at that point, you're not running into Fallujah because of Congress and everything else, man. And 9-11, you're going because that dude's going, your unit's going, your company commander, and then it's And we're gonna bring a tank with us. Yeah, or or two, or 40. Yeah, it's a it's just a way, it's a way different mindset.

Eric Shelvy 3:59:50

Um, yeah. I I I think it was uh I think I know I was, I I I remember very well to be honest with you. I remember um thinking to myself, like this, uh I was like, we're gonna in my mind, I was mentally preparing myself to lose half. Like that's what I that's whether I was included in that half, I didn't know, but I was if I wasn't, I was ex in my mind, I was mentally prepared to lose a lot.

Host 4:00:20

How did it feel when you know you get this photographer assigned to your squad?

Eric Shelvy 4:00:26

So yeah, I guess that was the original question, wasn't it? So yeah, so we get uh we had an element from Fox News in the company, so they kind of got split up by uh platoons and companies and squads. And so there was a a couple guys, Greg Palcott from Fox News was rolling with this platoon. Um there were some combat camera guys from the Marine Corps that were rolling with this platoon, and we were in that that I remember it very well, we were in that forward position into the city before we went in, and this guy comes up, and he is uh his name is Max Beecher. He's a photographer for Time magazine. Well, I think it was a freelance, but at the time he was contracted to Time Magazine. So he shows up on the scene, and uh we had dealt with I mean, myself personally, I dealt with uh the press um on multiple occasions prior to that. I had no love for any of them. Like it didn't even matter what station you were at any. You just had no love for any of them. You know, it's like we've been out here killing assholes for the last 10 days, and you want to ask me like, you know, what's your favorite kind of birthday cake? Gives a shit, dude. You know? Yeah, yeah. You know what we'll do to you? You know, it's like in your mind, like you know, in your mind, it's like we're you know, it just didn't matter. So I had no love for any of them. I didn't want any of them around, you know. Um so Max shows up and he's he's different, curly, from the rest, you know, and some of them are like foreigners and stuff too. You know, New York Times, all these big names. That didn't mean anything. It still doesn't. They're just people and they just want to get their shot, and we just want to not die. Yeah.

Host 4:02:16

That's very different mission.

Eric Shelvy 4:02:17

Yeah, very different mission. Like step one, don't die. That's uh that's what we were after. But you know, they wanted to get their piece. So Max shows up and uh kind of hanging out in the fighting holes with us, and uh, you know, he's he's he's a pretty charismatic guy, he's funny, uh, he gets along with everyone, you know. And uh he stayed. He didn't just show up. A lot of them will just show up, they do their inner there I was kind of stuff, you know. Um and but he he didn't do that. He stayed like for like days and days. And he just he didn't leave and he just kind of hung out. And a lot he got along with a lot of with everyone. He just had one of those personalities that he got along with everyone. So before we go into the city, he asked me, he says, Hey, uh, can I come with your squad? He asked me. No one told me. No, no uh gunny came and said, You're taking that, you're taking that photographer with you, like that wasn't happening, right? We can make that problem go away quickly. Um but he asked me, he's like, Hey, can I come with your squad? I was like, I was like, let me go ask me. I think I I I think I went and asked the guys, you know, I was like, What do you think? He was asking me, do you guys want to he's gonna come with somebody, he's my well, you know. And they're like, Yeah, yeah, they all loved him. So I was like, Yeah, okay.

Host 4:03:44

How long did he hang out with you guys before you guys took off?

Eric Shelvy 4:03:48

Uh weeks. Oh, really? Yeah. That's it. At least. Ah man, it had to have been at least a couple weeks. So, you know, he hung out with us a lot. He didn't leave and go, he stayed with us the whole time. Everywhere we went, everything we did, he ate all the same food we ate. He slept about as much as we did. Before we attacked the city, he always and so Max and I are still very good friends to this day. And he uh he always reminds me of this the time when we first met, and right before we went into Fallujah, because I just saw him three or four weeks ago and he started telling the story and I've forgotten all about it. And he goes, He has I he was because he met my son. He goes, Your dad tell you the story when I first met him, and he told me I had to dig my own hole. He's like, What? You told the photography to dig his own hole? I was like, Well, yeah, I'm not digging it for him. And I had I think I have a picture of my Ask the photographer digging his own digging digging his like, you want to hang out with the Marines? You gotta dig your hole, man. We don't dig holes for reporters.

Host 4:04:48

What was it like? I mean, we'll get into it's kind of fluid, but what was it like having a photographer with did he kind of make himself to where you didn't have to like baby him or he was he kind of knew the deal?

Eric Shelvy 4:05:00

So talking to him as much as we did, he wasn't um I mean, I I don't know anything about reporters or their career paths, but I could I could very much tell that he was kind of a dude that just went all over the world and did stuff that kind of most photographers probably weren't doing. You know, he was in like war zones everywhere and Pakistan and all this crazy stuff. And a lot of really crazy stories. Um and uh, you know, he had like this blue vest and all this crap, like jeans. I'm like, all right, dude, if you're gonna roll with us, like you're not wearing this blue vest because I'm not getting smoked because they're trying to shoot your blue vest. So, you know, we gave him one of our vests, put some camis on him, you know, no weapons or anything, of course, but like just so he didn't stick out like a sword of thumb, you know, because he's like a big guy, he's already like six five on, you know, he already sticks out. So, you know, we I kind of had a feeling like, yeah, this guy's not like the rest, you know, and he eventually kind of started to become our friend, you know, and he just did his picture thing and he never like grilled any of us, he never like questioned any of us, he's just let whatever happened happen, and took his pictures and we dogged him just like we dogged each other, and he dogged us, and he was just part of our squad. He's just like the dude with a camera, and that's just kind of how it was. And you know, and when we ended up getting into the city, you know, when things get really crazy, you know, in houses and and he's in the mix of it, you know, you got guys moving here, cleaning rooms and doing all this stuff, and sometimes Max is just happens to be standing there, and someone just pushes Max into a room, and you're the one man, Max. Your camera's like ah, it's like just get out of the way, man. And that's just the way um the way it is, you know. But we we liked him, we respected him. I think he and he I think he had a lot of respect for us, which you know said a lot, even though we were a bunch of misfits. But you know, he was he was part of our squad, and he was there for all of it. Like good, bad, ugly. He was he was there.

Host 4:07:01

Is that wild to look back on that and think like, dude, you invaded a city and you know you're doing house-to-house, very up close and personal combat, and there's this dude just following you around with a camera.

Eric Shelvy 4:07:14

I mean it does sound crazy when you say it. I I think he was around us so much that I think no one has noticed it anymore.

Host 4:07:20

Yeah, and the balls that that guy must have had.

Eric Shelvy 4:07:23

Well, that's that's exactly. I mean, it's one thing to roll in there with a tank, it's a whole other thing to roll in there with a camera in your hands. Um, so I think we I think I I mean I know I did, I had a lot of respect for what he was doing, and we were always, you know, looking out for him. You know, we weren't gonna put him in harm's way if we didn't have to. Um he was he was as much a part of our squad at that time as any one of us, if you ask me. Oh, that's awesome. I mean, if I could write him up for medals, I would. Because he probably probably deserves them.

Host 4:07:56

He ended up being the photographer at your wedding, I think, right?

Eric Shelvy 4:07:59

Yeah. That would be cool, man. We've known each other for a long time now.

Host 4:08:03

I think it goes to show like the bonds of war, man. Just, you know, being in that trauma and being, I mean, that forges lifelong relationships. I mean, most of the people that I'm close with to today are guys that I serve with.

Eric Shelvy 4:08:14

Yeah.

Host 4:08:14

Something that happens uh in that pressure melting pod. Um walk us up to right when you guys are about to invade and and that first day. So we're gonna attack from the north.

Eric Shelvy 4:08:29

And we are the furthest west. So we're up in the I think west. So we're over in the northwest corner, 3-5, 3-1, a couple other battalions, Marines, and so there's like four or five battalions like online that are just gonna sweep this whole city, like top down. Like a squeegee board. And so we had a colonel, Colonel Millet, he got us all together before we went in the city, and we were at Camp Fallujah, I believe. And I was actually really surprised he said this. I knew that's what we were gonna do, but I was surprised he said it because there was like you know, there was like reporters and stuff standing around. And he goes, uh and I told you it was Route Michigan, which runs right through the center of the city. So we're gonna attack from the north down Route Michigan, and then you there's and there's some more stuff south of Mount Michigan, but the the the main part is up, is in the northern part. So he goes, Alright, Marines, we're gonna we're gonna attack. We're gonna attack from the north. And here's the orders. When I get to Route Michigan, I want to turn around and see nothing but apocalyptic destruction. You're like, Roger, that we can do that. And that was it. And he kept, you know, use this uh analogy of of the squeegee. You know, every door, every house, every room, every garage, every car, everything is getting searched, run through, we're gonna find every single person in that entire city. And that's what we did.

Host 4:10:11

You leave that briefing, man, and you know, you you gotta have a small talk with your squad. Maybe it's not some lengthy rah-rah speech, but what's going through your head as a leader, dude?

Eric Shelvy 4:10:22

Uh well, we it's a lot, it's a lot of talk about tactics, I guess. I I don't remember a lot of it, but we're just kind of preparing, you know. It's like we know what these houses look like. You know, these aren't just running the front door kind of places, these are they got these big gates around, these big metal gates, they got these six-foot brick walls around them. How are we gonna breach these? We're talking business. We're talking business. Did you guys have like breaching tools, explosives? We had been trained on that. Well, did we have it and did we train it on it? That's a those are different questions. We had a breaching kit, but it was you know, like a sledgehammer and a you know, big crowbar thing. Um, we had a shotgun with a bunch of 12 gauge, like lock, they call them lockbusters, you know, things blow locks. Um, but it was like a shotgun that was like freaking five feet long, right? It's like a bird hunting shotgun. Like, what am I gonna do with this thing? Just cut the barrel off it or something. Like, this thing's huge. Um we did we have we did have C4. We didn't get a lot of training on it at all. It was like you take, you know, it was like it was literally like a 10-minute class. Little, I'm not exaggerating, it was like 10 minutes. It's like you take the C4, you stick the blasting cap in, you know, and then you pull this timer. You're like, okay. And then you're like, you want some C4, and you just like shoving it, sticks a C4 in your cargo pockets and like a bunch of blasting caps, and you and you went on your way. And we had uh there was two types of way to set it off, right? You have the time fuse, pop it, and it burns through the time fuse, and then you have electrical, you know, electrical ones, um, which need a elect uh voltage to set it off. So one guy had a nine volt battery, and you take the two ends of the wire in the 9-volt battery, you just go. So they say, Miller, bring me the battery. I got a battery. Yeah, one guy had a nine-volt battery for blowing C4. So they just said, you know, it was a real it was a real quick class, and they just said, All right, you cut it up, call them eight balls, you know, you can take a stick, cut it up into eighths, squeeze it up and you know into a little ball, and just had them in your pockets.

Host 4:12:38

That's crazy.

Eric Shelvy 4:12:41

Did you guys start during the day or in the evening? We started at night. We staged north of the city the night, let's see, the night or two nights before we went up and staged and made defensive positions, you know, maybe two miles north of the city, something like that. And the aircraft just bombarded this city for like 40 straight hours. I made it was either one night or two nights, but it was it had it was at least 24 hours of nonstop artillery aircraft. I mean, there was things falling out of the sky. You're like, what in the world is that thing? Like shit you've never even seen before. You know, like we were carrying micklicks. And if you don't know what a micklick, is I asked you about that one. It stands for what my mine clearing line charge or something like that. So it looks like a Humvee trailer, and it's got this big stick off the back of it, and it has a little rocket and shoots the rocket out, and then this little trailer has a wire with 200 pounds of C4 attached to it, and it lands and then detonates. It's used for clearing minefields. You shoot it out, you know, it goes out 100 meters or whatever it is, detonates and blows all the mines out of the ground. That's what it's designed for. We had those, we had these giant armored bulldozers, like there was just stuff I'm like, I didn't even know we had, I never seen before. There was aircraft flying. I mean, you could see there was aircraft stacked from like 10 to 50,000 feet. There was you know, trajectories of mortars, trajectories of artillery. Uh, this is where the helicopters fly. This is where the aircraft fly. Uh, there were three C-130s on station, non-stop, three of them. AC-130 gunships? AC-130 gunships just go into town for 24 straight. And then we had uh before we went in the city, there was one gunship that would fly around every night and just shoot people. I don't know what just all every night for like a month. But when we got up to the last couple days, yeah, it was just they were just gonna pepper this city to oblivion. It was amazing. You know, it's amazing that there was anyone in there at all after watching all that, but it was it was it was quite impressive. Even after all the stuff I'd seen prior to that, I was like, ah, damn, man. Like they were dropping 2,000 pounders, like it was just craziness. I mean, there was I mean, I mean, you know what four battalions of Marines looks like online, and it's it's incredible, you know. And they had these train tracks, and it's just like you know, 40 tanks online sitting on these tracks, just going to town simultaneously. It's impressive. So you could you could definitely feel that the command like had your back. Like, we're gonna send you in there and it's gonna be really dangerous, and guys are gonna get hurt, but we're gonna fuck this place up. And you could you could feel it, and they were not playing around, so that was good. Dude, how was there anything left of the city for you guys to even clear? Amazingly, there was quite a bit. Um, yeah, it was it was it was incredible. The amount of uh munitions and firepower on display was just you know, you alluded to in the beginning, I went on to do uh you know explosives later with ATF, and then you know, I remember being in some of that training, they're like, all right, this is gonna be a really big explosion. And I'm like, you've never heard of really big explosion. It's like pop. Until it like until you're like bruised ribs from concussions, you know, like, yeah, there's there's nothing compared to that. Totally unrestricted. Like, there's like this is a five-pound ball of C4, we're gonna detonate the range, and this is uh, you know, 2,000 pounds that we're just gonna freaking shoot through this guy's living room and see what happens. We're gonna blow this guy's barbecue pit about two miles down the road.

Host 4:16:37

Yeah, I remember seeing like you know, videos of a mick click, what you just described, shooting uh, I mean, it's it's a hundred-yard long charge, yeah, and just leveling city blocks, dude.

Eric Shelvy 4:16:48

Yeah. Uh yeah, yeah. We ended up shooting a couple off into some neighborhoods, and uh, I always I made the X someone's it's it's kind of nuts, but they said, We're gonna shoot this mick click. I'm like, okay, and then they didn't. So we're all sitting around waiting for this thing because you don't want to be anywhere near this thing when it goes off. And we're all just kind of you know, trying to get a couple Z lean against a wall, whatever, and then it goes off and it's just like one of those things. Like, holy shit, man, a little heads up. Yeah, and uh, I mean, it was a how a block, a full city block, right? You know, 10 houses and 10 houses on one side, and it was like a freaking judo chop. That's it, like Austin Powers judo chop right through the whole block. It's incredible. Oh, we kind of look at each other like house how's clear, right? Yeah. Oh, clear? That's clear. So we don't have to go in there, do we?

Host 4:17:40

God. Um, yeah, dude. The first night you guys get into Fallujah. Oh, I know you fell out of the track.

Eric Shelvy 4:17:50

Yeah. So we're using Amtrak's again to get into the city. So I the first night, uh, 3-5 goes into the Jolan district up in the corner of the city. I think we went in first. That's what we were told. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm I'm pretty sure it was. We we went in the hours before or the night before. We wanted to get a foothold into the corner of the city, and then everyone else could fall in behind it. Because we had no stronghold into the city whatsoever. So we needed you got you gotta take the first step somewhere, right? Once you're in there, then you're in there and you can deal with it like that. But we needed to get in there, so we were gonna be the ones, the one, right? You're the ones that are gonna get in there. And I I was like, okay, that's that's that's fine with me. So we go in at night under this just barrage of munitions, uh just uh artillery, just raining, aircraft, helicopters, tanks, I mean, you name it, shit falling out of the sky. And uh we go in and you have the Amtrak, right? And you have you have uh there's two turrets on the front. There's a turret on the front, which is the commander of the vehicle, and he controls a couple 50 cal. Then they have another hatch where the the commander of the guys in the vehicle, like call a TC hatch or troop commander hatch. And for my squad, it was me, 20-year-old, you know, 20-year-old me. So I I just I didn't want to be in that spot because it's difficult to get out of, which I quickly it's easier to just drop the ramp because you're in the back instead of being standing face to face with whatever. So it was like, okay, you know, we had a map, uh, everyone had their designated houses. Like, this is the block you're gonna get into, this is the block you're gonna get into, you know, when you're gonna we're gonna clear this first house out. We're gonna take this first block tonight, and establish a defensive position in this these you know, five blocks or whatever, and and then start again tomorrow. That was kind of the general plan. So we go in, um, you know, and it's just like, man, there's there's this music playing on the the mosque speakers, and it's like galloping horses, and like this like war song chant going on. There's machine gun fire coming at us, there's artillery falling out of the sky, it's pitch black, like there's no electricity anywhere, like the total city is totally blacked out. Um yeah, this was wild, wild. So, your objective, you know, your initial objective is just to get as far away from the vehicles as you can as fast as you can, right? Because vehicles are magnets for gunfire. So I try and climb out of this little hatch out of the top, and my gas mess thing gets like caught. And I'm uh I go tumbling out of the top of this vehicle like a starfish on the ground, like, mother, gotta be. I'm like, am I dead? You know, and I thought I broke like three bones and just kind of laying there, and I'm like, God damn it, I'm laying there. I get up and I look back at there's a couple Marines in the back, and I see Miller, and he's got his flashlight out and he's looking around the ground. I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I dropped my wedding band. I was like, get out of the freaking chair. It's like one guy falls out of the vehicle, two guys are doing an Easter egg hot behind the vehicle. I was like, Good God, man, get in the house. So we we try and breach the first house, and you know, it's just these big metal gates, and they got huge chains on them, and it's like we're beating on these things. Just I mean, it's like a construction crew trying to get into the freaking driveway, and it took us forever, and it was just a big shit show, and uh we finally ended up getting in there. I mean, there was no one in there, it's like God, because they would have had all day to deal with us. Um, but you know, we kind of realized very quickly, like, hey, this is not gonna work, we're gonna have to do something. We can't spend 15 minutes on every single door trying to get through these chains and locks and all this stuff because everyone just chained their houses up and left. So, yeah, the first night was uh very chaotic. Um, a lot of gunfire. No one got hurt that I can recall. I think one guy fell off. One guy fell and hurt himself like down a couple stories or fell off a roof or something, but no one no one got really hurt that I remember that first night.

Host 4:22:20

How did it go? Um, how did it go from there? And I'm and we're not gonna relive every single day of Fallujah, that's impossible. Um, but you know, I I remember you telling me that that you know your squad was extremely light and fast, and so you guys could clear houses a little bit quicker than than other guys. Um and I know you guys would often like maneuver to help other people in contact. Can you walk us through like, I don't know, maybe what a a day would have been like because I know you guys I think that was what you guys were there for four to six weeks, maybe I don't remember.

Eric Shelvy 4:22:51

In the city?

Host 4:22:52

Yeah, or clearing it.

Eric Shelvy 4:22:53

I was there for seven months and never left the city.

Host 4:22:56

Yeah, but I know the initial clearing were like you guys were in.

Eric Shelvy 4:22:58

So this is yeah, I guess this is like early November. No, yeah, no, it's early, early November. Yeah, I guess it was like a month, three weeks of like really active. You guys were door to door, day to day. Yeah. Yeah. So that was uh, you know, you have these kind of lateral blocks. It's a very it's a very grid system city. Uh so you have just rows of you have blocks with two rows of houses, and it's like every squad gets a row, and we just go down all together until you find the enemy. Sometimes they fight, you know, and I don't think they wanted to fight the very first few days because it was really quiet, fairly quiet. Um, minor stuff from a distance, you know, some skirmishes from you know a block away kind of things, but nothing super in your face. Um just clearing, clearing houses, wake up, clear houses, go to sleep. Um we'd get to an end of a block and we would just like, you know, this was our road, and then we had marines in every house on this side, you know, we had tanks on the street, and we'd get some, you know, bed cushioning out of the house that we were in, and we would bring it all up to the roof, and we would just do 50-50 all night, you know, with the whole squad. Half the guys up, half the guys down. You know, and the tanks would do the same thing. So there was always somebody the line was still alive all night. How long did it take for you guys really started getting into it? It's probably the th probably the third or fourth day when uh we started getting like really serious resistance. And I I I don't know if I could tell you exactly like what battle or like I don't but it was when within the three or f within the third or fourth day is when things started escalating very quickly. What uh what kind of things were you seeing at your at your level on the squad level? It it depends. I mean, you have your row, and it's like all hell could break loose on this row, but not in this row, or like this row. So it was very random, but at some point in time it would happen across the line where somebody would have a lot of contact. Um it just depended on where. And sometimes we were right in the middle of it, and sometimes it was down the block, and we weren't involved in it at all, or we were because you can't give up the line, right? Because then you they can get behind you, and then we got a whole nother set of problems. So that's very important that no one gets behind us. How did you guys deal with the tunnel system? Did you guys start finding the tunnels at some point? I never saw, I never saw any like underground tunnels. They had a lot of uh like walls broken through because you could go in between the houses. I guess you could call that a tunnel, but um no like underground stuff that I saw. But we did encounter a lot of the like murder rooms, you know, if where they were cutting people's heads off, just like like a I don't even know what you'd want, like a butcher's freaking off. I mean, just it's a murder room. I don't know how else to describe it. You tell there was like blood everywhere, everywhere. Body parts, blood, cages, chains, flags on the wall, like the the dude where Zarkabi was cutting people's heads off, like that room. It's crazy.

Host 4:26:26

I I know you told me at some point you guys had to start changing your TTPs. You were hitting, you guys were you know breaching and coming in, and then you know they'd have pill boxes set up on the first floor, and yeah, and that's so I we I

Eric Shelvy 4:26:41

It wasn't my squad, it was another squad that encountered this the first time. And um you know, we we were doing what we were trained to do, you know, you go in just like every other tack unit does anywhere, I guess. You know, you go in, this guy goes right, this guy goes left, and so that's great in most situations, but I I don't know if they knew that's what we were gonna do or they just didn't care. You know, when you're I guess when you're dealing with an enemy that already knows the outcome, I mean think about it. They the guy in that room, he knows the outcome of this battle. And then I say this battle, I mean this next 30 seconds of his life. He knows the outcome already, and that's him dying. Right? So how do you deal with um a situation where the other side is already dead in their mind? And the objective is to take as many of you with him as he can. So you go in to a room and they would have a pile of sandbags with a belt-fed machine gun pointed at the door. And you walk in there doing your right turn, left turn thing, and they shoot the first guy that walks through the door, you know, whether they kill him or not, uh, he drops. And what does the next guy do? You know, tries to we get trying to get that guy out, and now we have two, and then it just compounds and then it turns into like a mass casualty event. So that happens, that happened. Um it's like, okay, well, we're not gonna do that anymore, right? So we started changing our the way we started doing business. So we're we changed a couple things. Uh if we were gonna go into a house from the street, we were gonna take a wall out, we were gonna use a we would ask the tanks, uh, which they're marine tankers, right? Like, we're just oh we're all getting some now, right? So we just asked tanks, like, hey, we want you to bash this wall down. And they would turn the turrets to the side and just use the uh you know the foundation of the tank and just take a whole corner of the building out, and then we would go in that way, and then you could, or we would um shoot main gun tank rounds into the front door from three feet away and just roll down the street, boom, boom, boom, and and anyway you could kill the enemy without them killing us is a win. And that's kind of how we changed everything we were doing. We started instead of going through front doors, we started going rooftop to rooftop because you could just climb across the tops of the roof, and just assault downwards, yep. So you could throw grenades down there, you could uh at one point when things really started escalating, and guys, a lot of guys were getting really hurt. Um they started giving us satchel charges. I had never of all my time in the in the core, which is not long, of course, but in all the training I had, I had never seen a satchel charge. Uh and they just started handing them out. Like, yeah, you just stick this in here, pull this thing. You're like, okay. And then you're like walking down the street like a kid just got of the candy store with satchel charges. So if you could get um you know, if you could go rooftop to rooftop, if we could just if we could fight figure out that you're in there before we go in there, then we could just we'll just blow the whole house up or half the block if we have to. So we could just if you could drop a satchel charge down the center of the building, you could hopefully get, I mean, that's what 20 pounds of C4 or whatever. I mean, that's enough to blow the walls out. So hopefully you could get the building to collapse on itself and just crush everyone inside. How often do you guys have to do that? As many satchel charges as you could get your hands on.

Host 4:30:26

God. So would you guys just go into the drop it down through the top and then try to get off the building?

Eric Shelvy 4:30:31

Yep.

Host 4:30:32

My god, man. Did you did your squad encounter a lot of pretty tough resistance early on?

Eric Shelvy 4:30:38

Yeah. I'm not even sure which one to start with, but um I'm gonna spec a couple, bro.

Host 4:30:43

I'm not gonna make you relive that whole seven months. I don't think I don't think anybody deserves that. Yeah, I as much as you're comfortable, man.

Eric Shelvy 4:30:49

And I mean I mean, I I some of the stories, I mean, anytime someone the good guys are getting hurt, it it really changes, it changes things, you know. Um, and there was a lot of guys in my company that were getting hurt. Uh one of the lieutenants was killed. I mean, there was a it was every day. I mean, six, seven, eight guys a day, every day, injured, maimed, um, jaws shot off, freaking femorals, you know, exploding out of their uh you name it. Um it was happening every day. Some of them guys were really close, some were like guys in in first platoon or third platoon, I was in second platoon, you know. It it wasn't always my guys in my squad, there's only nine of us. Yeah, you know, it's but as a company we're a hundred plus. You know, when when you when it's four or five a day every day for three weeks straight, it starts to add up, you know, and that's just our company. This is happening across four battalions. So yeah, there's and one point I think we like ran out of lieutenants. Like there was just no more which is crazy, right? Like it was almost something out of like uh like a World War II movie, man. It's like you're a lieutenant now. It's like what? Like and combat field promotions don't happen anymore. That just doesn't happen. I don't think they actually did that to anyone, but yeah, there were uh times where like you know, staff sergeant is like now the platoon commander acting, you know, because there's just no lieutenants left, they're all dead or injured or or what, whatever, you know.

Host 4:32:31

Did you start to noticing any battle battle fatigue from your guys after a while?

Eric Shelvy 4:32:36

Yeah, I suppose. I mean, how could you not be? You know, you're doing it every day, you're exhausted, you're hungry, you're tired, you're you're everything.

Host 4:32:46

I remember asking you, man, when we were doing our podcast prep, like, how are your guys? And I I remember, you know, you said it on more than one occasion that like you had a really good group of Marines that were just, you know, in it for each other.

Eric Shelvy 4:32:58

Um Yeah, I never once questioned the determination of of my guys. I hope they never thought that of me, but I I think even amongst the the chaos of what was happening, we were just freaking good at it and we were moving forward. It didn't matter, we were moving forward. Yeah, you told me you guys really learned to master the basics, which I thought was very interesting because that And Colonel Millet used to say that, and it always sounds stupid when he said it, but you know, you look back on now, I was like, man, that was so that was so accurate, you know, like no fancy stuff, just doing very basic things very well is incredibly effective. You know, I that's probably a life lesson, right? You could probably write that, you could probably write that down somewhere.

Host 4:33:48

Yeah, I remember a Delta Force operator teaching a shooting class one time that I was in, and he said, Man, there is no advanced shooting training.

Eric Shelvy 4:33:55

Advanced shooting is just a mastery of the basics. Yeah, that's all it is. It's just you've done it so many times that you do it without even thinking, and it's just being really, really good at really simple things.

Host 4:34:05

I mean it make it makes sense. Um how did you guys how did you keep your your squad going day to day? You know, what if you can if you remember 21-year-old Eric, you know?

Eric Shelvy 4:34:18

I I mean there was no like pep talks. It was um I didn't have to keep them going, man. They were they were going whether I was going or not. You know, I I talked to the lieutenant, this is what we're doing today. I come back, hey, I talked to the team leaders, this is what we're doing today. Roger, when are we going? We're going 10 minutes. Okay. That was it. That's ball business. There was no, oh, you know, this guy's having a rough day. We're gonna talk. No, we there's none of that. We do not have time for that. I didn't see it. Everyone that was there was ready to was there to get some, you know, and I I never saw any of any of that stuff. There was no pep talks like, hey Marines, we're gonna get up and go to work today. It was like, we're going that way. They're like, okay, let me eat real quick and we can, you know, it was all business.

Host 4:35:11

Was there a firefight that defined your time in Fallujah for you?

Eric Shelvy 4:35:15

Yeah, I would say, I mean, there was more than a few. Um it was very violent, you know, across the board. It was weeks and weeks and weeks of just very, very violent um stuff. A lot of guys getting hurt, uh, killed. Um the enemy was not was doing far worse than we were, that's for sure. And we were killing people by at minimum the hundreds, if not the thousands, across four battalions. I mean, we were killing thousands of people, and these guys were maniacs.

Host 4:35:48

This is crazy after all the bombing they went through.

Eric Shelvy 4:35:50

Like, they were they were dug in. Yeah, most of them. They were dug in and they had a plan. And I I I think it probably, I mean, this is just my opinion, but I think a lot of dudes chickened out at the last minute, and they're like, uh, we're gonna get out of here before they do close the city down. Uh and I think if I think if a lot of people, I this is again my personal opinion that I think a lot of guys chickened out at the last minute, the enemy, if they had all stayed, I think it would have been much, much crazier. I think there were a lot of IEDs in place. I think there were a lot of booby traps in place. I just don't think there was anyone there to set them off. Or the bombs took them. Because sometimes you would literally walk right next to it. You'd be walking and they'd be like, Choby, don't move. You're like, what? Like, dude's a fucking ID right next to your foot. And you're like, holy shit. It's right there, it's right next to you. But there's no one there to set it off. Did you have EOD guys with you? They were around. I mean, uh, everyone was EOD. Yeah. At least corporal with 10 pounds of C4 is EOD at that point, right?

Host 4:36:58

Like, check the dog.

Eric Shelvy 4:37:00

Yeah. So you're you're finding so many munitions. Um, you know, you you you you EOD cannot, they're they can't do all that. So we just started either doing it ourselves or uh we would throw shit out into the street and the tanks would run things over for us. You know, we'd make a pile of weapons out in the street, and the tank would just run and do kind of this thing with their tracks and destroy everything.

Host 4:37:23

What was the hardest decision you had to make as a squad leader in Fallujah?

Eric Shelvy 4:37:27

Well, it goes back, I guess, to the previous question of um, you know, there was a pretty significant battle in in my squad with uh and I can I don't think I'm gonna go over all the gory details, but there was a good battle uh where one of my team members when Greg Rund was killed. He was killed in action in December 2004. And that was a pretty significant uh a pretty significant event for a lot of us. You know, we were all Greg, you know, Rund was he was one of those guys, he was a lot like Max. He was very gregarious, everybody liked him, he's always joking around, um, which really used to piss me off like a lot. And I will always like yelled at it used to piss me off a lot. Um, because he was always fucking around. But when it timed to do real shit, that dude was on it. And that's why I made him one of the team winners. Because when it was time to do real shit, he was on it. It's like, and we were, you know, we were in boot camp and SOI and stuff at that same time, and we knew each other before. We were we were peers. So he, you know, I got promoted, and he was the guy who was like, you know, I'm not calling you fucking corporal, right? I'm like, Ron, I don't care if you call me corporal or not. He's like, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it, Shelby. I'm not calling you corporal, I don't care. You know, that was just his personality. And uh, you know, he never pissed off anyone except for me. Everybody loved him. Um, I did too, but we used to dog each other a lot about things.

Host 4:39:05

And does he remind you of yourself?

Eric Shelvy 4:39:08

I don't know, does he?

Host 4:39:10

Somewhat.

Eric Shelvy 4:39:11

Yeah. He he used to fuck off a lot. He used to used to he used to get me going a lot. But that was that was a big blow, man. It was a big blow to uh our squad. Uh I know Shantosh was uh Colonel Millet was there when he was killed when we ended up recovering him. Um I remember looking up and on top of the roof right above me was uh Colonel Millet.

Host 4:39:39

Can you tell, I mean, without going into like gory details or anything, can you just talk a little bit about what happened to him?

Eric Shelvy 4:39:46

Um well essentially we I sent a team into the house, his team, uh the first house of the day, which is kind of crazy because um it it it was more than like one or two guys. This is I'm not sure how many, but there was a dozen guys that enemy that ended up getting smoked when this was all said and done. And we, you know, we had a street here, so we're going this way down this block, and then there's the next block. So we're one street, and these aren't like big streets, these are alleyway streets. And uh so we had a squad in in this house, a squad in the house next to it, across the street, uh, you know, a line. And um there must have been a dozen of them that all slept 20 meters away from us.

Host 4:40:32

They were in the house next to you, right across the street.

Eric Shelvy 4:40:35

Wow. A dozen of them with two dozen of us, all slept within 10 meters of each other all night long. The fact that none of them were like smoking cigarettes, like if they would have done any made any noise, lit up a cigarette, like done anything, we would have noticed it. Right with night vision. And if someone kicks a pot, even at at the next house over, you're gonna hear it in the middle of the night. So they knew you were coming. Well, they were waiting for us, and they were disciplined and drugged up. You know, a lot of the places, a lot of these guys that we dealt with afterward, you know, they're uh opiates and needles, uh like fucking, they're like fucking zombies, man. Sometimes you shoot these guys and they're still running at you. It's it's the it's crazy, man. Unless you hit them in the face, you know, then they drop. But you if you wing one of them, they're they're like zombies. They're all drugged up and they're there. They already know the outcome. And that's that they're all gonna die. And they're fine with that. They're just gonna try and take you with them. You know, it's it's a a version of a kamikaze. You know, it's it's a it's a similar, it's just I know the outcome of my mission, and I'm just gonna try and take you with me. So they were just waiting the next morning when you guys started hitting. Yeah, so I sent Greg's team in first, and I was like, you know, we just kind of rotated around. Um and he goes in there and just like instantly all freaking hell breaks loose. Like that house, the house next to it, the house behind it, like not this one house, like three houses, and like some guys spill out of the back of this house and encounter First Platoon, and First Platoon smokes like six of them, and then these guys run out this way, and it just turned into a giant freaking shit show. And you know, immediately the tanks are are right there because we're all online already. It's not like we're leapfrogging or moving, we're all this like the first 10 minutes of the day, and it's like, oh shit, the tanks are just gonna freaking blow this house to smithereens, you know. And so Greg's team, you know, as soon as they made contact, they they engaged. I wasn't in there, and and came running back. And I was on the roof behind, I could see him running back. And um they got back and they're like, Well, Greg's Greg's not here, Greg's not here. Run, he's not, he's not here. I'm like, fuck me, he's not here. He's still in the house. I'm like, so he was the last guy out. And he, you know, when the when the guy ran out, you know, the marine in front of him ran out, you know, he just wasn't behind him. So something happened, obviously. And then uh, you know, and it's like, you know, everyone thinks everyone's out, and the tanks are just about to freaking destroy this place, you know, and so there's a a brief window where it's like we gotta stop these tanks from freaking lighting this whole freaking block up, you know, from both sides, you know, because there's still we still have a Marine in there. So we gotta get guys in there. Grenades are flying across the street at us, which turned out to be his grenades. You know, um it was horrendous, you know, and we we did end up going in there and I did send Miller's team after, you know a small amount of time, you know, and more importantly, it was just trying to stop the tanks from freaking destroying the whole place. Because that's why I was like, oh my god, the tanks are gonna because I could hear the lieutenant calling the tanks on the radio, telling him to unload. So we get him out of there, or Greg, you know, or Miller goes in there and gets him out, man. It's just like crazy, man. His bodies everywhere. It's a bad day. Sounds like it, bro. And then uh yeah, the Chantosh went fucking kind of crazy, I guess. He was really upset about that, and we fought we went back, I think we fell back like a block with all of us, the whole company, and it just rained F-18s for like 45 minutes. It's like 500 pounders dropping like jelly beans out of the sky for like a long time.

Host 4:44:30

Yeah, I remember you told me uh you had kind of gone back in the house, or you know, to kind of calm down, you look up and you saw the colonel there.

Eric Shelvy 4:44:36

Yeah. So he witnessed that whole thing. But it rained, and uh you know, after that it was that it was just destruction. We were gonna make everybody pay for this. And we did.

Host 4:44:56

How did you uh I mean I hate asking these questions, but I think it's important because it may not be the last war we ever had. But how did how did you move forward from that, dude?

Eric Shelvy 4:45:05

I mean it was it was still active. Like we still were we still had houses to clear, we still had a mission, we still had an objective. It it sucks. But you know, it's like I know you're gonna ask me like how did I process it? Like what and you don't have time. It's just it was very similar to like Silva, man. You we it's still active. Like guys were really, really distraught, and you know, it was like, hey guys, get your freaking heads together, man. We still got shit to do. Um and they did, like freaking Marines, that's what they do. And when and we move forward. I don't know how else to explain it. You know, you gotta you just do what you have to do to not die.

Host 4:45:49

No, and I think it's accomplish the mission. There's young leaders here, man, that are gonna hear this, and you know, cops, firefighters, paramedics, soldiers. I mean there's a lot of streets here in the US that, you know, that's not Fallujah, but you know, sometimes you can't just break down in the moment, dude. There's a time and place for that way down the road. Um I think that's the only reason I ask you those questions, man. It's not like I you know. No, I know there's no way to you can't fix that. You didn't do that, and that and I think it's important to bring that up, one because you know, run died as a hero, but two, man, the enemy gets a say, dude. I mean, you be the most well-trained fighting force in the world, and you know enemy gets a say, dude. Yeah. It's fucking it's a war. Yeah. And I think the old saying is only the dead have truly seen the end of war. Yeah. Because you can't unsee that shit. Nineteen killed in your unit India Company 3-5.

Eric Shelvy 4:46:41

Um Tell me a little bit about Jeremy and Miller. Miller Miller was one of my team leaders uh in Felicia. We were uh OIF went together, both like Lance Corbuller's or something. Um Miller was good people, man. I he was my first team leader, run was my second. Miller was uh smart, motivated, and he was my right-hand man, like Miller, make this shit happen. It happened. And uh no, we had a great squad, man. Did Jeremy have to step up to the plate a little bit more with Run gone? Uh yeah, uh those two were really good friends. Those two were those two were closer than I was. Um they were they were they were close. So I'll I'm I don't know what it to what extent, because I can't speak for them. Um, you know, I think it had an effect on on on all of us. I don't know if that was equal, but it certainly wasn't pleasant, you know. It was bad, like really bad. But what can you what can you do? You know?

Host 4:47:51

Did you ever feel any uh any guilt? And I ask you this, man, because I know that other there's other dudes um that have gone through situations, you know, you weren't the only Marine there. Obviously, there was multiple battalions. Um did you ever process that later on in life? I know you and I talked about it a couple weeks ago. Your answer was pretty profound, that's why I asked the question. What did I say last time? Well, I mean, dude, there's not a lot you can do.

Eric Shelvy 4:48:13

No, there's not. Um yeah, it's a really it's a really deep question. When you make, you know, decisions that cost people their lives, and not like it could cost your life when it actually cost them their lives. Um, you know, not a forethought, but an afterthought. Like I made a decision that actually someone got killed, or multiple people got killed, or a dozen people got killed. Um Yeah, I I I I mean to sound like you know kind of pragmatic about it, but like you you you know, I I I personally feel like and I've what I've been telling myself for decades now, I guess, is like you have two options. You know, it can you can think about it all day, every day, and it's going to kill you. Or you can uh go the other way. There's there's only two ways this there's only one of two ways this is gonna go. You're gonna move forward and succeed, or it's gonna consume you and it's going to kill you.

Host 4:49:20

You and I have talked a lot in the last 11 years about I mean things in this realm and and you know, you you've made it, we both made it for very different reasons. I mean, I didn't go through Fallujah, I didn't go through the extent of combat. I went through my own shit. But you know, you guys lost a lot of people, you know. I think that was the most lost of life for Marines since Vietnam. Um and there's been a lot of guys um post-service who I know and the Marines have struggled. I mean, and you've made some dark humor about it, and that's the only way to deal with it. I mean, there's no other, you know, otherwise you can just be sad every day, and I don't think that's what those guys would want. But what do you think has helped contribute to you keep going?

Eric Shelvy 4:50:07

I guess the general question is why am I still alive and they're all not? No, man.

Host 4:50:11

Like, how do you I mean, you haven't eaten your gun, dude. You're still here, you're still fighting, you're still living. Uh, there's a lot of guys killed themselves, man. I mean, uh, you know, I think we talked around suicide, right? Like, people don't want to say the word, but it's been a lot of Marines have killed themselves. Yeah. I mean you and I've talked about it through the years. Just your battalion.

Eric Shelvy 4:50:32

Yeah, oh yeah. I couldn't even tell you. I'm used to my company. I I at this point, you know, I'm 43 and honestly, I don't hear about um suicides much anymore in the last few or three years, maybe. Um just because there's just they're all dead. Which is crazy, right? The sto is the suicides have slowed down because there's no one left to do it. And I don't even know what the number is, but I don't know if anyone's even keeping track. Um the one guy that I was in OIF one with, Sergeant uh Mata, Daniel Mata, uh a good friend of mine, he was like that was kind of like the dude keeping, you know, putting together the three, five reunion stuff. He was the guy that was always organizing that kind of stuff. And uh he killed himself like a few years ago. So now I don't even know what the hell's going on. I would call him and he would tell me what was going on, and now I don't now he's dead. So I mean, what do you do with all that? You know, and it's just nonstop.

Host 4:51:48

You found a resilience. What is it? Or what's the combination? I know there's no secret recipe, like if you do this, then this, but you found a way to fight through it. I mean, that's well, you and I have talked about it a lot.

Eric Shelvy 4:52:00

Yeah, I don't like I said, there's definitely, I mean, if I had the answer to that, I'd, you know, no one has the answer to that. I certainly don't. I I think I think for me, I just made a decision that that was not going to happen. You know, it's like you made a comment earlier today. It's like, you know, I set my alarm clock for five and my body just woke me up at 4 55. You know, and I think that we talk about how powerful the mind is, and when you make um a decision, that's that's what's going to happen. And you just decide that's what I'm that's what's I'm not gonna do. I'm not gonna, you know, be like my father, or you know, I was thinking about earlier and I was like, you know, uh, you know, if you want to quit smoking, you know, I smoked cigarettes for like a long time, right? That was like a really hard thing. I would rather go back to the mountain school than quit smoking again.

Host 4:53:03

I remember the first time I I used to bum cigarettes off Eric all the time. I'm not that idiot that like I don't smoke, I don't buy cigarettes, but I can bum them off people. And I remember when you quit smoking, I'm like, hey, bro, are you gonna smoke? Like, no, I quit. I'm like, what?

Eric Shelvy 4:53:14

Yeah quit? It's uh well. Yeah, that was that was really hard. And I think you know, it's very similar to that. You just have to make a decision. You're just like uh it's an all-in kind of mentality, you know. It's like I am not gonna let this consume me. Um, I don't know if that uh, I mean, to date it's been successful, but who knows, right? Oh, I know. Yeah, I don't know. Um, you know, whether it's stopping smoking or drinking or partying, whatever it is your vice is, you know, demon, whatever. Um, I mean, that's been successful for me. I I don't know if there's a remedy. I don't know. I can't look back in time and be like, this one thing is the reason I I think it's a combination of things. I think that's part of it.

Host 4:54:01

Um I think Well, the reason the reason why I ask is, you know, there's all these things out there, psychedelics and and counseling and all that stuff, and and SSRIs, and you've stayed away from all that shit. Like, I mean, I've even given you a hard time, like, hey bro, have you thought about Ivy gain and all the things? And and like you haven't done any of that. I mean, so you know, it's it I don't want to say it's it's really cool that you haven't, because that sounds super fucking ignorant when I say that, but it's it's you you found this resilience. Um, and you know, I'm I'm just curious, you know, if you could even put it into words. I mean, I think you did a little bit, you made this conscious decision, and I think like that, maybe that's it. Maybe maybe we overcomplicate, like we think you need all these, you know, fancy things. Uh for me, it's my relationship with God, and maybe that's not for everybody. Uh, but you know, maybe it is as simple as that. Maybe, maybe it is you making the decision to live for the folks that you lost, or to live for your wife, or to live for your kids, or all of that, or your friends, the people that care about you. Maybe sometimes, you know, in the veteran community, we've overcomplicated what it takes to just to keep living.

Eric Shelvy 4:55:12

Yeah. And maybe part of that's the just the the stubborn marine in me. You know, it's this just this mentality, you know, of uh just like you can't kill me, man. You can try, but you won't. It's a obviously it's a not real because you can't be killed, of course. It happens all the time. But you know, it's um it's that mentality of just like, don't give me drugs. I'm fine. Like, I don't want it, I'll do it myself. I don't need you. I don't know if that's the right way or not. I that that's worked for me. I highly doubt that would work for others. It could, it could not. I I don't know. What if I knew the answer to that question? I'd be calling everyone I know getting the word out, but I do not.

Host 4:55:58

What do you say to that dude who hears this that served and saw things and you know hasn't found that resilience that's hanging on the edge of that rope right now?

Eric Shelvy 4:56:08

Oh man. I mean, get help, get it, get, get the help wherever you can. I'm so many resources nowadays. I mean, get whatever you can get. It's better than dying. I mean, what are your options? You know, suck your pride up a little bit or be dead. Those are your options. For guys like me, that's how I see it. That may be a different way of looking at it. Um, it may be a very um you know, bull-headed way to look at it. You know, I mean, I I tell myself the same thing. It's like if I really thought I was about to crack, like I would, I would probably I would reach out. 20-year-old me probably wouldn't have, but 40-something-year-old me, I I probably would at this point. Because I don't want to die. I don't want to be a statistic, but I think that's it, man.

Host 4:57:02

I mean, you just said it like you don't want to die.

Eric Shelvy 4:57:04

Yeah, I don't want to die.

Host 4:57:05

I didn't understand suicide until I came very close to the edge. I always thought it was super fucking selfish, and you know, all those people all they care about is themselves until I got so desperate that I just didn't think there was another way. Yep.

Eric Shelvy 4:57:22

And it happens every day.

Host 4:57:23

But I mean, whatever you're going through, too, and I've said this to people like what whatever you're going through, at the end of the day, man, the sun's gonna set. And then the next day, the sun's gonna come up again, dude. And you know, if you can just make it through the night, you know, whether whether it's in Fallujah or you're at your house at the end of a bottle because your wife left you or whatever the fuck it is, man, the sun's gonna set and come up the next day, dude, and you get another chance. Like it's tip of all the time, don't give up, man. There's people that care. If you've put yourself in this hole where you've isolated yourself from everybody, and you know, you can't find purpose, and it happens, dude. Like you're not alone. I tell people all the time, like you think you're alone, but you're not alone. Somebody's going through what you're going through, but you have to you got to give them the opportunity to help. If you don't call anybody and you don't tell anybody, nobody can help you, nobody'll ever know. Yeah, a lot of truth to that. I don't know. So um, the photo on the cover of the Time magazine, November 22nd, 2004. Your mid-scream, mid-assault. What was happening in that moment? This is kind of a funny story.

Eric Shelvy 4:58:30

Well, yeah, it is, I guess. So, you know, it looks like uh there's bullets flying over my head. Um, there wasn't at that particular moment. There probably was 15 minutes later or 15 minutes before that. Um, but we were just moving from one in that picture. I'm sure you got it up on the screen here somewhere while we're talking about this. But uh, you know, one thing that's kind of cool about this photo, um, I was we were moving from one house to the other, and ironically, I was yelling at Rund. Imagine that. I sent Miller's team forward. I went up with Miller's team, and I was yelling back. Run, get your ass up here. That's what I was saying. Everyone always gives me a hard time that says I I lost my lighter and I couldn't find my cigarettes, and I was screaming about it, and told Max to take a picture of me so he could put it. That's the running joke. But um, at that particular second, there was um no, that's that's that's what we were doing. Just moving from one house to the other, as as we did 10 times a day every day. And uh yeah, another kind of uh unique thing about the the photograph itself, not the cut, but the the actual like JPEG of it, is that uh, and Max told me this because I didn't know, I didn't know. And he it's actually to be a cover photo, it has to be vertical. And that photo is not a vertical photo, it's actually horizontal. It's been cropped. And what you don't see, you can if you look very closely at the corner there on the I guess on the right side, um, you see there's this little crack going through this brick wall. But what got cut out of the rest of that frame was there's a tank like halfway through some guy's living room. Just like I told you, with the turret turned to the side and the body of the tank up in this this guy's living room. And that was just how we were doing business. Did you know Max was taking the photo? Well, he took 50,000 photos of everyone.

Host 5:00:34

Well, when did you first see that photo? Or like when did you find out like that was gonna be on the cover of Time magazine?

Eric Shelvy 5:00:41

Uh see, it got it got published in November 22nd, right? Um I I honestly I don't even know when what day it was taken. I I guess it was weeks. It would have had to have been within the last two weeks before it was issued, I would think. But I don't know maybe within maybe within one week. Let's just say one week. I don't know exactly what date it was um or where part of the city I was even in. Um you just got so used to Max being around, just doing his thing. I uh no one ever gave it a second thought. No one you don't even notice the guy anymore. He's just your dude taking pictures. Um and it was a still camera, right? So it wasn't like this giant video camera and reporter and this, just Max taking pictures. You know, so you got used to it. When I first found out about it, um Max told me he had a uh he had a satellite thing for his computer and shit in the Amtrak. And I don't know, he we were still in the city and he goes, Shavi, come here. I'm like, what's up, Max? And he I go into the track with him and he's got his laptop up and he goes, uh see his picture? And I was like, Yeah, he's like, that's gonna be on the cover. And I was like, really? And he's like, Yeah, I'm like, cool. That was it. That that's I'm sure at that moment in time you probably couldn't even process that. I didn't know of course not. Yeah, they're like cover on my cover of what, dude. Like, I don't care. Like, does it come with does it come with like pound cake? I'm really hungry and tired. Yeah, seriously. Can I trade that cover photo for some food? Yeah. Um and then I'll tell you, you know who gave me the most shit about it? Was Ron. He he he was god, he was he was such a he was such a good dude. Um, and he goes, he just dogged me all the time. He goes, it was kind of that scene from Forrest Gump. That's what it reminded me of. I was like, they gave you the Congressional Medal of Honor. That was Ron. He's like, they're putting you on the cover of Time magazine. You gotta be fucking kidding me. You I was like, I guess so, man. Like, and he, you know, he gave me a hard time for uh a few days, jokingly, of course. Um again, but it was very similar to like you know, Chantage's, you know, Navy Cross thing. I was like, yeah, it's a big deal to somebody somewhere, but not here and not now. Yeah. I I didn't see the I didn't I saw the picture, like the original picture, because Max showed it to me on his computer screen. Um, but I never saw the actual magazine for seven months. I didn't go home for you know six, seven months after that. So I I didn't even see it. I still didn't see it. All I know is uh when it got published, uh the lieutenant came and got me and said uh the colonel wants to see you. That's a good story. And I was like, why? You guys are still in Fluja? Oh yeah. And I was like, I had I had this relationship with the colonel, which is not uh not normal for a corporal to have any type of contact with a colonel, especially a commander like that. Um we kind of had this I had this kind of cool understand under uh like understanding of one another, relationship with him. I remember at one night um I was in a fight fighting hole somewhere and someone walked up behind me and I challenged, who is that? You know, who are you? And he's like, Oh, it's the colonel, and I'm like, that's weird. And then he just like, hey, he's like, How you doing? I'm like, hey, good sir, you know, it's the middle of the night. And he just like sat in my hole and we just like shot the shit for like 20 minutes or whatever. Which is like totally not normal, right? For a colonel just to like come to the front line, sit in a hole with a freaking corporal and just shoot the shit. That's not normal. But I I uh it I respected the shit out of it, you know, and I never forgot it. And I remember looking at him when Greg was killed, you know, and just kind of like I looked at him, he looked at me, and we never spoke about it. Well, we did, but later. Um But we had this kind of I guess this this mutual this understanding that we're both warriors, we're just in different capacities. You know, but usually not when say usually, but that's why I said like my my command was just different, man. They were they were good and I respected them and I liked them, and I would um I didn't have anything bad to say. You know, we had a job to do, we were good at our job, and they were we were good at killing assholes and they were good at getting us to the point where we can't kill them, you know? So what happened when you got called to his office? So yeah. So I'm like, you don't get called to the colonel, talk to the colonel, you don't get pulled off the front lines to go talk to the colonel because you're like getting a fucking tug, right? So I'm like, I'm in trouble for something, right? Because I I knew about it, but I didn't know. I didn't know that it got what date it got published or when it got I didn't know any of that stuff. Um Max just showed me the picture on his computer and said, this is gonna be on the cover in like a week or something. I was like, okay, cool. That's all I ever talked about. That's all and Greg gave me a whole bunch of shit, and a couple other guys gave me a bunch of shit, and that was it. I never until it actually came out, but I didn't know it came out because I was still in the middle of fluja. But it did come out, and um I still hadn't seen it. And uh the colonel brings me in, he goes, I want to say, I think he had a laptop, and he showed it to me, and he goes, Is this you, Shelby? I was like, uh yes, sir. I'm like, man, I'm in trouble. I really thought I was in a lot of trouble, man. Like I did something, like, I don't know, I just thought I was in trouble. And uh he's like, Why are your glasses on your helmet? I had my geisels up on my helmet. And his big thing uh was eye protection. And it was he was like overly zealous about eye protection to the point where it was like annoying. But it's like, god damn, dude just lost his eye because he wasn't wearing his freaking glasses.

Host 5:07:23

Yeah, because the mortar the mortar that had landed in the group of those dudes. Yeah, yeah.

Eric Shelvy 5:07:29

So there's gotta be something, you know, it's hard to argue results, right? So I was like, oh man, I'm like, I think I'm gonna about to get like fucking court-martial dude because I don't have my glasses on, you know. And you had him up because it was hard because you you're outside, bright sun, and you go inside pitch black. So you can't wear sunglasses because as soon as you go inside, you're blind, and you can't wear clear glasses because then you're blind outside. So you gotta, you know, it was tough. It's just a tough environment to go in and out of nonstop all day uh to go into dark to light. So I have my glasses, and then not only did I have them on my helmet, but one of the eyes was busted out. So and he goes, he just looks, he just looked at me like very seriously, and he was like, Why are you why are you not wearing your eye protection? And I was like, uh sir, I I don't know, sir. He's like, All right, get out of here, Shelby. That was it. He was just fucking with me, but I really thought I thought I was in a lot of trouble. That's funny. I think I think he was probably like, This is pretty cool, but I'm just gonna fuck with him because he's I know he can take it.

Host 5:08:32

How many days were you guys actually fighting in Fallujah, if you remember? I don't know, three weeks. When when did you know like the heavy fighting was like finally over?

Eric Shelvy 5:08:43

Uh well that the heavy fighting was supposed to have been over before Greg was killed. According to the generals. All right, the heavy fighting of Fallujah is over with. Hey, 3.5, we need India Company, we need you to go up and clear this, you know, section that had already been cleared by somebody else weeks ago or whatever. So I couldn't even tell you the dates, early November. Greg was killed in December, so a month. And then it just got really quiet. Like to the point where it was like tanks and artillery nonstop all day, every day, 24 hours a day, um, to you could have heard a pistol round go off from two miles away. I mean, so quiet. And they started letting people back in, and then it turned from this combat mission to patrolling and how do you patrol a town that's been like leveled?

Host 5:09:38

Like leveled. Like from hearing you talk about it, like in my mind, I'm like, patrolling? What they're letting people back in. Where are these people going?

Eric Shelvy 5:09:46

Yeah. I mean, we, you know, when the colonel said he wanted to see a pocket of destruction, we were there to deliver. I that's that's okay. So whatever that forum took, whether it was driving tanks and bulldozers through houses or lighting shit on fire, car on the street, tanks getting rid over, like just destruction. You know, they had these giant, it's always funny. They have these giant, you can Google. I may have a picture on there somewhere that I'm giving you these, they call these D9 dozers. Oh, there's really ones, these giant, they're huge, huge uh bulldozers with like 15-foot blades on the front of them when they're armored. And it used to used to crack me up because there you see this you see this like Lance Corporal driving this thing with like no shirt on, he's like headphones in, and he's just like be bopping down the street with like a sink on the roof. There's like telephone poles hanging off the back of it, there's wires of bathtub underneath it, and he just listened to his headphone, just beep. Hopped down the street, just drove right through the whole market. It wasn't even there. No big deal.

Host 5:10:48

That's like it's like, hey guys, that's like a good depiction of war. Like, how do you explain that? You don't. Like people, you know, it's it's just hard to it's hard to imagine, dude. Yeah. Um, when they finally declared victory, did it feel like victory to you guys?

Eric Shelvy 5:11:05

I I suppose, yeah. I personally, I don't, I don't I don't feel like we lost. That's I mean, we smoked a lot of people. You know, we took that city back. You know, that that now what happened after that, years later, that's a different thing. But at that point, no, that city was ours. I mean, that say that city was as quiet as it's probably ever been. Ever. And probably will ever be. Um I mean that bridge, you know, where they hung those contractors from, it in inscribed in the metal on that bridge, I think it says 3-5 the dark horse was here on that bridge. That's our bridge now.

Host 5:11:43

When you finally left Fallujah, what did you feel like you were leaving behind? Oh hell. How'd you guys finish off that deployment?

Eric Shelvy 5:11:50

Well, we were patrolling the city a lot and uh it was just like normal call 'em. Just normal patrolling operations. Not like rolling gun mails, there's none of that crazy stuff going on. Uh at that time. And another unit came and we kind of did a rip, you know, a relief in place. We did a rip at um with the whatever unit was coming in behind us. Another it was another marine unit. So like their squad leaders come out, they hang out with our squad leaders for a few days. This is what we're doing, this is how we're doing it, and then it just kind of gradually you just flip flop. And we went back to Kuwait. Um is that right? Um I remember being in Kuwait for um I don't know, a few weeks. And then you just fly back to California and fucking dump you off on the tarmac, just like they did last time.

Host 5:12:51

I've never done this before, dude, but I I want to dedicate this portion of the podcast to uh to all the dudes, man, that paid the ultimate price over there in Fallujah. That was probably some of Fallujah and Romadi. I mean, Jocko's talked a lot about Romadi uh when they were there, but uh, I mean, people, I don't think people fully I mean I I'm well aware of what happened in Fallujah, but I didn't fully grasp it until we podcast prepped. Um, I normally don't like asking that many hard questions. Uh, you know, you you agree you agreed, we agreed in advance. You know, I I didn't say, hey man, I need you to say this or that, but I I really wanted to document that piece of history, dude. There's a lot of people that paid the ultimate price there, a lot of good heroes, uh, and a lot of people that were forever changed by that battle. I don't give a shit about politics, man. Politics don't matter, they don't really have a place in this podcast, in my podcast. Um, you know, there's a lot of good men that uh they gave their all, man. And and there's a lot of dudes that came back changed for forever. And there was a lot of, I mean, it was the worst of war, but it was also some of the best. I mean, there's a lot of dudes, a lot of a lot of heroics, a lot of people, you know, didn't back down. You know, you talk about your squad. I remember when we were prepping it. I mean, just you you talking about how you know your dudes were just there every day. Nobody ever cowered, backed out. You didn't, and I and I think that in and of itself is what honor and what courage. Uh, you guys didn't go there for fucking medals. Your country sent you there, the Marines sent you there, you had a job to do, and you guys did it, and you did it well. Um, and so um, yeah, man. Uh I think uh this would probably be a good part to take a break.

Eric Shelvy 5:14:22

Yeah.