Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Official Hector Bravo Podcast
Hector Bravo UNHINGED
War Stories From The Surge
We sit down with Juan, a combat veteran who served with the 126th Infantry (Blue Spaders) during the Iraq War Surge. Born in Nicaragua and raised in Oakland during the crack era, Juan shares his journey from teenage troublemaker to decorated infantryman.
• From stealing cars in Oakland to being sent to live on an active volcano in Nicaragua as punishment
• Joining the Army after 9/11 and deploying to Baghdad during the height of sectarian violence in 2006
• Experiencing the deadly evolution of enemy tactics, including EFPs that could penetrate Bradley armor
• Surviving constant rocket attacks, sniper ambushes, and IEDs in Eastern Baghdad
• Making the mental decision to accept death in combat and how it transformed his confidence
• Transitioning from military to entrepreneurship by helping immigrants and developing land in Nicaragua
• Seeking help for PTSD and finding ways to value life after experiencing so much death
"I think combat is like sex. You can describe it to somebody, but when you feel it, it's just different and you expect it to be a certain way. But it's different, especially in the type of fight we were in. We were basically waiting to get killed the majority of the time."
Hector Bravo. Unhinged chaos is now in session welcome back to our channels, warriors.
Speaker 2:We are still growing. Today, another banger for you guys. Man, I love it when I interview guys that were in the army, specifically the infantry man, because I can relate so much. So today we have a guy that was in 126th Infantry, also known as the Blue Spaders, stationed out of Germany, multiple combat deployments was born in Nicaragua, raised in Oakland, by the name of Juan. What's up, dude?
Speaker 1:It's great to be here. It's finally, finally, finally good to hook up after seeing you following your content for so long. Thank you, I appreciate that dude.
Speaker 2:So what did you notice? Right away? The army talk that I was talking about.
Speaker 1:Well, I started just being bored watching YouTube channels and I fell somehow into the prison genre and then I started seeing guys in the prison genre and then I saw you jump on there and give a different side of kind of like the same world Right and I thought it was interesting. And then when I saw you talk about your history, of how you were in the army, where you were, it was very interesting because I was like, hey, I know who he's talking about, I know where, I know the places.
Speaker 2:It's very similar, not too many people know about that day and age man or locations. So you were born in nicaragua. Yes, yes, how big is that country and where? What city or how does that work.
Speaker 1:So I was born in the capital. It's in Central America. It's north of Costa Rica, okay, south of Honduras. There you go. It's the largest country in Central America and it's not too big. It's like maybe South Carolina size, okay.
Speaker 2:How long were you there before you came to the United States? I was there for about two years, wow.
Speaker 1:So basically I was born there but I don't really didn't know much at that time of much there. But I was there two years and then we moved to California.
Speaker 2:Was that by sheer luck or was that by design? The California part.
Speaker 1:So my father is from the United States and he's Mexican and my mother's from Nicaragua. So my dad was down there, I was born there, and they were just like the country was going through some political stuff. So he was like time to go. Let's go back to California.
Speaker 2:Was he doing work down there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he was working down there. He was working at a radio station. They're doing fine. But then the instability started coming in the country and they thought it was better to go back Smart and East Oakland.
Speaker 2:Instability started coming in the country and they thought it was better to go back. Smart um, and east oakland, or oakland, was where you guys touched down yeah, I don't know how we landed there.
Speaker 1:I think my pops had friends there or something, because we didn't have no family, because most of my family's from central or southern california. Yeah, but I think my dad wanted to start fresh for and I guess he chose east oakland, of all places, because we knew some people there. So that's where my first introduction into the United States was.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it was normal to you, right? Did it seem abnormal, or was it like it seemed like they get hyphy there? Yeah, so it was like the eighties, okay.
Speaker 1:So it was like crack era, crack cocaine yeah, crack era was everything. And the first place we lived, which like apparently very, very bad neighborhood. But I was a little kid so I didn't even know anything. I was just like, hey, this is normal, right, this is what it is. And then we moved to another place that wasn't as bad, but it was still oakland. Oakland's still going to be oakland. So when you were growing up, was there anything that?
Speaker 2:stands out to you, Oakland. So when you were growing up, was there anything that stands out to you Like? I mean, were you seeing cracked out dudes yelling on the corner or chasing people down or beatings or prostitution or I think what I saw was like normal is.
Speaker 1:We had a crack house, the apartment complex, that was just like a dope house, yeah. And we had a tunnel like a creek that used to run under through a park, and every time we see people come up through the creek it's like, oh, they're busting the crack house again, okay, and that was just like normal stuff like that. There'd be dudes high on pcp that would damage every car down the block.
Speaker 2:There'd be like homicides and they're just like, oh, that happened the house I grew up next to in brawley sold heroin out there and and yeah, the cops would raid it every once in a while. So I could relate in growing up next to dope houses. Yeah, and it just seems normal after a while. It is kind of normal to seeing the syringes on the ground in the parks and the dirt parking lots. Were you getting yourself into trouble at that time frame?
Speaker 1:So I guess I was, but I kind of didn't realize it because my mother didn't want me to go to school there. So for her she's from Nicaragua and she came here when her biggest thing was education Okay. So she made the effort to make me go to school in not that neighborhood. So I went to school in the hills. How would you get there? So she would take me on the bus because she started, she enrolled in community college, okay, and she would take me and she somehow talked to them into letting me go into those schools. So when I was going to school in the hills, the only thing is I was a little ghetto kid from the, you know, from the east side. So when I went there the hills were all the rich kids that were, and like I almost got expelled when I was in third grade.
Speaker 2:Did you perceive that they were treating you different or looking at you different? I just or. Did you feel like an?
Speaker 1:outcaster? Yes, you did, definitely because I was Latino.
Speaker 2:Why? Because they had nice shit. On what race Were they? White?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a lot of white people up there in the hills, and then there was one black dude. I'm like hey, hey, we're friends. He was like a third grader with a mustache, though you know what I'm saying? Oh yeah, he had been held back a bunch of times six, five, 200 pounds, dude yeah, yeah, I was like that's a man right there, what's?
Speaker 2:he doing what's? Up yeah, so when you say trouble, I mean what kind of? There's various degrees to trouble, where you're breaking windows, tagging, stealing shit, uh, just ditching school.
Speaker 1:So at that point I just had an attitude, I had a problem with authority and then, like I'd like to tell people off all the time and I'd be like, right, yeah, I was just like, I don't know, just like a little bad kid, I get it rebellious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rebellious, that'd probably be the best word for him not so much a troublemaker, just probably rebellious, as to like it's this fucking stupid authority yes yeah, definitely. When did the light bulb come off?
Speaker 1:come on that you were going to join the united states army so, oh, what happened was we were there for a while and then, as my parents saw me grow up, they're like, oh, this, this kid's gonna get killed, like he's not gonna make it very far if I continue in my troublemaker lifestyle like that. So then we moved to the suburbs after that, okay, and we moved to vacaville, okay, and that's between oakland and sacramento, right kind of between that. So when that happened it was kind of like a huge culture shock to me Because it was moving from inner city.
Speaker 2:Were you involved in gangs or who the hell were you hanging around?
Speaker 1:with At that point. No, at that point it was just neighborhood stuff and stuff like that. But they saw the trajectory that I was on and they saw the environment and they were just like what were you doing?
Speaker 2:Staying out late?
Speaker 1:Yeah, just hanging out doing stuff and like not listening, and then the people there, of course, the, the drugs, the violence, things like that and at a young age it's kind of like, okay, this is going to get a little crazy if we stay here, right, because it's a very bad area. And then when we moved there it was just like a culture shock because it was just so drastically different, life was so slow did that make you feel uncomfortable in your own skin?
Speaker 1:absolutely it felt like you were out of your element absolutely. I felt like I was an outsider in this place and I actually got into more fights in the suburbs, I could imagine, than I did in the city, because this in the city it's more dangerous if you, if you play around, it's real, but when you go to the suburbs they think you could just talk and yeah, so, right. So that was a culture shock when I moved there. So when I thought about joining the Army was when I moved to the suburbs. I kept on getting in trouble. So that's when I started kind of elevating stealing cars. Stealing cars, yeah, yeah, so that's what we used to do, like for fun, just like go steal some cars, random civilians cars yeah, because it was, it was the 90s, so honda's toyota, camry how I'll just pop with the screwdriver it was. It was way easy back then what was it?
Speaker 2:what was the end goal?
Speaker 1:just just spin, take it around for a joyride yeah, well, like we weren't making money, we're like I don't know, we were taking risks for boredom, just excitement, adrenaline.
Speaker 2:At the end of this joyride, where does the car end up at?
Speaker 1:Some random park or some side of the road. We'd try to steal the radio, go sell the radio or something like that. Like, if anything, but we would do it. We'd go pick up girls because we were like young, oh, okay, go pick up girls. Be like go pick up girls. Be like, hey, I got a car, it was a means to an end. Yeah, well, that's how I learned how to drive. Damn why you'd be driving around all these nice cars. They were doing that nice. But so what?
Speaker 1:When that ended up happening once again, my parents were like, okay, this, this is going down a bad path. I'm getting locked up as a juvenile. You did yeah, as a yeah, because I ended up getting caught eventually, you know, and I ended up getting locked up as juvenile, and it was. I think my mother changed my life at that point because I was looking at I had been arrested multiple times. So when I was arrested multiple times, she talked to like the probation or a DA or something like that.
Speaker 1:And I think on one of the big charges was like GTA, hit and run. They didn't really have me because I was a passenger, so they were like we don't know, but they say the trajectory and how many times he's been arrested. They say he's going to end up in CYA. He's going to yeah, they're like he's going down this path and it's going to end up in a bad place. And I think it was like a six-month sentence that I had and my mom cut a deal, said he's from Nicaragua, his grandfather lives in Nicaragua, on a volcano. He will not get in trouble there. Let me send him there instead of having him incarcerated, because if he gets incarcerated he's just going to get deeper into gangs, deeper into trouble. It's not going to help him. He's just going to get more involved in that life. And I ended up living on a volcano in Nicaragua.
Speaker 2:Bro, looking back in hindsight, do you realize how much your parents did for you? Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Because I was horrible. I was a horrible kid Dude.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, just from what you've told me so far, like your parents really made a massive effort to keep you in line, dude like, and it's succeeded and as such a young person and such a young like I have kids so, like right, letting your young kid go to a different country, right, where you don't have contact, and trusting them that, hey, this is better for my child. You were on a volcano. Well, I only lasted there for like a month because it was just too rough.
Speaker 2:Was it an actual volcano? No, actually Was it like a mountainside.
Speaker 1:Active, volcano Active. You could look inside and see lava. No, yeah, yeah, no way bro, absolutely, it's Volcán Telica. How do you say it, telica?
Speaker 2:Telica. Yeah, wait, does it look like the hole in the top? And what? Do you stand over the crater?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's like a wide, wide, how many miles up, or I don't know. I don't know how high it is. Like a good hike. Yeah, it's a couple hours Okay. But you know how you have some volcanoes that have a small cone up top. This one's like a wide cone, okay. So that, yeah, I still go back there visit my family.
Speaker 2:I take pictures on the edge of the volcano so what does the scenery look like on the surrounding the volcano? Greenery yeah, it's green, beautiful it's beautiful, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Wow, dude. Yeah, we go up there, we take pictures, we camp out, damn yeah, so it's um, it's awesome. So I didn't last that long because I'm city boy. I can't live like they had no running water, they had no electricity, that's the grunt life.
Speaker 2:Bro, it was preparing you for the grunt life.
Speaker 1:I guess so. I guess so because like it was bad, and then I had to work in the fields. What did that consist?
Speaker 2:of uh picking beans and your fucking hands and knees and breaking, bending your back and yeah, yeah, yeah, you're sore and shit, I didn't last doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't last. And they're like oh, this guy's, this guy can't hack.
Speaker 2:So if you're from california, man, you have dainty hands. Yeah, built for the volcano life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they had me swing an axe one time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like I swung it twice and just my whole hand was there yeah, so then I ended up living in a in a smaller town fun fact once one time I was a kid breaking rocks with a hammer and I fucking clawed myself in the back of the head man right in front of my dad. He just looked at me and shook his head. I started bleeding, dude, so I could relate. Dude, so after volcano land, where do you go?
Speaker 1:To one of my tias in a small city In Nicaragua.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was for you a step up in civilization. Yeah, like running water, Right Electricity. Where would you take a shit in the volcano town At that?
Speaker 1:point. There was nothing. Where would you take a shit? So, behind the house, on a little hill, you would just go there. Okay, there's like nothing, there's like absolutely nothing. Any wild animals? No, they would eat them all.
Speaker 2:Damn, but no like what's over there Cheetahs, coyotes, fucking wolves panthers.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a third world country, so people, anything they see, that's wild, they kill it and they eat it. Okay, but they do have sometimes jaguars. They have like bobcats, iguanas, Snakes yes, snakes, but they're not as common because we eat those too.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you've eaten just all kinds of random stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you don't have meat if you just eat rice and beans and cheese, getting some protein is like yeah, however you get it.
Speaker 2:So you go and live with your aunt in a better little civilization. How old are you at this time? I am 15. Holy shit, dude, you were running amok. Yeah, at such a young age I guess I started fast Right. And I just kept going fast my whole life. Oh, I can relate. So when you were 15, did you have any knowledge of the united states military might? Were you watching marine commercials with the chessboard and the dragon slaying? I?
Speaker 1:was watching novellas in nicaragua but, um, I didn't really know much about it, but what happened down there nicaragua is, I think what you're talking about is when that light bulb correct moment where things change yeah, I ended up getting a girl pregnant down there.
Speaker 2:Down there? Yeah, okay, but how does getting a girl pregnant relate to joining the military? Are you thinking you now have to financially support her?
Speaker 1:Correct. So I got a girl pregnant, I had a daughter, and I stayed there for a year, came back to the United States and I was like, okay, now I have responsibilities Right, the United States. And I was like, okay, now I have responsibilities, I have to think about what to do with my future. Did they stay down there or they came with you Initially? They stayed down there. So when I did that, I came back and I still had to finish high school, and when I had to finish high school, I was thinking what's my future? How do I support a family? How do I support a child? How do I support this woman too? Was she your girlfriend at the time? No, no, I had a girlfriend.
Speaker 2:You had a girlfriend and this one wasn't your girlfriend that you knocked up. Yes, how did the girlfriend handle that? Oh, badly, badly. She wasn't happy, right. So did you break it off with your girlfriend and you stayed with the baby mama.
Speaker 1:Initially. No, okay, I just broke up with my girlfriend. I was like, well, we're not dating, so Right. But when the baby was born, I did the super Latino thing and I was like, hey, let's give it a shot. Yeah, you know two young 16-year-olds Like hey, let's give it a go, see if we can give the family course. You know how that probably worked out. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean but I don't knock you for trying, bro. I mean you're trying to do the honorable thing. Yeah, yeah, and I guess that's kind of like inculcated in right and latinos like you have to be a man, you have to take care of your family and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did you come across a recruiter so?
Speaker 1:I was lied to by my family members, so I'm one of the younger cousins, my older cousins they joined the National Guard. I had a lot of family members that were in the service and they used to tell me that they were grunts. I was like what do you do? Like it's awesome, Like we're grunts, we do this, we kick in doors, it's awesome, and this and that. And I was like, wow, that sounds interesting. Later on I found out that none of them were infantry. They all were like tankers engineers and they were like, yeah, we're pounding the ground and doing that, so no, I yeah, so no. I went to the recruiter office and I was just like I want to join in oakland.
Speaker 2:No, this one was in in vacaville once I, because I went back there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you relocated to vacaville, yeah, which is better off yeah, because I don't know how my life would end up if I stayed there. Oh correct, so no, you would have been an inmate bro. No, I would have that or been killed. Yeah, one of the two. So, um, yeah. So I ended up going there and I was like, well, I saw the war happening on tv hold on when?
Speaker 2:where did 9-11 happen? What did you think when you saw that?
Speaker 1:okay, yeah, that makes more sense. Um, 9-11 happened. I had moved back to nicaragua at that point because in my youth I I thought it would be a great idea that if I just dropped out of my senior year of high school and went and worked and did the family thing in Nicaragua. So I was in a sweatshop in Nicaragua working when 9-11 happened and when I saw that I was like, oh, it's wartime. I was like I should probably go back to the United States and go to war then.
Speaker 2:Did you feel something inside of you like patriotism?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I felt like somebody attacked the country we're at war. I got to go fight.
Speaker 2:Let me dive more. I want you to describe that more to us, because you were born in Nicaragua, but you were raised in California. Did you feel that you're? Because? I want you to explain it, bro. Where did you feel your loyalty lied? Which country?
Speaker 1:The United States, absolutely. But I also felt loyalty to Nicaragua, but it wasn't the same, because this is where I was raised and this is the country that I've known and that seemed like a echo from the past that I still have love for, correct, but the united states is my home, I'm an american and you know, if the country is attacked, I'm a young man, fuck yeah dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bro, so the wheels are already spinning. The fucking war drums are beating. You're probably watching black hawk down.
Speaker 1:We were soldiers I think the one movie that got me was the. I forget which one it was. It was the one with um. It was a marine movie, marine movie with oh, what's his name around that time frame jarhead no, because Jarhead came out in 05. No, it wasn't Jarhead, it was Windtalkers, windtalkers.
Speaker 2:Really dude. Yeah, windtalkers, I hated that movie bro. I haven't really seen it besides that one time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw it and I was in class. I had a little fun lunch break, yeah, and I came back and I went to a continuation high school. Fun lunch break, yeah, and I came back and I went to a continuation high school. So that's where I graduated from. And when I graduated, continuation, they was just like watch TV, watch a movie this history here's some credits, you know, yeah. So when I went there, I was just watching and I was just stuck. Everybody was talking. I was just looking at it. I was like man, that looks awesome. There's a war right now. I want to do that, let's go. And the only thing that actually stopped me from going was that I had a daughter and at that time they were having issues with single parents joining the military. So what I did was I graduated high school, went straight down to Nicaragua, got married 18 years old as a smart person should do and said I got married, brought my daughter back.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of traveling bro yeah, I love to travel, travel since I was a kid, so we used to go back to nicaragua all the time. Yeah, just go visit family in mexico, so yeah. So once I did that, I said let me go square myself away, go get get married, live with you know, my wife at that time, my daughter, bring them back to the states, get myself right, and then I could go join the army.
Speaker 2:So by this time, the war in Afghanistan kicked off in 2001. The war in Iraq kicked off in 2003. What year are we looking at? 04, 05?
Speaker 1:04, like kind of end up, but what ended up happening? I started getting in trouble again.
Speaker 1:God damn dude. Yeah, so I ended up in county jail God damn bro. And then you couldn up in county jail God damn bro. And then Couldn't help yourself, huh, well, I think it was one of the things that were. It was a point in life where I was like, trying to find my way, yeah, and it was, do I fall back into old habits or do I break the cycle and do something with myself? And it was kind of like the struggle and I was waiting and what ended up happening is the recruiter showed up to court, wow, and the case got dismissed and he talked to the judge and the judge was like hey, I heard you're going to go join the army. And they're like, yep, I'm ready to go. And as soon as you go, they're like hey, if you ever see you again in this courtroom, it's going to be bad for you If I don't thank you for serving your country and I hope it goes well. Hell yeah. And I didn't look back from then.
Speaker 2:So you go to Fort Banning Absolutely, which has been renamed back to Fort Banning, rightfully so. Do you remember what battalion you were in?
Speaker 1:119, Bravo 119.
Speaker 2:Bravo 119. Yep. When you were in basic training in Bravo 119, fort Benning, georgia, home of the infantry, what stuff were your drill sergeants telling you, and had any of them already served in war?
Speaker 1:So the majority had, because at that time it was 2005. Correct, so they were in OF1 or F2. Or Afghanistan or Afghanistan. I don't think I had an Afghanistan one, I think it was more of those. Okay, and as I got experience as an adult and as an infantryman, I understood kind of what was going on. They took these guys straight off of deployment. Three months later you had to go to drill sergeant school. Three months later you're in front of a bunch of people that you don't care about, when your battle buddies are overseas again fighting, doing the war and you're sitting here having to train the next generation. Could you sense that from them? They would tell us they would tell you, guys, absolutely we'd be like well, thank you for being here.
Speaker 1:And they're like we didn't want to be here. I'd rather be out there down range killing people, like you know, but this is what the army told me to do, so I totally, uh, see their point of view.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you ain't trying to be, you know I mean with yeah, but it's a job that needs to be done absolutely, and no better to train the future than the ones that have already experienced it, especially with fresh knowledge, oh fresh bro, so fucking fresh dude. But I want to know what kind of life lessons were they embedding in you like, hey, when you get over there, it's game time. It's not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1:Motherfuckers are gonna die, I think I think one of the what I talked to friends that were pre-war in basic training and when I was there in 05, when the war had already kicked off, I saw Fallujah on TV. I saw the Battle of Fallujah on TV and I was like, wow, I want to do that. So a lot of the people that were in there knew what they were getting into. Well, they didn't know. Of course, you don't know until you go to war, right, but they had somewhat of an idea because they saw the news, they saw this. So I think the personality of the people who joined were like we know, we're going to war right away, that's all we want to do. We're joining infantry, we want to be front lines and we want to go down range.
Speaker 2:So that's the difference with my generation, which was right before your generation, with my generation, which was right before your generation. We didn't observe it. Yeah, we, we didn't know what the fuck we were going to get into, absolutely, but we knew, hey, this is going to be like well, like the movie. So we thought, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely wow, dude, so did you guys do? Well, you guys did the bayonet 25 mile road march at the end. All that you remember, your turning blue ceremony yeah, I remember it was horrible.
Speaker 1:Why? Because I'm tall and back then they liked to give the smallest guy the 240. So the smallest guy was in front of me and I said I'm going to go next to you so I can help you out if you need it. The dude carried it for one mile. I carried it for like 20-something. But when we get to change socks right before on our hill, he they look at me and they say hey, everybody returned to their original weapons. So I lugged the 240 for 20 something miles and then we go back. This little guy is just sitting there and I'm a big, tall guy and going up on our hill where they have all the other other privates, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah clapping you in there, like that.
Speaker 1:Everybody just talked shit to me. What were they saying? Like look at this little dude? Because I was like smoked. Like look at this little dude, he has so much heart, he's carrying a 240, you're carrying an m4. Who was saying that? The the other privates that were supposed to be cheering us on?
Speaker 2:why were they talking shit, bro? That's weird. I never wouldn't imagine them talking shit, because there in no place to talk shit. They're privates. That's what we do. Try private stock shit. Yeah, but you got to earn your place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think those had already graduated, oh okay yeah, they had already graduated yeah, I thought they were like fresh talking shit to you guys, yo and I was sucking too, yeah, yeah. So I mean, in your head you're probably like, oh, these motherfuckers, I carried it the whole time right. Head, you're probably like, oh, these motherfuckers, I carried it the whole time right. So then you turn blue, you get your blue cord, you get your blue discs.
Speaker 1:How did how did that make you feel I don't even know, because I didn't know anything about the army, you didn't?
Speaker 2:I just watched the movies. I'm like all right, you know anything about combat patches on the right shoulder or a cib or airborne absolutely nothing correct, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're like what. They're like what's a blue cord, like what's a CIB, and they're just like you don't know what a CIB is. I'm like no clue.
Speaker 2:So you had already had orders to Europe, right, correct. You were 11 X-ray, you went 11, bravo, yep. And you touched down in probably Frankfurt, yep and Yep. And then is that when you find out you're going to 126 Infantry.
Speaker 1:I think I had already had orders for it, but I didn't know anything what it meant, right?
Speaker 2:Did you know what the big red one was? The 1st Infantry Division? No clue, no Nothing. So then you arrive on Ledward Barracks, schweinfurt, germany. What was your incoming receive like?
Speaker 1:So my reception was kind of different because I'd landed I left Georgia December 25th 2005, christmas day. Okay, I landed December 26th. Everyone was on block leave, so no one was there to receive me. Everybody was on block leave from OIF too. No, just Christmas block leave, so no one was there to receive me. Everybody was on block leave from oif2 uh, no, just christmas block leave, christmas block leave, yeah, because it was christmas time. So everybody went from germany back to the states wait a minute.
Speaker 2:Was 126 actively in iraq at that time no, no, no, no, they were, they were.
Speaker 1:They had come back from yf2, from samara, yes, from samara but we had a company with us in balad.
Speaker 2:we had had a company of one, two, six infantry with us in Balad. Okay yeah, so they're on block leave. They had already went to OIF2. Now tell us how you went. Dove right into Graf and Holofels.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that was as soon as block leave came over. They told me hey, we're going to go to Graf and Holofel, gonna go to graff and holofilm. I'm like what's that? Like no clue what's going on. And then they say just get ready. Then when everybody comes back, it's just, I just get hazed, just crazy hazed. And um, beautiful thing, bro, it builds character. It definitely does. It makes you, uh, not care about a lot and not take everything. So not be a sensitive. So many things, things Right. So, um, did that go straight into a 45 day field problem? And it was the. It was a bad winter. That winter too. Did Nicaragua get cold?
Speaker 2:No, no, like 70 is cold, no, what was your thoughts of the German cold?
Speaker 1:I thought it was miserable. I thought there was. It couldn't be like that. So in Germany, in the barracks that we had, they have these gas heaters where you turn the knob. I had never seen a gas heater. You know, I don't have that where I'm from California, northern California so when I went there I didn't have any sheets. I didn't know what to California. So when I went there I didn't have any sheets. I didn't know what to do. So I had like a whoopee and the room was ice cold.
Speaker 1:And when I was civilian I was always used to sleeping with the window open because I need some fresh air. If not, I feel stuffy things like that. So I cracked the window but it's like 20 degrees outside so I was like, let me turn on the heater, this is really warm. So I like leaned up against the heater. But the heaters have a little timer thing on them so if you don't stick the timer, it cools down. So my first three nights in Germany were just miserable, because the heater would turn on for like 30 minutes, the window would be open and it'd be 20 degrees inside and I wouldn't sleep and it that was a dumb private. So it took me like three days to be, like my heater's broken, for me to figure out how to use a heater. But yeah, no, the cold was miserable, it was absolutely miserable.
Speaker 2:You didn't have a roommate at that time, or he was on leave.
Speaker 1:So the way our barracks were set up, we had individual rooms cause we had refurbished barracks.
Speaker 2:I don't remember that bro.
Speaker 1:So our building Alpha Company was the only one that had them. Okay, so HAC had the big like four-man rooms, bravo and Charlie split rooms, and they had also the same thing. They had the big wall lockers, yeah, wall lockers. So we had the only refurbished barracks. Oh, you're lucky as fuck bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I had one room over here, my roommate had a room over there. Did you guys share bathrooms? Share bathroom, share kitchen, all right. So we didn't have the bathrooms at the end of the hall where everybody showered together and stuff like that, so I lucked out on there.
Speaker 2:So, hohenfels Graf, you're sleeping in the snow, in the mud, in the frozen ground. Yeah, 30 days at a time. What was that experience like? It was fun.
Speaker 1:Live fire ranges yeah, Live fire. Uh, the box, all that stuff. So we did live fire. Um, it was like the first time I shot live rounds. Bradley, were you a dismount? I was dismount, yes, Um, it was. It was awesome. It was like it was the cool stuff. I felt the camaraderie and everything was very serious and everybody took everything very serious because all my NCOs had deployed to OF2. So all the sergeants have already came from OF2. It's in the final buildup to ramp up to go to the next deployment and I think it takes everything serious because they tell you you have to learn this. This is very serious because lives are on the line, Absolutely. So I think that mentality, when you take it on, you take more importance to what they're teaching and they take more importance of what they're, why they're teaching it.
Speaker 2:Can you explain to the crowd what the difference between dismounted and mounted are when it comes to the Bradley?
Speaker 1:So Bradley's are armored personnel carriers, so they're just like a vehicle with tracks on it and they have a big main gun on it, so they have a crew that mans the vehicle and in the back they have a bunch of angry infantrymen that once they stop, they have to go out and do drop the ramp and just start killing shit. Yeah, go do infantry stuff.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's uh, it's always fun because you don't know where you're at, because you can't see anything did it amaze you at how young these individuals were in your unit, but yet they were acting so much older and mature?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I had a staff sergeant that was like 21 years old or 22 years old and he was like a staff sergeant and it was just. I held them on a pedestal because of their professionalism, their maturity and what they how they would be leaders at such a young age, right.
Speaker 2:Have you experienced leadership like that since then?
Speaker 1:Yes, I've had, like throughout the military. I've had good and bad leaders. I've had people that are career people. I have people that are just shady and they just slip through the cracks, and I've had people that actually care about people. I have people that are just shady and they just slip through the cracks, and I've had people that actually care about people and care about teaching, care about leading, care about things like that I think those make the best leaders, the ones that actually give a fuck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you could tell. You could tell if somebody actually cares. And I think I'd lucked out with having such good leadership early in my career because I made so many mistakes early in my career because I was a knucklehead yeah, that knucklehead mentality. It took me a while to break, to grow up, to mature and I had enough leaders that saw potential in me, that saw that, hey, this guy can learn, give him a chance so after graph, after hohenfeld, you guys get orders to go to iraq yes, we get orders to go iraq.
Speaker 1:Uh, the way it worked. It was weird, though, because we got orders to be qrf in kuwait, but then it changed. They said you're gonna be qrf in germany, like if you were in Kuwait. So what happened is we shipped all our stuff out Okay, railheaded and everything, railhead everything. We had nothing, but then we ended up staying three extra months in Germany with nothing to do, what the and no equipment.
Speaker 2:So we just partied for three months straight.
Speaker 1:No way, dude, because they're like you're about to deploy, what about PT tests Form? Like you're about to deploy. They put, like what about pt tests formations? No, we did pt twice a day, okay, so that's all we did. We woke up, did pt. Like what do we train on? Like we have nothing. We already did our training. All right, I mean, go over some first aid, cool. Come back 1300, pt again, pt again. Get in the best shape. You can. All right, cool, go to 1700 formation, play video games and then we just party all night did you party in schweinfurt or did you go to wurtzburg, bamberg?
Speaker 2:did you travel?
Speaker 1:everywhere, everywhere during that time. Not as much because I was young. I didn't have a car. Yeah, you could take the train though everywhere. Yeah, but I was young, I was just like the schweinfurt was so awesome. Did you ever get fucked up at tabasco's uh name a place?
Speaker 2:I haven't the long island iced teas at tabasco's Name, a place I haven't the Long Island iced teas at Tabasco's the Rock.
Speaker 1:Fabrique, oh yeah, there was many memorable nights at the Rock Fabrique. Yeah, the Russian Club, I don't even remember Megadrome yeah, the Megadrome. What are the other ones? The East Side, that was the NCO Club.
Speaker 2:I don't even remember so much because, like right, were you aware that there was whorehouses in Schweinfurt.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. I heard Somebody handed me a lighter and it said something on it. I was like what's this mean? House 31, house 8. Yeah, yeah, from what I've heard, 20. Yeah, house 14.
Speaker 2:20, yeah, 14, um, something like it's legal, yeah, yeah, it's, it's a profession, correct, yeah, uh, so you get the orders. You ain't doing your fucking part in your ass off for three fucking months, bro now did that hinder your your physical fitness? We're young, we, oh yeah, we get we machines dude.
Speaker 1:yeah, we're just like machines. We'd get smashed right and then we'd go run five miles in the morning, absolutely like. And because our first r and co were old school, they're like I don't care, we'd get smashed Right and then we'd go run five miles in the morning, absolutely. And because our first R&CO were old school, they're like I don't care what you do, right, but if you fall out of this five-mile run at a six-minute or a 630-mile pace, you're going to get sent down to the MP station, absolutely. So it was just like, well, I can't fall out of this run. It would give you incentive, right. So yeah, and what the great thing that happened during that time. The world cup happened in germany.
Speaker 2:the world cup you had, uh, you also walked um octoberfest. Did you ever make it down to octoberfest in munich? I I ended up making there one time. Okay, yeah, I did in 05 2005. So when you, when did you find out you're going to Baghdad?
Speaker 1:I don't even remember, cause I was so young and I didn't really understand anything. Did you land in Kuwait first? Yeah, so we went to Kuwait. Um so, cause we're on like three day orders, we're like, hey, at any moment we can get orders, and then Charlie company left first. They went, we left like two days later and they landed in.
Speaker 2:Aramia. No, they landed in Kuwait, correct, but they were stationed in Aramia, yeah, absolutely. And then, when you were in Kuwait, how did you guys get north Driving? Oh, and we flew in.
Speaker 1:Holy shit. So we were, since we were on a QRF thing, usually like what they, what my NCOs told me before, do this. We were there for a week. So we were partying in germany, drinking every day. Um, there was dudes going through alcohol withdrawal in the tents I hear you, man because they had already deployed. So they're like I'm just gonna drink, I have all the time to party, right, like I think everybody deployed with like five cents in their bank account just fucking party because like think about it, you're young, right?
Speaker 2:you don't know if you're gonna die or you. Party hard, you train hard, party hard.
Speaker 1:You're like, let me just enjoy life right before I go to war. So what does money matter? I'll just save up money when I'm deployed, correct?
Speaker 2:so yeah, dudes, we deployed with like 50 cents in our bank accounts do you remember the date or the month and year that you got to baghdad?
Speaker 1:it was august god damn, it's hot as fuck. Yeah, it was hot like dudes were going through alcohol withdrawal. Was that the surge? Yes, that was already the search, that's pre-surge like pre-surge right before those, it was august 06, right before the surge was starting to happen where?
Speaker 2:what were you on A FOB? What were you on?
Speaker 1:So my company was weird because we were attached to a tank company and then it was like a tank platoon, a mortar platoon and an infantry platoon all together. No engineers in that one.
Speaker 1:No we didn't have any engineers in that one. So it was like those were the three platoons, but we were the biggest one because we're the infantry one, correct? And I think. I think it was crazy because we're kuwait for a week. Then we go to baghdad, to biop, and they're like, hey, you're gonna fly in, so biops, the international airport, and then we go there. We stay there for a little bit, maybe a day, I'm not sure and then we fly on chinooks to southern baghdad, to fab rastamaya, fab rastamaya, yeah, fab rastamaya.
Speaker 1:So when we went there, I think that's when I kind of started to understand, like what did I get into why? Because we got on chinooks and they gave us a very specific order. They said the fob you're going to gets rocketed all the time whenever they see chinooks come in. They knew, they know new troops are going in. So everybody, you have to listen, because the last time they dropped troops off, a couple dudes got killed. So when you land they're like just grab whatever bag, you can throw it in the back of the five ton, jump in the back and lay down in the fetal position. And I was like what kind of thought we're supposed to fight wars and stuff like what is this? And they're like where we landed? It was on the iraqi side of the fob, the iraqi army which we shared, and it was all dark it was nighttime it was night, yeah, because we couldn't do it to the day because we get shot down.
Speaker 1:So when that happened, we're going. I'm just. I got a 240 because I was 240 gunner. I got an m4, I got a pistol on me, I got all my bags. I weigh like 300 pounds. Um, all I see is the guy on the back of the chinook just start lighting people up no way he just starts lighting people up. All you see is like the rounds flying down and just flashes and I'm just like what's going on?
Speaker 1:and then my team leader, he's like yeah, get some, get some. I'm like what are we going into? Yeah, yeah, and it just so, fuck, dude.
Speaker 2:So you guys did what you were told jump in the back of the five ton. And then where did you go? To your your little barracks your little billets.
Speaker 1:It's the standard uh three mile rucksack carry, where somebody leads you to where you're going and you have to walk with all your bags and like people are falling out because they have all your gear. We used to fly at that time with full combat load.
Speaker 2:Correct. So you're going from the landing zone to wherever you sleep. Yes, and that was about three miles. It felt like it Hoofing it, yeah, and I had full combat Shiver legs. Hey guys, one of our sponsors for this channel is tactical elites. If you bought a new optic for your weapon, whether it's a handgun or a rifle, and you need to zero it in and you don't want to take it to the range and you don't want to buy money on ammunition, go to tacticalelitescom and buy the laser finder 2.0, use discount code hb10 and make sure you check it out. Thank you guys. Keep pushing forward. Hey guys, consider becoming a patron, where you will get first exclusive dibs on the video before it airs to the public and you'll get to ask the guest special questions that you have in mind. So that's also another way to support the channel. Thank you guys. Appreciate all of you. Keep pushing forward. Make sure you hit that link in the description below I had combat load of 240. Below I had combat load of 240. Oh, I totally understand bro I totally freaking.
Speaker 2:Understand, bro? That was a javelin gunner, so I like the javelin, the clue. Yeah, uh, dude. So when you get there, when do you start experiencing indirect fire?
Speaker 1:so I fought bruce amaya. It was at breakfast and at dinner. That's when they would hit you guys Every day, and when they felt happy they would hit us at lunch. So it was, yeah, every day.
Speaker 2:Now that one did it have bunkers, or were you guys just take it? So they had bunkers but nobody used them?
Speaker 1:Well, we started, just like everyone, you know, as soon as you get there, like okay, let me get the bunker. But then they started targeting bunkers. Really, was it accurate? Yeah, absolutely, they hit the defect. They hit really x. They hit because it wasn't a big fob and it was a decent size fob, but it was in the middle of nowhere. Were the rockets and mortars? Mostly rockets, mostly rockets. Yeah, it was mostly rockets. So, um, yeah, it was like at first we run into the bunkers and then we ended up realizing we live in a 10 two-story house. Right, if it happens, it happens. Right, there's no point to run down there.
Speaker 2:So, as this is transpiring man, you were in Fort Benning, georgia. You're getting schooled by some combat veterans. You had seen the movies Windtalkers. You were in Germany, graf Hohenfels. Now you're receiving, now you're earning I mean, you're earning your CIB, your combat infantry badge. What is going through your brain so?
Speaker 1:I think my first 45 days in a combat zone were like very critical to what shaped me as a person and as a soldier, and it took me a while to realize it, because I didn't leave the FOB, like we didn't do a patrol for like two weeks, three weeks maybe. Do any left seat, right seat rights? I was a private. They did left seat, right seat rights. I didn't do anything, okay. So during one of the left seat, right seat rights um with another unit, um, I think two lieutenant colonels got killed because they drove in the same vehicle. Fuck. So they ended up getting smoked and it was just like, okay, let's hold on a little bit before we step out the wire.
Speaker 1:And my first patrol out of the wire, two dudes got killed. Your first patrol. Yeah, so the first first time I left the wire I'm like half asleep from staying up all all night things like that first patrol. They were in our sister company but it happened right outside the fob because they kept on putting efps or ids right outside the fob. So they started, we started using the back door.
Speaker 2:Then they put efps on the back door so those efps didn't come to your time frame dude yeah, that was a little different thing that happened when we were there.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a fucking nightmare, dude. Yeah, because the oaf2 guys would be like oh, I've been blown up 30 times, I've been blown up. You know, I was like, okay, that's interesting, I guess I'm gonna get blown up a lot. Then come the fps like you get blown up once, twice, maybe you know so. My first patrol was out there. Uh, one of the dudes gets, two dudes get, get, get killed. And I'm just like my first patrol. And I think it changed my concept of what I got into, because we had up armored humvees at the time and you know, all the rf2 guys are like, yeah, we're up armored, we're safe in here. It's not the the stupid stuff. I saw that up armored humvee burned down to rims because of the efp.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you? Uh, can you explain what the difference is between an IED and an EFP?
Speaker 1:So an IED is just basically like a bomb, like it's an artillery shell or something or some kind of explosive, and it just makes a big boom. The EFP what it is? It's like an armor-piercing round. So what it would? It basically essentially is it's something really small that pierces and what they would do is they put four, five, six or eight arrays up and it would be like a bullet about the 50 cal size that just chops through any armor that we had. It's like molten lava.
Speaker 2:Yeah, copper. What was the copper? Huh, it's molten copper. It'd go right through an M1 Abrams.
Speaker 1:Yep, it would go through any type of armor we had at that time. Were those through an able uh m1 abrams? Yep, it would go through any type of armor we had at that time. Were those effective? They were very effective. They, they, um, I think one of the things that I found out about war that I see some people talk about, especially vets is I don't know about their time frame, but I believe by the time I got there we had killed all the dumb ones. So all the videos that I saw before about a guy running down to the street and just shooting at a tank with an AK yeah, that guy's dead. Like those guys are dead.
Speaker 1:The ones that were left at that time were higher trained, higher skilled, more experienced fighters and they would do things. When they would put the IEDs or EFPs down, they would target the gunner and the TC. Oh, that is pretty smart dude. So I don't know. I can't remember how many people I saw with their legs cut off because the EFPs would aim for this exact spot on the truck. And I saw a couple gunners with their heads chopped off because they would aim at the head and they would aim them. So they would aim them and they would. They would aim at the head and they would aim them. So they would aim them and they would time them. And the dudes are smart what was detonating them?
Speaker 2:okay, you got to aim it right, but what? What are they using to set it off? Is it command? So it's a cat and mouse game. Is it uh sensors? Motion sensors from a garage door opener? It's a cell phone, so this is what how are they so fucking accurate?
Speaker 1:So the accurate is just how they aim it and practice in time. But how are they timing it? Um, they did it a lot. There was a lot of EFPs. They we had like outside the FOB, within 300 meters. They said within the last like two weeks, there was 30 EFPs that they found. They were trained militants, like were they foreign fighters? Yeah, there were a lot of iranians at that time that came in. Okay, so it was iranian special forces that came in, trained, regular guys and things like that.
Speaker 1:But, um, so basically that that time frame in the war was at first wire detonation we're looking looking for people, we can find them, shoot them right. Then it turned into RFID, so like garage door sensors, so whoever passed through this one? So there was no bad guy nearby. Nope, there was no bad guy in sight. But then they started doing something else where they would do a command wire set up to a cell phone, but the cell phone would be like 150 meters away, so somebody could be 300 meters away or they could be on the other side of the road, call this cell phone and it goes this way, so smart. So basically they would do something. They would kill us, we would counteract it and they would counteract it back. So smart dude, do something. They would kill us, we would counteract it and they would counteract it back. So smart dude.
Speaker 2:So this time frame right here that we're talking about was the surge. The beginning of the surge was the iranians crossing over, bringing efps. And how about the um, the cultural war between the sunni and the shiites?
Speaker 1:that was at we we would see firefights between a shia in a sunni neighborhood and we're like, oh, let's get it on, let's go. And they're shooting rpgs, they're shooting machine guns at each other. And then we we'd roll down there and be like, let's go, let's get it.
Speaker 2:And then we just stop shooting you know that the time you served at a very, like, peculiar time in history man, I think we're talking about this a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I think that it took me a while to realize it that eastern baghdad during the surge was the worst place during the war, except for high intensity battles like city clearing and things like that. The intensity that was there for a prolonged time and it's just the amount of death that there was is just kind of different, because on top of a lot of our guys dying, they were killing each other. What about ING? Were they getting killed? I don't think there was ING at that time anymore. Iraqi police yeah, so I was IP. The Iraqi police was with the Shia. No-transcript. People tortured, people decapitated.
Speaker 2:So I read about that book. We Fought for Each Other. I told you my friend Wood, ryan Wood, was killed in Adamea, baghdad. That time frame I went to basic training with him. In that book they talk about how they find dead bodies in the morning. What was your guys's role as united states infantryman when you see the dead bodies? When we saw them.
Speaker 1:We're like, hey, it's a dead body, kind of leaders call. They're like, hey, let's go get them, let's take them to the ip station, let's turn them in so we don't have like a random dead body on the street. But then they started putting ids on them oh fuck dude yeah that's wild dude. Yeah, so they started putting ids on them. So we're like, hey, we'll just, you know, call it up, have them come get it.
Speaker 2:But that's actually the first time I ever heard that man I I've always known that they put ids and dead dogs and donkeys right in their ass or whatever, but this is the first time I hear that they were putting ids in dead bodies yeah, because they saw they.
Speaker 1:They look at us, everything we do. They're like how do we kill these guys? Absolutely yeah, it's a cat and mouse game.
Speaker 2:Imagine that dude you would. I mean, it sucks to get hit by an id, but imagine getting hit by a dead body, dead body, id. You're gonna get all kinds of nasty shit on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot worse than a lot worse than you would regularly get.
Speaker 2:Wow, dude, holy fuck, Is this affecting you at all, or are you just embracing it and you're just experiencing it? Did you feel like you were in your element?
Speaker 1:It was interesting because during that first deployment it was a trying time and, like I said, the first 45 days, my first patrol I saw two guys get killed. Like as soon as they get out, boom, these two guys get killed.
Speaker 2:We get their bodies um but there's more to them getting killed. You have to bring the bodies back or put them on a medevac, the phones shut down for 72 hours. You have to do the ceremony. Then the ramp ceremony is like is all of this affecting you?
Speaker 1:I mean I don't think I had time right, because within the first 45 days, um, I saw four people, five people get killed, americans yeah, five are guys, and I was next to two of them. So and it's just like everything just happened so quickly. Back to back those first 45 days. It just it was kind of shocking and the thing that affected me too was that a lot of the OF2 guys that had been in Fallujah, that had been in different wars, they were just like, yeah, this is not supposed to happen. They were like this is different. So we're at that time where it was a sniper the Juba sniper, the Baghdad sniper was big and I was a gunner and they were killing gunners nonstop.
Speaker 2:So at the FOB we were at Did that motherfucker ever take shots at you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I actually come out in the video where he shoots the guy next to me. Really, yeah, that that. So what was that dude shooting out of the back of a trunk Yep, back of the trunk, like the DC sniper? Did they ever kill him? Yeah, they got him Good. I think the SEALs got him Good. So so that happened. And then we end up snatching the dudes up that are selling the video, the DVDs. They're putting it out as propaganda, right. And one of my buddies is like, hey, juan Carlos, look at you, You're in that video, that's the place. I was like, no way. Then I look at pictures that I had from that day and it's the exact same place and I don't know what it was. I watched that video every night for three months straight.
Speaker 2:You were in a Gunner, in a Bradley or Humvee Humvee. Did you guys have Bradleys?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you guys used Bradleys on patrol we would roll bradley sometimes and the thing is is, since it was baghdad and like we had a car bomb go off, cnn was there in five minutes. By the time we went back to the fob we were already on the news car bombs, roadside bombs, efps, rockets, mortars, snipers and grenades.
Speaker 2:Talk to me about the grenades bro.
Speaker 1:So they would in certain mostly in Ottomia they would. It was a very tight, narrow area and they would throw grenades at the gunners. It'd be kids too, huh yeah, it'd be like 15 year old kids. They would throw grenades there. And one of our guys actually ended up getting a medal of honor for jumping on a grenade McGinnis yeah, ross McGinnis, honor for jumping on a grenade. Mcginnis yeah, ross McGinnis. Mcginnis got a medal of honor because he jumped on a grenade to save his battle buddies in there.
Speaker 2:So earlier I asked you if you knew Lyle Bueller, bueller. I went to basic training with Bueller. He was in that Humvee, okay, so I know who he is now. When McGinnis sacrificed his life for everybody in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I definitely there. Yeah, I definitely know who he is now. Yeah, yeah, there's a small world, bro, it is infantry 126, 118. And then were you in country when mcginnis did that? Yeah, we were deployed. How did word spread about that? Or did you guys hear about the so?
Speaker 1:I was. Yeah, we actually heard about it, and then I was a gunner. They're like, hey, start training to slap away ied or grenades, because they're throwing grenades at us. So I'd be in there as a kid, you know, messing around. I'd be like, ah, smacking, pretending like I'm a smack, a hand grenade thrown at me, what?
Speaker 2:did you guys? Did you guys put up any defense mechanism around the turret?
Speaker 1:So we ended up putting HESCO, cutting a HESCO, which is kind of like a net that goes over a metal frame that went over the turrets, and you guys just improvised that. Yeah, somebody came up with it in our unit and they just improvised it and it actually became sop everywhere, and then now they of course made into a metal turret. Okay, so now they have metal turrets and now they don't even have gunners anymore when, when you were gunning, were you sitting on the strap.
Speaker 2:What were you guys directed to do? Sit on the strap or stand up? Uh, both.
Speaker 1:But it just. It just depends because, like area on the fob, a static bradley with about this much opening, uh, we had three guys get killed there. You know, say that again. So on the bradley you have the hatch where you can open up like this. The first guy that got killed was standing up straight name tape, defilate as they call it. It's a name tape here. Yeah, yeah, he got shot in the face by a sniper, by a sniper, fuck. So the next guy sat a little lower. Okay, he got shot in the face by the juba snipers because they came out on the videos and then, um, were they more than one? Yeah, it was a group, but they made it.
Speaker 1:They made it seem the propaganda was like it's one guy like one fucking ghost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, fucking like a horror, but it was a cell. I didn't know it was a cell. That's why I like you putting out the history bro yeah, yeah, so it was a cell.
Speaker 1:I ended up finding out that later on.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it was a cell of well-trained individuals, but ended up the iraqis uh, syrian son of a bitch, I think syrian and jordanians one of the something like that fucking geek in their jihad on dude. Yeah, so this is one thing I like about old school army leadership right? So two guys get killed on the gate. Sergeant major says people are terrified. Sart major says I got this. Sart major goes out there, opens and just looking out this much at the time. He gets shot in the face too. He gets killed, killed. Yep, but that was what leadership was. It's like you're from the front. Yeah, follow me follow me.
Speaker 2:You guys are getting fucked up, or it sounds like you guys are getting fucked up. What was your guys's roe or sop, for instance, when, 2004, when we got hit by an ied, our sop was to open up in 360 degree fire everywhere and anything. Was that the same with you?
Speaker 1:so we couldn't do that at the time. We had to get positive identification. Positive identification, but there were some certain things that weren't necessarily threat related. So, since we had so many grenades being thrown on us from the rooftops, we had a new SOP and then we put out flyers and said if you're on a rooftop when we're going around, we are authorized to shoot you. So we're authorized to shoot anyone we saw on a rooftop. Another thing that we had is curfew. So if anybody was out after this time we handed out flyers we were allowed to shoot them. Another thing if you're digging any type of digging, digging Bro.
Speaker 2:digging in Iraq just sounds like a horrible fucking idea bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So anybody like if you're digging you were a lawful target.
Speaker 2:Sounds about right, man. I can't really think of any other reason to dig in Iraq other than to plant a fucking bomb. Yeah well.
Speaker 1:Do you guys have body bags? So towards the end of the deployment we started carrying our own body bags. Right, because we ran out of body bags like we had to order more, so I just carried mine in my left cargo pocket at the bottom how much death did you see in that deployment?
Speaker 1:um, I, I saw a lot and I didn't realize how much it was because it was new to me. So it's kind of like the first experience is what you base everything else off. So the if2 guys were just like this is different, this is different. And me, as a new guy, I'm like I thought this was how it always was so staff serge Sergeant Golson.
Speaker 2:He was in OIF-1, the invasion with 1st AD, 1st Armored Division, okay, and in January of 2005, there was a car bomb that killed 22 people. Those charred pieces of people were everywhere and I remember he looked at me and he said this is too much. I've seen too much. I got to get help. When I get back and like you're right, dude, for us being our first time around, it's like okay, well, this to us is normal. Yeah, this guy is saying it's too much. What the fuck did that mean for me, bro?
Speaker 2:Yeah definitely, definitely, right. Is that what you were thinking Like?
Speaker 1:it's clearly there's something wrong here yeah, this guy like I had dudes that were in if2 and they were like in baton rouge and fallujah.
Speaker 2:I was in baton rouge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I heard everything about banroo. All my ncos were like what do you know about baton rouge?
Speaker 1:they're private I'm like I don't know it's in louisiana, but yeah, no. So, like it kind of started thinking when these dudes were like hardcore and they were just like oh no, this is, this is different, it wasn't like this before. This is a whole new level of crazy. And then, like in baghdad, like in eastern baghdad, they used to have like 80, 90, 100, 150 people get killed in bag in markets with car bombs. They used to drive drum trucks into there and then, like used to go see like a river of blood in the street and then they used to pile up body parts everywhere and just be like what are you supposed to do?
Speaker 1:Did you experience fear? I think this is something I've talked to with my friends, because my friends like to say I wasn't scared and I'm like no, you were, you absolutely were scared. And I think that's one of the things that we're taught and we're trained to do is to conquer fear and live with it, like you're going to do something scary. Yeah, you're scared, you're scared to death. It's a life and death situation. But doing what you have to do in the face of fear is what kind of bravery is? Yes, it's dangerous. Yes, you're scared, but you can't let that dominate what you want to do to accomplish your mission.
Speaker 1:Did you experience rage? I think once. I think once I kind of broke because we saw some guys up a road and we were shooting at them. We weren't sure if we hit them or not, and then I wanted to go in there and smash them and leadership was like no, I flipped out, I started banging, I was driving, I was like banging on the window, I was like I don't know, just like one of those points where I just felt like just crazy. But for the most time, no, it wasn't, it was, it was kind of what I say. It was the most honed in I've been in my life, because it was life or death. And you better focus on what you're doing because it's serious, it's not, it's not, it's not a game, it's, it's serious. You have to focus on what you're doing, not just that. Focus on everything and something at once at the same time there's nothing else like it.
Speaker 2:Man, yeah, it's, it's different. Did you experience sorrow or loss in the sense of emotion?
Speaker 1:well, yeah, when friends died, it was, it was. It was strange, though, because it was like, okay, I'm sad but I can't be sad, and it's just like since, since, like I said, since from the beginning it just kicked off and someone died. Every 10 days someone was killed. So every 10 days we're going and hearing taps and doing ceremonies and things like this it became kind of like you became numb to it, because guess what, we got to go on patrol tomorrow and guess what? It's life or death tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Did you ever experience child casualties?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that, that that happens and I don't know. It's one of those things that were you like we had kids shoot at us too. You know, I'm saying I had a kid throw a molotov cocktail at me. I mean, I think in certain places, when you reach war and what I realized that first deployment to is that a lot of societal rules don't matter Like society rules of what? No, none of that matters.
Speaker 1:Like when we used to drive down the freeway at night to get to our sector 60 miles per hour in Humvees, which is like a space shuttle because they they make so much noise at that speed, with nods on Lights out yeah, lights out down the wrong way of a freeway into oncoming traffic, absolutely, and it's just like we used to drive against traffic as fast as we could to try to beat the timing of the IEDs. And when we wanted to go somewhere we used to actually different from OF2, we used to go within traffic, because if we went with traffic they wouldn't detonate the IEDs because they didn't want civilian casualties. So from the OF2 guys they're like nobody get close to us, we're going to shoot them Right. For us it was like we rather have them close. Oh, I hear what you're saying Because.
Speaker 2:That's a pretty good idea. Yeah, because if they're close, they're not going to want to blow up their own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then if we looked like it was a person, we'd shoot warning shots or follow our procedures, but it was a big city so there's always a lot of traffic, so it was different. But yeah, I mean it happens and it's kind of one of those things like war has so many things to it and sadly it's one of the things that happens. Kids get killed because bullets keep going wherever If they don't hit where you want them to hit they keep going.
Speaker 2:Do you think war is necessary?
Speaker 1:That's an interesting question. I don't think I've been asked that before You're on the fucking Hector.
Speaker 2:Bravo, I don't fuck around over here, man.
Speaker 1:Where's Nesser? I think I don't, well, I think. I think, yeah, it's necessary. I think it's part of human nature and it just it just bound to happen. Conflict, and it's the ultimate level of conflict, and I don't think it'll be something that goes away, It'll be something that evolved. But I think human conflict is needed because we fight over stuff, over materials, over land, over all kinds of stuff, oil, oil. You know, we need oil to live as a country, we need to survive, we need minerals, we need all these things. So people don't want to give it up, and I think it's needed sometimes would you fight for your country regardless of what the political agenda was?
Speaker 2:Well, I think I did. Now, after the fact, knowing what you know would you do it all over again.
Speaker 1:I would, absolutely. I know I talk to my friends about that too and they're just like I don't know. I'm like, no, absolutely I would, Because I couldn't live with myself being an American citizen born here, not, you know, raised here, Absolutely. And then I look at some people that are like our age and they're like, well, I'm a patriot. We're like, hey, buddy, there was a 20-year war, why didn't you put your money where your mouth was? You're an able-bodied young man. Your country needs you. Regardless of what the reason is, somebody's going to go.
Speaker 2:Have you ever had people approach you and tell you like, hey, man, I served, but I did not serve in a time of war and I regret not going to war?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hear a lot of people say that what's your take on that? So as the wars winded down and I've had, you know, I stayed in longer and people don't have CIBs anymore you go into an infantry company, you see barely any CIBs Correct. And then you see some combat patches. But they're not from war, they're from combat zones and they're good dudes. They're solid dudes, they're ready. I'm sure they would be great in the fight, but it's just timing Right.
Speaker 2:But I tell them you're better off. You're better off that you didn't experience. You know what we did, because to me, I mean, I still carry that, you know. I don't know if those memories or thoughts, if you still carry that, I'm sure you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I get nightmares like every other night. Right, yeah, but no, I wouldn't change it because it made me the person I am today Correct, and I couldn't look at myself in the mirror me personally, I'm not taking shots at anybody or anything like that but me and my mind frame and my person. I couldn't be like there was a war. I could have gone, and when I get old, I don't want my grandkids to be like, hey, pop Pop, I just heard about you know, I heard about the war. What happened to the war? What'd you do?
Speaker 2:I was like I was out there getting it you were literally out there getting it, man, before you were telling me that you responded to an ied that destroyed a bradley, yeah, and you had to recover. Can you, are you willing to talk about that incident?
Speaker 1:um, yeah, so that happened actually twice shit. And um, yeah, one to our sister company and one to ours. And um, like I talked about, when I see the up armored humvee, I saw it burn to rims and I said that's a bulletproof vehicle, right, we're supposed to be able to survive that. So by that time in the point it was much later the bradley's were our safety blanket. We're like, okay, this is indestructible, they can do what they want. Maybe if P hits it or whatever reactive armor, we got a little bit of extra going there. Then I see that one flipped upside down. What was it? An IED that pushed it over. So they changed to different ones. They used homemade explosive, which became the big thing later. So they call it HME, homemade explosives. So, and they use like the way they did it is they made it in a sewer, so the sewer kind of made it like a barrel, so it intensified.
Speaker 2:They did it in the sewer, but what was it placed in? Had you guys ever found one that had not been detonated? So you guys know what it looked like? No, it was just explosive down here, just a bunch of fucking explosive shit, and it went straight in a sewer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, timed perfectly in the bottom of a bradley and what kind of screwed us up at that time is that we were used to other explosives because our bradley's would get hit with, uh, normal artillery, shell ids and, um, they put armor on the bottom. So what ended up happening is the pressure went from the bottom and it basically smashed the whole bottom up. That's fucking horrible, dude. And Bradley's what? 35 tons, yeah, flipped completely upside down into like a gigantic crater. Any survivors? Oh, no, so that I think that. And you were QRF.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when that happened, there was a contact. They got it and then the unit whose it was, they got out of there and basically it was like oh, everybody, come here now, it's a big deal for the battalion. And that day was crazy because the dudes are good, like the enemy's good, and I think if somebody doesn't give credit to the enemies of america that have fought, I don't think you guys fought the good day team, you know, because there's I'm sure there's better, but we we fought some good. They planted three ambushes, so coming out of where the QRF would go, there was another ID. Where another was another ID. Yeah, they're not dummies by any means, yeah. So like I think, and there was like the three entrances, all had ambushes.
Speaker 2:Were they able to successfully initiate each ambush?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think an MP got killed. Fuck, who else got killed? There was some other people that got killed too, it was, and then somebody broke their legs, or so what we ended up doing is we ended up zigzagging because they're like, hey, this is going on, it's gone, but like, we got to get there, we got to get there, yeah. So we get there, we relieve the unit that's there and then we're in charge of cleanup and picking picking up body parts, essentially was there iraqi civilians, or out and about, or were they?
Speaker 1:fucking cleared out. They were gone. Yeah, they were gone. There was nobody looking around anything, um, but yeah, so we had to like recover pieces. We found, um, the top of the hatch. We found it on a rooftop, like 300 meters away. Holy shit, dude. So from the pressure that like just finding it was massive and it was the first time we'd ever seen something like that and I mean it was traumatizing. It was like very traumatizing and by that time we had already been there and it was a big loss. And the other thing that was traumatizing is, aside from a new tactic that they brought out, that they already bring out a new tactic, it was we're not safe in anything.
Speaker 2:That's what I was just about to ask you what type of psychological effect did it have? You see a fucking bradley crush like a soda can it was just like well, devastating, devastating.
Speaker 1:and then, one month later, we saw, saw it again how much months later, a month, no way.
Speaker 2:Dude Yep, same area of operations Yep no way bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same tactic, same tactic, holy fuck. Yeah, and that was our company that got killed there. And that's old school leadership too, because that was there was a little bit of issues, because one of our missions was hey, go confirm an IED. Every time we confirm an IED we get blown up Like, yeah, there's an IED there.
Speaker 2:Got it. Typical job of a fucking grump bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know, some guys were told to go out there and do it. And then they were like, hey, this is confirmed, this is an IED. You know, some guys told the unit that was going to go out there like yo, there's a big IED there, just like the last one. They're like well, we're going to go. The platoon sergeant said follow me, because they're like who's going to take lead? Platoon sergeant said got you, follow me? And he got killed. But he was leading his men like you're supposed to, like we're taught to. Is something's that dangerous? I go first, you follow me, I lead the way he got killed as a result of that ied.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know any other leadership style besides leading like that from the front, bro, because that's the way we were taught at such a young age that's crazy, though, too, because now, as things change uh, that's how I was schooled up.
Speaker 1:Like the first time I started kicking in doors, absolutely, team leader was like follow me. I'm like thank you, because I don't know, after doing it for a while, like I'll kick in doors by myself. Let's go. You know, I'm saying like it's, it's how much?
Speaker 2:how much raids were you guys doing room clearing um an ungodly amount? Or you're looking for targets in the nighttime.
Speaker 1:You get intel um, so every time someone would get killed, which was often we would do battalion raids. So italian raids, battalion raids. So we, that's huge bro, like 10, 10, 15 blocks, city blocks. That's huge dude. And they're like 12 hours ago and we were just kicking every door, starting at nighttime, early morning hours, early morning, all day. Go kicking doors for 12 hours and it's tiring, what kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Were you guys encountering, uh squatters? Fuck, I had another friend get killed, hector lejo on haifa street.
Speaker 1:What were you guys encountering, uh weapons caches anything we're gonna fight weapons, uh, id materials, uh propaganda, um, bad guys really, yeah, so it just, it just depends. But when we did like these huge operations, they know, and it was kind of like a message like, hey, if you mess with us, we're gonna destroy everything. Breaking shit, it's breaking, smashing, I mean looking for stuff and you know things get damaged in the process, and like, if we're going to look in drawers, we just empty them all on the ground. Correct, look behind, you know things like that, right? So, yeah, it'd be things like that. So, and like we would do it, and we'd be like, okay, mission's on hold, let's battalion raids and battalion raids. And we would just be like, hey, your platoon has these three blocks and we would hit every three-story house on that block.
Speaker 2:Now, I know you mentioned you were attached to a tanker unit, which so were we, so I understand the misery of that. No disrespect, but were you guys being used and abused as infantry, since you guys were the go-to guys? Well, we were.
Speaker 1:We were the well, yes and no right, so we got to do the cool stuff. They didn't get to do the cool stuff, so we got to do the raids. They sat in their tanks and cordon and they just like probably fell asleep or whatever right, but we were getting the action right. Um details, of course we had to do extra stuff and it was just like a manpower thing. It sucked but at the same time had her pros and cons what were you guys being told?
Speaker 2:as far as the reason you guys were there, your mission, our mission was to kill bad guys.
Speaker 1:You know, like our mission was to go find bad guys, snatch them up and kill them. Were you guys effective? I think yeah, we were pretty effective. We got a lot of HVTs, a lot of high-value targets. We ended up using a lot of HVTs, a lot of high-value targets. We ended up using a lot of technology and I think the write-up said we killed a lot of people too.
Speaker 2:Were you guys able to identify the insurgents? Meaning it was a lot of hit-and-run tactics. Were you guys able ever to get eyes on so?
Speaker 1:well, during that time, what they would do is because they were smart, they know, they knew they couldn't fight us head to head, correct? So what they would do is they initiate with the ied or an rpg, depending what they had, shoot at us as much as they could see if they could kill any of us, but once we gained fire piracy priority, they would just disappear, right, and then it was it was frustrating.
Speaker 2:I was just about to ask you did you find that frustrating it was?
Speaker 1:frustrating. It was not like afghanistan, where those dudes will, they'll let you kill them you went to afghanistan also?
Speaker 2:yeah, so as the tour winds down in baghdad. You said your initial contract was three years, correct? God damn, you got a thirty thousand dollar bonus for three years.
Speaker 1:Uh, and three hundred dollars a month for three years for Boeing 2. After that, people were getting $45,000 bonuses.
Speaker 2:Man, they screwed my boy. He got six years in the infantry for fucking about that same much. That's six years. When did you reenlist?
Speaker 1:We got orders before we left.
Speaker 2:So before we left you guys got orders to go to Afghanistan before you left. No, Iraq.
Speaker 1:Okay, before we left about seven months, eight months, into a tour, they were like hey, we got orders to come back. No way, bro. How did that feel? I mean, halfway through, first we got orders that, hey, you get extended 15 months instead of 12. And we're like what's that mean? They're like what's that mean? They're like I guess we're staying here, yeah. And then after that they're like hey, we already got orders for your next deployment. You're gonna be back home for 12 months and then you're gonna go back to iraq for another 12 months was your first deployment.
Speaker 2:What you had anticipated combat being like?
Speaker 1:absolutely not in what way? I think combat is like sex. You can describe it to somebody, but when you feel it it's just different and you expect it to be a certain way. But it's different especially in the type of fight we were. We were basically waiting to get killed the majority of the time. We, less often than not, got to be the aggressors. So when you got to be aggressive, we were aggressive because we were like finally, I'm not just driving around waiting to get killed and ambushed. So when we got to be aggressive, we're like finally, I get to go, be aggressive and get out there and get it. So I thought it would be like front lines, using the tactics, fight to fight. So did I bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought you know we line up on one side and bang, bang, we shoot it out. Yeah, no, Because we're hiding bro.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's one of the things when I train people I talk to them about and logically it makes sense, but it doesn't click in your head when you're training. Oh, target range, boom, people don't want to die, yeah, so people will do the most. So you can't kill them. They will be hard to kill, right, and it makes sense when you think about it, but you don't think about it when you see big, man-sized targets that you have to shoot down.
Speaker 2:Speaking of big man-sized targets that you have to shoot down, what did you think of the 5.56 round, the green tip? Do you find it to be effective, ineffective, discouraging? I'm sure you guys were shooting a bunch of motherfuckers with green tips.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a bunch of green tips. I haven't shot anybody with the new bronze tip, but, um, I'm not that much of a gun guy to understand. Yeah, I mean, were they dropping dead? Were they running away? Uh, it depends, because a lot of them are on drugs, right. So we shoot some of them and like I yeah, I know I got that dude because you'd see him trail up like that and they just keep running, you see a blood trail, but then the bodies would be gone. So we like shoot dudes and like we see blood trails and then they wouldn't be there. So I'm not sure of the effectiveness, I'm not sure about the drugs, I'm not sure. But hey, if the army says this round's better, I'm gonna shoot it right so did you end up going back, back to back to, to To back?
Speaker 2:yeah, you did, yeah, and you re-enlisted in between.
Speaker 1:So I knew I was going to get stop-lossed because of my timeframe and what they ended up doing is you'd come back Within six months. They'd put up a fence Anybody that's not ETS within the first six months. You're getting stop-loss and you're going again. So my first deployment my team leader was stop loss 22 months. So he did OF2. He was supposed to get out. He did three-year contract. He ended up doing like a five-year contract.
Speaker 1:And then I knew I was going to get stop loss but I waited to reenlist until we were down range so I could get the tax-free money for the bonus. So until we were downrange so I could get the tax-free money for the bonus. So I waited all the way up to the end because I was like I'm going to reenlist. And then I was talking to the retention guy and he said, yeah, just wait, because you're going to get it tax-free as soon as we hit Kuwait. As soon as we hit Kuwait, he already had the contract signed, the papers got it tax-free.
Speaker 1:When did you make that determination that you were going to reenlist?
Speaker 1:I think one of the relations that I said is that I came back and I got in a lot of trouble still, and this time it was I wasn't right and I knew I wasn't right and I knew I couldn't reintegrate in society and talking to other people in the Army with my deployment, we could only relate to that level of craziness that we went through. So I could talk to them about it and we could be okay. I was like I don't want to go somewhere where I can't relate to somebody and talk to them on this level. So I didn't think I could function in normal society and I wanted to stay with my people. So I was like I'm just going to stay because kind of like the conversations we're having right now, you talk to somebody that hasn't been through things like that about it. They're going to look at you different, they might judge you, they might not understand and they can't relate with you on that level. So I was like I need to be a place where I am normal, not where I'm abnormal.
Speaker 2:What kind of stuff were you experiencing where you realized you did not fit back into society when you came back? Anger, anger issues, road rage thoughts.
Speaker 1:I think, the level of violence. When I came back back, I was actually happy. I was actually very happy because I was like I made it right, I'm happy. But I was actually really depressed and great. But I used to drink a lot, party a lot, but I was all about having fun drink a lot as in self-medicating, or drink a lot as in drink a lot, so I used to party because I know my friends would be sitting there in the barracks drinking and I'm like I don't want to drink.
Speaker 1:if I do that the only time I want to drink is I want to go out meet some ladies that I haven't been around for a long time and fall in love every night, and that's what I used to do, but my friends used to just like to go out and drink. I'm like I don't know. I'm like I drink enough already, but like I saw a lot of friends self-medicating. I think one of the things that I saw that I look back now as an adult or as like more of an adult right that changes how somebody looks at how they react when they come back from combat.
Speaker 2:Now are you talking about coming back to Schweinfurt, germany, or stateside?
Speaker 1:so I went stateside for two weeks.
Speaker 2:So you're experiencing this in Schweinfurt, germany, and you were still feeling some things, even though you were surrounded by the military presence yeah, we were.
Speaker 1:Just it was wild Cause, like you can't take 15 months of intense trauma. Well, actually I had 45 days of leave. I went to Nicaragua and that was an adventure. And, um, yeah, then we came back and we had to come back to work. But it was like, okay, let's work, but let's go out and have fun, party Cause. Guess what? We already got orders for the next appointment. So it's you touch down, see your family, cool. But what happens is you can't. You can't unload, you can't wind yourself down, because you come back and it's like no, we got to get ramped up. We got a bunch of new guys coming in. We're leadership. Now we have to show them this is life or death. We have to train them up because they're going to be watching our backs when we go down range.
Speaker 2:But at that time, were you guys finally experiencing the mourning of your brothers that were killed in Iraq? No, no, because they didn't have the time.
Speaker 1:Still, we couldn't wind down because like, hey, if I get sad over here, I'm not going to be able to do my job. Mission focus Right, focus on the mission I don't know, worry about that some other time.
Speaker 2:I can't turn into an emotional wreck because I know it'll be an emotional wreck now, in that time frame, when you guys got back from the surge, was there talk about post-traumatic stress disorder or was there any emphasis on mental health from from the big army um?
Speaker 1:we did our first tbi test so, but they didn't take a baseline. So we had all been blown up. A bunch of times we were like my baseline's already whacked out. True, they talked a little bit about it, but at that time they were just handing out antidepressants. That's not good either, yeah. So all they did was like, oh, you don't feel good, here you go, and they were just handing out antidepressants like candy. And with a lot of drinking, an antidepressant doesn't go for a good mix. So it's either you drink and self-medicate or you get on strong antidepressants.
Speaker 1:So most everybody just would drink when was your second deployment to Iraq, and how did that differ from your first deployment? My second deployment was to south of Baghdad, hila, the Hila province.
Speaker 2:How paced. How was that slower pace in Baghdad?
Speaker 1:Uh, there's, yeah, absolutely, it was completely different. It was, um, I think it was different for me because at that time I had gotten in trouble and they moved me companies. So then, like I bounced around to another company and then, like I bounced around to another company and then when I bounced around to another company, I didn't have that shared experience anymore, because I was with the company of guys that were in ramadi during that deployment and I was like the only one over here from baghdad and then we were close to baghdad, so they had their experiences but yeah, ramadi was off the fucking hook too at that time yeah.
Speaker 1:So from what those guys told me that they said, at the initial there was it was strong, it was intense, but then it kind of curtailed and it was kind of chill and they were bored. And you know those are solid dudes and they were like we. They wanted to come reinforce us because we were losing so many people to injuries and to deaths. They were like we wanted to go help you guys, but we couldn't. They didn't let us. Were they a bravo 126?
Speaker 1:okay, they were attached to 177 okay, I was attached to 177 yeah, so they're attached to 177 that went over there, 118 went south baghdad, 177 ramadi and then we went to east baghdad interesting, man so yeah, so like Second Dagger Brigade, yep. So I was around them and I just I felt like I couldn't relate Because they had never been around EFPs. And there was EFPs in the area. I was like, just drive fast, like whatever, like just get over like Just drive fast.
Speaker 1:That's what we used to do, because what we used to do is we used up getting SOPs and what we used to do is military organization. Everybody like, hey, 50-meter interval between vehicle. What ended up happening is like no, we can't be ordered, because the naked time was better. How close did you come to death? I'm not sure. Did you embrace it?
Speaker 1:So I think that's one of the things that changed my point of view in life is, during that deployment, in the first 45 days, I saw so many people get killed and I just continued to see people get killed, either our units, other units that were going through our sector, and I saw a lot of Iraqis get killed, but that didn't affect me the same as Americans, Correct. And then, basically, it came to the point where I saw dudes that were better men than me, better shape, better prepared, smarter, braver, better infantrymen, did everything right, got killed. That kind of made me take the perspective of like no, that dude's like. That dude's a man, you know, that is the man that I wish to be one day and he got killed. Where does that leave me Right? So it came to the point where, when I was talking about mentality, when you get back like you have to embrace it. So, like a lot of us not all of us made the decision I'm probably going to die here. It is what it is. I can either kill as many of them as I can and go out fighting, or I can do everything I can to get home in one piece, and there's a difference.
Speaker 1:There's a difference and I personally believe that showed when they got back from deployment what part, that part, what choice they made internally. Are you serious, absolutely? I think it's a confidence thing when you make that choice that you're gonna fight to the death, absolutely, and you're gonna embrace it and face death and you're okay with dying but you're going to take out as many of them as you can. Or, in the back of your mind, like I'm going to kind of just do enough. But In what ways could you see it when you got back? Confidence, women with women right, because it was all male units at that time. Right, I knew guys that would go out and women, like confident men, just like men, like confident women, their confidence was gone Cause, like a little voice inside of their head was like you didn't step up to the plate when you needed to, when it counted. You were just trying to get home.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting theory, but yeah, I made the decision that I was going to die over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and people do that. They come back and they're confident. You could feel the confidence.
Speaker 2:I mean, we carried an extra round in our pocket in case we were going to get captured. We were going to fucking kill ourselves, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wouldn't do that, I'd just fight with my hands. No, I didn't want to end up on the internet.
Speaker 2:We didn't want to end up on the internet getting our.
Speaker 1:We're just fucking off ourselves if it came down to that yeah, I don't know if you saw it, but like you could tell, like guys that used to get a lot of girls and used to like ladies men, when they came back they weren't the same. You know, I'm saying they weren't the same because they don't have that self-confidence of hey, when it gets, when it gets down on the line. That's an interesting theory, dude. Yeah, that's that's kind of theory that I saw. Saw, yeah, that I was just like oh, like that person doesn't exude confidence Because they deep down know that they shied away at the moment of truth.
Speaker 2:Do you think every man should experience combat?
Speaker 1:No, I don't. I think it's okay if they don't. I think it's not for everyone. I think the infantry is not they don't. I think it's not for everyone. I think the infantry is not for everyone.
Speaker 2:I think war is not for everyone but earlier you made the uh statement of everybody should serve their country. Were you saying just in any capacity, whether you're a pog, no disrespect or just any mos absolutely, I think.
Speaker 1:I think that's. That's a thing. So during that first deployment, I saw people that weren't infantry or support units. I saw them do amazing things, right, because they saw what we were going through and they stepped their game up Right, right right and they were like— Mechanics. The mechanics would be sleeping the whole night. We'd come back. They're like I don't care, I was asleep. They'd come over there, let me fix your stuff, because you guys are fighting the war and our job is to make sure you guys are ready fuelers yeah, yeah, shout out to all the mos's.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's all part of the fucking military machine yeah, and they stepped it up because they saw what we were doing right. So the whole unit was better because everybody knew their part. That was integral. We didn't talk bad to them, correct? We're just like no, you're helping us, thank you. And they'd be like yo go take a shower, you know, because we hadn't showered in a week, and they're like yo, go take a shower, I got you. Did you guys have air support in baghdad? Uh, well, we had more, because it was the city. We had helicopters, I was, or uh, oh, no, uh, apaches, okay, so they would. Let us have apaches sometimes for big missions.
Speaker 1:We'd have, would you guys talk with them through cons yeah, well, I wouldn't because I was private, correct, yeah, but yeah, yeah, when they would, they would just fly around and they'd be like hey, we'd get in a firefight. I'm like, hey, that building right there. I'm like cool, yeah. So, but we didn't get the cool stuff. Like in ramadi, they would cart an arty, they were shooting main guns. We didn't get to shoot main guns from the tanks in the city what about charlie company?
Speaker 2:were they shooting main guns in the well?
Speaker 1:they didn't have no tanks huh, no, well, they had two sectors, and one of the sectors it was too small, right for tanks. The other one, but, um, we rolled tanks there. But when they rolled tanks they didn't want nothing.
Speaker 2:I want to say that they were shooting main guns in samara, Baton Rouge.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah. Back then and even during that time frame, in different parts of the country they were shooting main gun Right. But since we were high vis and a tank round is going to go through a couple houses, Collateral damage man. Yeah, yeah, and it was big.
Speaker 2:So, ultimately, what life lessons did you take away from being a combat veteran?
Speaker 1:It's a broad question that I hadn't thought about either. Do you value life more? Yes, I think, with trauma and PTSD and things like that, I've had so many friends kill themselves. I've had so many friends kill themselves. I've had so many friends die.
Speaker 1:One of the big things I see with here is I value how I'm going to die. What I mean by that is how's it going to seem like, hey, juan Carlos, you went to war so many times, you faced death so many times for so many years and then you died in a car accident because you didn't wear your seatbelt or because you weren't paying attention. I don't want to die like that. I want to die an old man. You know what I'm saying. I value how. I want to die more. I don't take risks that I don't need to, and people are like I remember I get friends. You know homies back in Cali. They're like you wear your seatbelt. I don't drink and drive. I'm like why am I going to drink and drive? Like, no, like. Do I want to die drinking and driving Like I'm a combat vet?
Speaker 2:Either I'm going to die in some kind of fight figured I was going to go out in a blaze of glory man. I don't want to. Well, I kind of do. I mean, if I got to pick you know, that's kind of the way I want to go, I want to die old and happy. Do you Absolutely Old and happy Yep, you're already on the path, man.
Speaker 1:So I am old, yeah.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:a good head on your shoulders, bro, for experiencing everything that you experienced, dude yeah, it's a rough path and, um, I remember getting to the age that I talked to friends, you know, and it's just like I just turned 40 and I'm just like, hey, it's a blessing for people in our profession, it's, it's an accomplishment to reach older, older age true.
Speaker 2:What's that saying? That they say be aware of old men. That in uh be aware of old men in a profession where men die young yeah, yeah, definitely so what is it that you do now?
Speaker 1:I know you mentioned you're gonna go do some business back in nicaragua, so um, basically the first 14 years I was in the army, it was back-to-back deployments and then it was peacetime tours and it was things like that. So for 14 years I was on and it was training, it was doing this and it was just like 14 years of being burnt out. And what ended up happening is I got an instructor position in a non-combat role and I started dealing with some stuff and I was like, okay, I don't have to be wound up and turned on, started dealing with some anxiety, some issues like that. So I was like, let me go get some help. When he got some help, I think it changed my life dramatically. And then I was like what do I want to do with my life? Because I was looking at the tail end of my career that was coming and I was like, okay, your combat days are done, there's no war, right, what's what's next? So I started going to school I had the time because of that and before I didn't have time to do that. So I started going to college, started getting educated, started reading more, started doing more things like that.
Speaker 1:I initially wanted to work after I got out of the army to get a job. I didn't really know what I want to do, but I just know I want to start school. Then what ended up happening is the army, and it's amazing ways. Right before I get to ready to retire, they give me drill sergeant orders. Okay, drill sergeant orders. You got to turn it back on. It's not the same Right, it's not life or death, but you're getting up at.
Speaker 2:I used to get up at 3 45 every morning kind of is like life or death when you're teaching the new privates recruits well, I didn't feel like it because I'm not gonna die.
Speaker 1:Right, I want to teach them to do as much as they can get a good base, of course, but it wasn't like I'm sending these, these young men and women, out to war right now, correct, it's the possibility. You want to train them with that mindset, but you don't want to overkill them and think like, if you don't learn this, you die, because that's what they told us in base training. They were like, if you don't learn this, somebody's gonna die. Well, they weren't lying. Yeah, it was the truth, that was the mentality, right? But you can't convince a young person, correct? You don't learn this, you die. Like where, where's the war?
Speaker 2:you know you can you're fucking smart for their own good man.
Speaker 1:Well, that's honesty you know, and I think that's the best way to work with honesty, yeah, like this is not, but you need to have some kind of base right. So I did that two years. It was 10 weeks, three days off from four. We had to be there at five in the morning, get off at like seven, eight, nine, hell, no man, miserable, yeah, hell, no dude. So, doing that kind of stepped off college a little bit started business. Uh, business opportunity came up with immigration stuff. You ever see, privates do dumb shit. That's all they do, that's all they do.
Speaker 1:So what ended up happening was one of the things we were doing there was helping soldiers with immigration stuff become citizens. So I have had foreign wives German of course and I've gone through that process, so I was helping them through that. Then I was talking to them and they were telling me, like hey, drill Sergeant, you know people charge like 5,000, $10,000 to do this. I said, excuse me, I did it in like 15 minutes with you. Light bulb popped, started doing that. Started doing that. Started helping people immigrate legally, fix their status, doing things like that, charging much less but a lot more than people would expect. Right, that became well while I was a drill sergeant.
Speaker 1:With the new administration, immigration changed. I saw that coming and I pivoted because I knew this was going to change. I pivoted into land development in Nicaragua because I saw people working here. What do they want to do? The people that I helped. Come here legally. They said I want to buy a house in Nicaragua, I want to buy a pile of land. Come here legally. They said I want to buy a house in nicaragua, I want to buy a pile of land. So I invested in some land down there and then I was like I don't want to be the seller, I want to be the buyer. I want to be the seller yeah because I saw how much money people were making like no, no, I'd rather sell than buy. So I started working on that project and that's what step I'm on now and that's going to evolve into something else, because I always want to see something, seek opportunity, have enough capital, seize it and exploit it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, dude. You definitely got the right state of mind, bro, especially with all your experiences. You're attacking this entrepreneur's business with the same mindset from the military experience.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of people want to do it and I think one of the mistakes people make is they don't go through the academic portion of it, because people can be successful in business but having that academic backing makes things different, not just academic.
Speaker 2:I think it's a fear of failure.
Speaker 1:Also you got to yes, because the way I tell people the higher the risk.
Speaker 2:The more money you make, the higher the risk, the greater the reward. Is what some people say yeah, higher the risk had reward, but it's also a higher failure yeah, and you're gonna fail more, but we made the decision, we were willing to die at one point, so anything else in between is fair game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd never thought about it like that, yet I think that that mentality I mean really, what matters nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like I could be broke. I'll be okay, exactly, dude. Well, I wanted to thank you for coming on the show, bro. I really enjoyed this conversation, dude, like taking a trip down memory lane, absolutely, and I know one of the biggest takeaways you wanted was to document history. Absolutely, yes, I think you did that a good job of that man yeah, and I've been following you and I.
Speaker 1:I don't actually agree on everything with you, but you know what it's okay, I respect it and I I respect you as a person. I respect your story. I think it's great that you get to tell it and share it with people. Cool, thank you for that dude.
Speaker 2:Well, there you guys have it folks. Another banger. Man of uh, honorable military veteran bringing you another banger. If you haven't already subscribed, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Love you guys, keep pushing forward.
Speaker 1:Unhinged line, hector's legend engraved Living life raw never been tamed From the hood to the pen.
Speaker 2:Truth entails pen. Hector Bravo, unhinged story never ends you, Thank you.
