Ep 11 Spc M.H. Benjey Memoirs in the Sand: A Story of Survival and Brotherhood

In this episode of 'Memoirs of a Veteran,' the host welcomes back Specialist Benji, who previously appeared on the Memorial Day episode. Benji recounts his experiences in the Army, starting from his reaction to 9/11, his entry into basic training, and his deployment challenges in Iraq. He vividly describes a training accident at JRTC that claimed the lives of two close comrades and dispels false rumors surrounding the incident. Benji shares his emotional journey of being separated from his unit, struggling with PTSD, and eventually finding belonging and strength among his comrades. The episode highlights the bond between soldiers, the challenges of readjusting to civilian life, and the importance of supportive veteran communities.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Memoirs of a Veteran. It's like memoirs of a geisha, but in English where combat veterans come and tell their stories. Talk about the general mayhem they caused overseas and stateside. Please like, subscribe and all that fun shit you're supposed to do. Give it five stars if you feel so necessary. Remember, this is a safe place for veterans. We love you. Enjoy the episode. All right, we are back with another episode, a regularly scheduled episode. So Christine Baldino can stop complaining to me. We got specialist Benji. He was on our Memorial Day episode. He served four years in the Army with me in thir or Second Battalion 1, 8 7, the Rock sans. And he wanted to come back on and he wanted to tell the full story, not just a little bit about Memorial Day. So welcome back, brother. We're excited to have you. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here, man. It's an honor. Yeah it's an honor to have you back IS we said in the Memorial Day episode pretty much since I started this. You were the guy I tried to get on here from the beginning. I appreciate it. And we just took a little bit of time getting it going but we're here now. So let's start off at the beginning, man. We always start around nine 11. So where were you in nine 11? Were you in basic training at that point, or No, not yet. So I was actually going to a community college at the time called Macomb Community College in Michigan. And I was actually at the school's bookstore looking for whatever books I needed for whatever stupid class I was taking. And the lady behind the counter didn't speak English that well. I think maybe she was Eastern European but she was watching. One of those little black and white TVs. And I didn't pay much attention to it until I came up to the counter and she wouldn't look at me. She was just stuck to this tv. I'm like, what the fuck are you looking at? And she finally looked at me. She said, they're, she just could tell she's looking for the words. And she said that they're bombing us. And I said who's bombing us? And she said I shit you not, she thought for a second and went the Germans. Oh man. I said, lady, you're about, let's say, at the time I was like, you're about 65 years too late. Get stuck with the Germans. I tell you that. I didn't see until I saw the one of big screens in the courtyard. I was like, holy shit, my heart drops. I was in a recruiter's office later that day. So you said right then and there, I'm done with college. I'm gonna go join the military. And you signed up on September 11th? I went and I didn't sign anything on that day, but I went immediately to a recruiter's office. And they were barely, you know how recruiters talk? They were barely getting two words to be able to string together. Really? I thought like that would've been their money day, it would've been like, Hey, this we're going to war now. Like you can, yeah. You can serve your country. Here we go. But yeah. They probably had brothers somewhere that they served with that were potentially absolutely getting ready to go. Absolutely. I. I called my mom from the recruiter's office and caller ID said US government. So she answered and was crying and the minute she answered, she's I knew where you were. Really? Yep. So she knew just So is it, did you come from a military family? Is it something that's in your guys' blood? Blood? My great-grandfather was with the fifth Marines infantry during World War I. Oh, wow. He fought in every major engagement. My family still has his engagement medals and like Bella Wood and all that shit. Then Wow. They argon the Muse are gone. There's a few of'em. I don't remember off the top of my, but it's pretty much all of them that he took. He was in Bella Wood, he was in the whole thing. He was only out of combat for about two weeks because he got the flu. Wow. Yeah. That my, didn't think Marines were allowed to get the flu. I don't know. They eat weird shit yeah. Yeah, my grand, my great-grandpa Herman was a island hopper during World War ii. I found was with the Army or no, Marines. Yeah. I found a I found his casualty card. Oh, wow. Where it, like on ancestry.com, where they have Oh, wow. All the old documents and stuff. So I saved that where it shows his casualty card where he was wounded and it had the island, the battle I don't remember it now, but I have it saved so I can always go back and look at it. That's pretty awesome. I like having that kind of stuff. I had a picture of my great-grandfather sitting on a brick wall in France, and I had, my grandfather was in the Navy, and I have a cousin who was in the Marine Corps. My brother was in the Army. I decided to go army. So it's a family thing for y'all. So when she called, she, it wasn't a huge surprise. She knew. She knew exactly. That's the first thing she said to me when she answered the phone, was I knew it. So from that point, how long before you, you got to basic training, and obviously you went to Benning because you were an infantryman I was in the late entry program because we didn't, so I grew up in a trailer. I did too, buddy. Yeah. We didn't have much. What we did have, I could afford like one semester of community college, one class per semester. And we already paid, so I did the late entry program and I left for basic in January. Okay. So what was that like when you got there? We got to Benning, at two in the morning. I couldn't grow a beard until my thirties, so I, I didn't really have to worry too much. We got there about two in the morning and welcome to the United States Army and I remember dry shaving'cause they're like, you got 50 seconds to get in there and shave that shit off your face. And they did our shit real quick. Led us to that little, that barracks room at the replacement telling, what was that called? 30th ag. Yep. 30th Ag. And I remember crawling on this top bunk in the dark in a room full of dudes and I'm staring at the ceiling and I'm like, oh God, what the fuck did I do? Yeah. What the fuck did I do? I want my mom. So how long did you stay at 30th ag? Did they get you out pretty quick? No, because they were choked with recruits. Yeah. So I was there for two weeks. Oh, okay. I was there a month when I got there in 98. Oh shit. Yeah, it was ridiculous. They were backlogged. Yeah, I was, walk around'cause you got that shot in the ass and you can barely walk up and down steps. Yeah. Our drill sergeant er and I have talked about him in previous podcasts. We were his first cycle, he was just a sadistic dude, but he made us stand up, jump up in the air, and then land on our ass right after we got the shot and he said it was to help us. Oh yeah. I'm sure it wasn't, yeah, it just funny statist pain statistically. Yeah. One of my drill sergeants was actually rock son. It was just his first cycle. Oh no shit. Yeah, he just came from the one 87th. Damn. Do you remember his name? Drill Sergeant Hearn. Sergeant Hearn. It doesn't ring a bell. Yeah. I don't know what battalion he came from. He didn't do a whole lot of talking. He's more the he was more of the march into the barracks and knock everything over and leave and not say a word kind of guy. Those are the best. They're not for when you're there, but, I actually went to basic with Ryan Armstrong, who went to our company in platoon. Oh, no shit. Okay. Yep. He slept in the bunk next to me. Oh yeah. Alphabetical ab Yeah. Yeah, he was a little badass even then. No shit. Okay. I remember he looked right at Armstrong one time. You're gonna be a rock asan. And I can't remember in one of your previous episodes who said maybe it was Palmer who said, when I got to Campbell, I was like, oh man, I hope I don't go to Third Brigade. Oh, it was it was me and Wood. Wood. Yeah, wood. When we got to Campbell in 98, like we heard that was like the worst one to go to. Yeah. And so we were like, man, we heard the same. Yeah, we hope we don't go there. And then sure enough, we came down on orders to go there. I just remember standing there for more issue and they gave us all those little printouts and I said, third Brigade. I'm like, what is this? And I went over to this female NCO, and I'm like, what is this? The rock songs? And she's yeah, I was, fuck. I heard horror stories. Yeah. We're actually the best, oh, don't you don't know that when you get there? No. You don't know that when you get there. But now fuck, I wouldn't have had it in your way. Yeah. Everybody knows what that is. Everybody. Yeah. Oh yeah. I've got the Tory on my leg. I got a tattoo. I got drunk one night with tele Montes. Yeah, everyone's got one. If you've been there you probably got one if you're a grunt. And I was coaching a 12 U tackle football team and some guy from the stands, Hey, rock Ofan. And it was a grandpa of one of the, one of the kids I was coaching and he's Hey, you are in Roxanne. And I was like, yeah. And we just immediately got to talking just about the old unit and stuff. It was pretty cool. We're everywhere, man. Oh, I know. I got a Tory on the back of my truck. I still get people pulled next to me pointing at a tattoo. That's awesome. All right, so you're at basic you graduate and then you get your orders to the Rock songs. What was that like your first day? What's the timeframe when you get there roughly? It was like roughly sometime in May. So that's May of 2001. 2002, I believe. Didn't you say that you got there when they stopped sending them to Iraq or to Afghanistan? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So 2002 Two, yeah. 2002. Okay. My timeframe's all off. Yeah, mine is, I, my memory is shit. I took a blow to the head and me too. A couple. Oh yeah. All right. Yeah.'cause I keep forgetting that we went to Afghanistan in 2002. Yeah, I always think 2001. So you get there in May and you're on rear D. Yep. And so you fa Rito leaves and he comes over there. You said it was just like, what, a week or two you got there two late probably. Yeah, it was about a week. They were like, yeah, we're not sending new guys anymore. It is what it is. So you're on detachment now. So what was the rear D life like? Exactly what you expect for a new brand new cherry private. A lot of cleaning, lot of long work like cutting the grass every Tuesday. And Sergeant Almer was actually the rear D commander, or at least in charge of us the, our little group of alpha company. Yeah. So he'd lead us on PT and stuff like that. I remember y'all's weapons got shipped back, so we spent, quite a while cleaning all of those. So you guys didn't have to do it when you return, it's the last thing you wanna fucking do. We made return from war. Yeah. See, I didn't even remember that we shipped our weapons back early. Yeah. But thank you for cleaning them all. Hey, I was happy to because I knew, I had a lot of proving to do when you guys got home and I, so everything I did in that, those weapons, man, I made sure I did it right. Yeah. Now why do you feel like you had a lot of proving to do? Because I was in the infantry, I'm with a bunch of guys who've been together for, through some shit, through app. You guys were operation and account together. And I looked at it as having to earn my place among you. Yeah. And that was my goal. Now I wasn't the most mature guy back then, shit. I have just recently started to mature, but. Shit. I think we're all that way. But yeah, so go ahead. It was my, no, go ahead. I was gonna ask you another question, but finish that. I was gonna say, it was my first time away from home and I was just learning to be a grown ass man without a ma strong male influence, yeah, no, I get that. I think that's what, when a lot of privates first get there, I think that's their struggle. They get all that freedom and then they also have someone telling'em what to do all the time, and they don't always like that, but yet they have the freedom. And so you gotta learn to balance it. But what was it like reading some of those stories about, operation Anaconda, the big battle we were on and you're at the unit, you're coming to that unit, what was that like? To me it was exciting. It was the calm before the storm. Like you knew more was coming. This wasn't the end, this was the beginning of the war on terror, the global war on terror. And for me personally, I can only speak for myself. I had this something big's coming and I'm gonna be a part of it. It was very, it was exciting and, scary at the same time. I'd never really been away from home and I was still getting used to that. So it was exciting in a lot of ways. And, you're purpose driven. You're finally. Part of something bigger than yourself and felt at that point in time. I'm gonna be young forever deal. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I was still that young. At least I wish I had that body, at least I was back to skinny. Me too. Shit. You're still skinny, dude. I try to work out just given the nature of my job, but yeah, when I quit drinking, I'll get slimmer. Yeah, that'll help for sure. Although it hasn't worked as well with me. It's those late night snacks that get me still. I do those too, but that, Hey, that's what Weapons Squad does, man. We eat. Yeah. You guys are bigger dudes. You needed extra calories, yes, we did. All right, so now, what was it like when we got home for you? We're home and we're having the big, celebration, was that kind of awkward for you? Or the night you guys got home? Me and the other rear d guys were in the stands when you marched into the field house. Yeah. And that part wasn't scary. That part was, oh, I get to be a part of this someday. Yeah. But meeting you all for the first time was definitely scary. Definitely for me at least. I'm like, oh my God, I know they're gonna I haven't earned my place yet. They dunno who I'm I'm going into. Lion's dent here and I better perform. Yeah. I'm just trying to, that's, God, that's almost 30 years, 20, 20 plus years. I'm just trying to even think what that would've been like if I saw you or yelled at you to get outta my way or, we just got home. Shut up, private. Get outta my way. Basically it was like you a mouse just trying to avoid everybody's footsteps. That's what it was. You were among giants at that point. Yeah, and it definitely felt that way actually. I was in the parking lot directing traffic when you guys were, when everybody was parking, trying to get there, when you guys were getting ready to come when you guys were about to, to land. And I actually told Lieutenant Colonel Rasler that he can't park there. He pulled up right into the parking lot. You can't park there. And then he put his bray on. I was like, oh fuck. Do whatever you want. Fuck that guy. I hate that guy. I didn't know any better. Yeah, that was a E two. You could have told him to go fuck himself. And I think we all would've praised you. I would've known If I would've known that then to impress you guys, I would've done it. Oh yeah. And then you add in the whole, everything he said after the JR. I don't, you may have been. Taken Avo taken away after the JRTC stuff, but when he said, these guys would've would want you to continue this mission, I heard about that. I wasn't there for it, but I heard about it. I just wanted to crawl up there and just fucking deck him in the face like, you're a piece of shit. We should just call it right now and just go and be done. But I'm getting ahead of myself. That's just one other reason among so many that I dislike him immensely as much. Forgot about that much. As much as you hate lemon. He's on my list. If I see him walking down the road, I'm just gonna punch him like no questions asked. I better never see him in a VFW'cause I, Ooh, okay. Calm down. I get, oh, I get the anger. I get the anger, brother. I do. Don't believe me, that guy. All we come back off block leave and we start the train up, like we're getting ready to start. You're now with us, right? You're part of, you're part of us. So just walk me through what was that like? Now you're training with us, we know we're going to Iraq. You, your mind is preparing for war in Iraq with us. So what was that like? Like now you know you're going and. We're gonna do training in the back, 40 stick lanes, road marches. Qualifying, all that shit. So one of the first big field exercises we did, we we landed at lz. We actually loaded black hawks. And I remember being one of the first guys to jump off the Blackhawk, and run you duck, even though I'm short as fuck. So I had no, no business ducking. I wasn't anywhere near the blades. But, you go running out and I remember the first thing actually popped into my head. I was like, man, it's too back home. Can see me now. How fucking cool I look. That's awesome. I was like, I'm doing something most people never do, and even if I'm not doing it good, I'm still fucking doing it. And that's the way I looked at it. I just, it was an exciting time, even if it was miserable because, our tr our gold cycle was in fucking November or some shit. And of course, the minute your foot hits the ground, the rocks on rain, God comes out. God, yes. Especially if it's late in the year, oh, rain season in the, late fall. Absolutely. And we spent how weeks out there just in the rain. And I remember one point we, our platoon was moving forward and they left our squad back to watch the, for a while. For what purpose? A little fuzzy, but I remember laying, I laid across the rocks and next thing you know, I just feel these raindrops hitting my face. Fuck God. Damnit man. And it just starts pissing and it just doesn't stop. And Corporal Fisher actually was like, you guys get some sleep. Go over there, get some sleep. And I was like what about you? He's I'm fine. And he sat on a rucksack and I remember laying there and in the dark, I looked at him and I could just see the cherry of his pipe in the darkness, that's awesome. We do this with his Yeah, he his thumb. Yeah. Yeah. Pack it. Dig it up. Yeah. So he's doing that in the darkness, and I'm squeezed in between Hayhurst and Fava. Try to find the two biggest guys in platoon for even a shred of fucking warmth. Dude, that's a great story. But that's legit. That's what life was like. The ponchos only held back so much water. They're water resistant. They're never waterproof. And it's not like we get brand new ones. When you get to the unit, you get the whatever's best from the last guy, yeah. But that is fucking wad stuck on it. Yeah. You're, yeah. It's it sucks. And it, I almost swear that the rocket on leadership says, okay, I think it's gonna be rainy during this month. Let's go that to the field. That whole fucking month. Yeah. And let's just play. I, it never seemed, that's why they always say, if it ain't raining, we ain't training. It's Oh. And they weren't joking. Yeah. It's a, it's legit In Fort Campbell, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.'cause shit's about to change. It would kick our asses too. That's what I tell people, I would rather be hot and cold even to this day. And I tell people who argue with me, I'm like no. You don't understand. You've never been cold. You've been momentarily inconvenienced by it, but you've never been cold to the phone. No. Cold. Cold. Yeah. Like you, you go out in the winter and you're cold. But when you have no warmth at all and you're near that almost going into the first stage of hypothermia, that's fucking cold. I'm pretty sure I had a cold weather injury because it's 80 degrees outside. If I lay down, like at my couch in the living room, my toes will start to go numb. Yeah. To this day. Like I, I hate cold feet. And that that's walking around with fucking wet socks and boots for days on end. And no matter how many times you change your socks, it doesn't matter if you're putting it in a wet leather boot, it goes right back to fucking wet. Absolutely. And that first exercise the day we were leaving, guess who fucking shows up, Bob? The sun comes out, it's all fucking sunshine. And Oh, it's, the roads are so muddy that I sunk down well, past my boot and had to have my squad like, pull me out and then dig my boot out because it just sucked my Yeah. Sucked it right off. Yeah. Yeah. I was working, when I was working in the field it was cold one morning, I'm like, come on, Bob, hurry up and get out. And they looked at me like, who the fuck are you talking to? I'm like, the sun. I'm like, why would you call it Bob Big orange ball? That's what we called the sun in the military. People don't understand that reference very much. No, I say it sometimes. They're like, who? Wait, what? Who's Bob? Yeah. Oh, it's big orange ball. It's the sun. I'm talking about the sun. Yeah. We're very simplistic sometimes in our acronyms in the military. It's real easy to understand. Do you wanna get into JRTC? Yeah, like I said I'm an open book. It's all of our stories and I'll happily tell it. Honestly it's, I'm, my, I just got goosebumps just thinking about it.'cause it's your story. It, I know you say it's all of our stories, but it's yours, fishers and FTOs the most. Yeah. So it like I said I happy's the wrong word. I am willing to tell the story. Okay. Because I have just happened to be the closest when we were there. I just, I'm worried about you because you're here now. Oh I appreciate it. And I think it's commendable that you want to tell the story for them, but I'm also, concerned about you.'cause No, I appreciate it. I can't imagine that this is gonna be easy for you in any way. It's it's not easy for any of us to even think about. At any point if you just say, Hey, let's pause, or we need to take a break. Or if you say, Hey, let's just move on, we'll move on. Because I know there's a lot to talk about in Iraq with First Sergeant Lemon. Oh. And I do not want to miss that oh, you're not going. No, I appreciate it, brother. I do. And I will check on you tomorrow like I did last time. Oh, I really appreciated it. So it's, you lose track of your brothers when you hear from them. It's always a. Okay. All right dude I'll let you start. You can start at the beginning of JRTC. You can start wherever you want. I'll keep it, I'll start it off a lighthearted note. When we were all headed down there and we used those commercial buses, so it's really high off the ground. You can see in other people's cars, I dunno, we're going, and it, the bus is quiet, people are snoring. I'm sitting there with my head against the window, looking out the window. And this dude in a Jeep, like Cherokee or something pulls up and he's got this portal magazine across his steering wheel. And he's just shown his little one who daddy is just going at it. And like the most, it was the craziest thing I ever saw in my life. I was like, Hey, everybody, wake up. This guy's jacking off. Look like, Sergeant Hessing, like he's nudge of people who, the guy's just going to town on himself. Fucking Sergeant Hessian man. Dirty old bastard. Oh yeah. I remember him checking out some female soldiers when we on a run once, it was like December and he had snot face and he is looking at run by. That's all. Hey, we called him the lone wolf'cause he would just wander off in a bar and next thing you know, he'd come back with this chick and we're just like, what? Where the fuck did you go? We'd have to like, keep tabs on him. Somebody always had to know where he was.'cause we didn't know if he was gonna go fight or find something to take home. Oh, that sounds like what I remember of them. Yeah. Now, real quick, before we get too deep, did you ever come to any of the parties at our house? Like when we would have the platoon parties? I don't think so. I went to one, but that was when I was in First Platoon. Okay. All right. I was just curious. No, I was married at the time and trying That's right. I forgot. I was trying to figure that whole thing out. Yeah. And I never really got an opportunity to really do that. I gotcha. All right. So we're with the masturbating guy on the bus on the way to JRTC. So yeah, we get there, and we get in. I still think about that every, I still tell that story. That's, you didn't have to sit in the back by the shitter door, did you? I don't think so. I think I was more in the middle. We usually put the new guys in the back of the bus, so if, somebody has to take a shit, they gotta smell it, the whole bus ride down there. But glad you didn't get stuck back there. At that point, I mean we all our farts smell the fucking same, so it didn't matter. Yeah, that's true. We get there and that, that was Big Bays. They keep us in, oh yeah. Those big open bay barracks. Yep. And I don't remember much about my time sitting in there waiting to go. I just remember playing stupid private games, like Run at the Wall Locker as fast as you can and see if they'll knock it over when you smash into it. Kind of deal. But we'd stuff someone inside it first and boom until we got yelled at to knock the fuck off. It probably took a while'cause we were probably playing spades or some shit gambling. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There was, there's plenty of that going around. And the one thing I remember that part is a blur, but I remember the rest of the company moved out before my squad and Sergeant Baldino and we stayed behind for an extra night. I don't know why. I don't remember either. But I do remember we, we getting attached the night before we were supposed to roll out, we had to go like a meet and greet with the tankers almost. Yeah. That we had no comms with. No comms, none. Which is, I never understood that. We can't communicate with them by radio, but we're gonna be attached to them. Yeah, basically. Anyways, know they let us check out this Abrams, and next thing there's 30 in instrument just crawling all over, like a bunch of kids jumping up and down and stuff. That's like World War ii. Remember, we wanted to sit on the tanks like they did. Yeah, absolutely. And you could tell the tankers were like, crawling all over my baby. Yeah. What the fuck are these guys doing? Basically, just to get us introduced to'em, even though, I've already used one for heat, but yeah, but standing behind those things where the exhaust comes out, that's fucking, that's makes you just feel sick. Yeah, it did, but it also felt like heaven as cold. We, as cold as I was at one point, I'm like, oh my God. Because I remember we dismounted at one point and Fixture told us, Hey, go stand behind the Abrams. And I was like, fuck four. He's just go fuck and stand behind the Abrams. Someone stood behind the abra oh, as the first bit of heat I felt in, two weeks. Yeah. Hey, he was the smart leader. He absolutely was. He knew all the little tricks and so we, the first night there, I just remember being so miserable because I was thinking the whole time that Louisiana would be warm, even if it is November and was not, except when we're there. Except when we're there, we got off. First we trained for a week for the live fire exercise. Yep. And I remember, I can't even remember what lieutenant it was, made us redo it like fucking 60 times until it was like midnight. But the minute we got off the fucking, the trucks, they were actually deucing. The halves, not even LTVs, they were deuce and a halves and minute our boots hit the ground there, it was fucking started raining. And luckily though, they had these little shacks. When I say little shack, this fucking thing was tiny and nobody was gonna sleep in the rain. So we're just sleeping on each other, like a box of fucking kittens, like just one on top of another. Just trying to find a fucking space to just keep dry while we trained for this bullshit. And man, that was a long week of just constant rain. And then, we did the whole live fire exercise. And this is where me not having my LDV ca or my 2 0 3 vest came into play. So I'm carrying that two 40 satchel. Yeah, the two Oh, or saw pouch. Yeah. Saw pouch was filled with the dummy 2 0 3 rounds at orange smoke. And I hadn't been three gun for that. I, right before we went, I got to, to with it, shoot it, it was just me and nobody else. And then some. Randall Lieutenant, and that was actually a funny story in and of itself because he got down behind these railroad ties and you're shooting the 2 0 3, the orange smoke at the targets. And I remember I looked over at this lieutenant and he had his very breach of the 2 0 3, just resting on the railroad tie. And I remember saying, Hey sir, that's not high enough. And he shook the fuck up private. Okay? And a minute later I hear, poof when I look over and this dude's just in an orange cloud, and he wouldn't even look at me. He's just, god damnit, trying to open the shit and extract the fucking casing. And I was like, say shit. I told you motherfucker. Favado never fired his 2 0 3 except in Afghanistan right before Anaconda. We did a little makeshift range. And I wanna say we got in trouble because cave or somebody shot a camel, there was like a bedoin out there, and we were waiting for the fucking them to move. Like we told'em the whole day to move and we're sitting out there like we needed to rero our weapons before we went in. And we tried everything to get'em to move. And finally Baldino was just like. Shooting their what direction? He fucking, he hit the camel. So fava we're like, Hey, shoot. So he throws a 2 0 3 round out there. A live 2 0 3 was the first one he'd ever fired, so yeah. Not the first time he fired explosive because when we finally moved, moved the cont or moved to Target, that, that live fire village for, I'd like to give a little credit to the sappers that were with us, because they were gonna blow the barbed wire. The ine wire breach. Yeah. So we could breach and they had a brand new private. He got up and ran while we were throwing lead down range, and I can't remember this NCOs name, but he was a good fucking dude. This dude did not hesitate to stand up, run across our field of fire and grab this fucker and grab by his back of his lapel and rip him down and pull him back because he's you dumb motherfucker. Oh yeah, he's gonna get shot. Oh easy. He just sprinted across the field and grabbed him, brought him back. I was like, wow. Kid's lucky. Yeah. But fav has a T four and okay, I'm pro next to him. I'm looking up at him and he, Sergeant Baldino gives the order, Hey, fucking hit that machine gun nest. Five stands up, goes like this. And I'm looking at him and he shoots it and he's frozen for a second, and he looks down at me and he opens his mouth and goes, and there's fucking smoke comes out of his mouth. He's oh, drops the fucking thing here. An explosion. It was, he just had to have been there. It was funny as fuck to me because it was blew his hair back and shit. He had a lot of hair too on top of his head. Yeah, he did. He had a, he had thick hair. He had a mop up there. But so I ended up getting killed onto the PI because there was no fucking cover for me. I ended up behind a, like a porta shitter kneeling in it, and I'm throwing these fucking two or three rounds down range as money as I can. I'm just firing him off in the direction of this fucking machine gun. Another machine gun nest. And guy comes back, the dude with the fucking clicker or whatever, he is oh, you're dead. Awesome. So I go to the Piha. That was a miserable night. Good thing about it is that it only took us one, it took them one night to fucking process us. Oh, wow. I'm getting ahead of myself that we weren't there yet. That was the life fire exercise. I didn't have to go to the Piha. I'm sorry. My, my memory isn't what it used to be. It's okay. It was 20 plus years ago, buddy. Yeah I do remember that. Someone shot a fucking flare around through a window and it hit Corporal Miller. Oh shit. And that's when we found out that our fucking wet weather gear was flammable because it went up. You saw him afterwards and it was just like scorched, just melted to, even with all the damn rain we had, it still went up. Yeah. It just went up like a fucking box of Tinder. I was like, oh, that's awesome to know it's rubber, yeah. But that was pretty uneventful. That was pretty much the gist of it. As far as getting that shit done. I do remember getting freaked out on fire guard one night because I hear a clinking out in the woods and I'm the only one up. And I walked out there to check it out because I'm not waking Sergeant Baldino up for something stupid. And I'm lucky I didn't, I'm happy I didn't to this day.'cause it was fucking rain hitting a pop can out in the distance. Oh shit. Yeah, it was it was an interesting experience. But that was before the actual exercise started that whole week of the live fire exercise training. Yeah. And those are fun and good, but they're also just more stress and more headache and it tires you out more before you go into the box for two weeks. That's just pure hell. It was the first night we were out there. I'm pulling security with Sergeant Haynes behind a goddamn Humvee. And I know those motherfuckers, they're not with us. I dunno who the fuck they're to this day. I dunno. I know they got a good night's sleep. I we're prone behind this fucking Humvee and Sergeant Haynes is like, all right, we're gonna, we're gonna take shifts. It's gonna be, we're 30 minutes on, 30 minutes off. I was like, Sergeant Haynes, that's not 30 minutes shifts. That's that. We're just basically staying awake all night together. That's what we're gonna do. And that was the first night, first time in the Army where I was just like, he woke me up. As I was falling asleep. Goes the fuck, please just lemme go to bed. I just wanna sleep. No, it should have been like an hour on, hour off.'cause like you said, just about the time you're getting to sleep you're back on duty and then you're gonna fall asleep on guard. That's basically it. But it wasn't so bad the first night, but the next day was pretty fun. I was, riding on a tour of a Humvee Corporal Fisher in front of me, and he's on a 50 cal do. Just having the time of his life fucking piping his mouth. Just going to fucking town. Corporal MacArthur up there. I remember that. Can I shoot? I'm new. I don't fucking know. The OP four is apparently over there somewhere and we're getting yelled at by other fire. I'm like, can I fire? Can I shoot? Yes. Just fucking fire. It was basically, it was like black Hawk down. He is yeah, they're firing at us. Sir, let's shoot back. That's awesome. Heck, if you don't see'em, right? What are you engaging trees? This isn't Vietnam. We're not just shooting straight into the bush. That's, that was my question until I saw Corporal Fisher open up. I'm like, oh, fuck yes. Nice. Just let it fucking ring. But that was when we got into the box. Yeah. We did a lot of movement to contact one point night, which movement to contact is just walking all night till you run into something. Yeah. It was day and night like we were just walking in the woods. And Armstrong and I actually got a compliment from one of the cadre, whatever you call'em. I can't remember their names, what we used to call them. Ocs. Ocs we were walking through the woods and there's these giant cracks all throughout Louisiana in the ground. I I didn't know whatever. We went down this little valley, and I hopped down and I was like, tits deep in constantina wire. Didn't even, I didn't, I'm like, oh fuck, I'm stuck. It's crazy. And I see Armstrong going up the other side of the hill. So I looked around and grabbed a stick and I threw it at him and banged it off the back of his head of this K pot. And I was like. I can't get out, so he had to come and they eventually, pulled me out. But we stayed, silent. We moved up we knocked out an objective. We caught some mop four in the open. Afterwards the OC came over. He is you two pretty good. And Armstrong's we're cherries, sir. Oh, can't you just say we're grizzled or something, bro? Yeah, just man, fake it till you make it. That's basically, I was like, yeah. It's not big deal. Yeah. We're ranger qualified. Yeah. Yeah. I should be almost. Yeah, but not really. Yeah. I almost joined the Rangers. Yeah. Everybody's got, when, that's what I learned when I was in college. Everybody has a friend who's a Ranger. Yeah. Or I almost joined except for we did that bitches gripes and complaints episode. Talking about that. I almost joined except for, I still, and many excuses. And I was like, I always, I'm like, that's wonderful. You should get a ribbon for you. Almost join Veteran. Have you seen that vet TV episode? I saw a clip of it. Yeah. Where they talk about that and the guy has a ribbon for almost joining and then he talks about going to counseling for his PTSD of almost joining the military. That's fucking epic. It is because, I know most veterans are tired to fucking hearing it. I don't care if you almost joined or not. Yeah. That's why I don't tell anybody I'm in the military'cause they're just like, oh yeah, I was gonna join. No, you weren't. Just fucking say you weren't. It was we'll get to, we'll get to the college years later because that, yeah. Anyways, that's a whole other fucking thing. I can get sidetracked easily. Sorry. Oh, so can I, oh, I got the attention span of fucking ferret. Yeah, I'm with you. All right. So we're in the box. We're working towards the inevitable here. We're we get to this little village and we're basically putting foxholes, we haven't eaten in a couple days by this point. Now is it because you just didn't have the food in your ruck sacks or just hadn't had time, just hadn't had the food? There's supply issues and so we get in these fighting positions around the village that actually have, role players in it, people who are staying there and, cooking eggs and bacon in the morning while we're fucking. Sitting in our fighting positions, just chewing on our fucking boots.'cause we're so hungry. See that, that, I love that. Everyone always thinks, you were in the military, you guys always had food, you guys were well taken care of. The fuck we were. Do you know how many times we went without food? Like even in Afghanistan, in combat? I know you weren't there, but on Anaconda there were, we went a couple days where we didn't get resupplied with res. And a lot of us, through JRTC, we learned don't eat everything. Save peanut butter and crackers. Save something. Yeah. Because you may not get resupplied. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like I, I always saved the rice peel off, whatever the fuck they called it. Uhhuh. I always put that in my rock sack. We're in these fight fighting positions and I remember I was in a fighting position with Hayhurst and Fav came by in the dark tossed MR eight. And he said, Merry Christmas. And he hit us with it. And and I was like, wait, you only gave us one. He's that's all you fucking get. Hey. And I are arguing over the contents of this fucking thing in the dark. I wanted, no, fuck you, gimme that. And that was pretty much the only food we had. And we went a few days after that because our platoon, after repeated attacks got whittled down. I think there was probably 11 or 12 of us. Oh shit. Yeah. We spent, I don't know how many days we spent there. Eventually we couldn't cover the perimeter anymore, so we fell back into I think it was like a schoolhouse or something. Yeah. Almost made like a real small patrol base, basically. That's all we could do. And I think we spent a night or two there. I specifically remember the lieutenant's Hey, I'm gonna take you guys, we're gonna go on patrol and do a patrol. And he is Benji, you're gonna stay here. And I was like, okay. And if I I'm gonna stay by myself, they don't have extra bodies to, to guard this. So I was like, what do I do if I make contact? He's dying place. Okay. Defend to the last bullet, Benji. Basically I went into this building and I flipped over a big table and I just sat behind it, looking at the door, just waiting for someone to come walking in. Whenever OP Ford decided he wanted to check it out, was gonna catch one. But I remember at one point Sergeant Major Nielsen came by and he's Hey, you in there? Yeah, Sergeant Major come out here. Okay, I come on. He's like, where's everybody else? It's a good question, Sergeant Major. I dunno. And we weren't allowed to use any of the things the role players used. They had their own shitters and everything like that. And he talked to me for a little bit and then. Mid sense. He stopped and rubbed his stomach. He's oh man. He tell me, I got shit again. I loved fire Skull, man. He was fucking awesome. The better, the best part about it was he starts going towards one of the shitters for the role players. And this lady comes out, it's no, sir, you can't use that. He goes, Ugh, you ain't gonna tell him not to fucking do something? No. Opens the door, fucking shuts it. And you can just hear him unleash it in there. Oh, oh, that's fucking awesome. Oh, and I was just like, slunk back into my fucking building, waiting for the patrol to return, which they did. They did return that night. The sun's going down and it's dark as fucking right across from us are those tankers and they have a deuce and a half and they're serving food off of it, at the fucking in front of us. We're not eating shit that night. Not a fucking thing. And we're watching just, we can smell it even. It's like fucking K rations. But at that point, I was willing to eat a fucking pine cone and probably smell like a five star restaurant to you. Oh, it, it mouth was watering. The sun sets and we can see there, they're in line waiting to get their shit, and Sergeant Stom is Hey, let's just go get in line. Let's see what fucking happens. They can't see us. So we walk over, got in line that they. Didn't bother, didn't ask. They couldn't see our faces'cause it was too dark. Got a whole meal that night. It was fucking perfect. And it was warm'cause it was outta those meite cans or rack cans, greens or some shit. Yeah. It was outta those green, those Yeah. Thermites or whatever they called. Yeah. Mite cans. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we ate good that night and we basically stole it from the tankers, but fuck'em. I didn't fucking feel bad about it. Gonna eat in front of us while we're starving. Damn, dude. And hey, when you die and go to the pee hall, there's always res just sitting around. So those who died fucking got good meals. Yeah, we did that we get in the morning because I did end up dying because we pulled back to this farmhouse and next thing you know, we're trying to figure out, lanes of fire watch, who's gonna watch what and where. And I'm stuck in this window and they put Armstrong there and Armstrong and I are happy as fuck. So fuck yeah. I'll sleep an hour. You sleep an hour, it'll be great. We got a roof over our head, it's the little things. And then fucking fire rings out. We're being attacked. Village is being attacked and we go pouring out like a bunch of angry bees and I can't find my fucking squad. I all I see Sergeant Hayes and that's it. So I follow him. We running across the road, we hit this building and. Go the edge. And I was like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Sergeant Hayes? He's come on. We run over and we, there's this Bradley part and the gunner, one of the, or the, I dunno what, I dunno anything about a fucking Bradley, to be honest with you. Whoever is in the turret on top, he's yelling at us. He's right here on the other side of Bradley. He's right here. I'm like, Sergeant Hayes. He says right there. And Sergeant Hayes is in full like fucking combat mode. He's not hearing anything. Yeah. And I'm like, he's right there. And Sergeant Hayes goes running and I'm like, fuck. Because I was like, let's go around and just ace him. He just takes off. I'm like, I didn't I'm brand new man. This is my first fucking experience. So I'm following my squad leader. Sure enough, fucking out four. Pop. I stop.'cause he's yelling. I got you. I got you. I'm like, are you in the army or are we playing Fucking Boy scouts? Dickhead. But Sarge just goes running off into the darkness because he ain't hear shit. He's just fucking gone. You're not ringing. Obviously. He didn't hit you. I, if I go back in time, I would've just kept running too. Fuck you. I'm playing the game here. Yeah. But got loaded on the fucking truck. Me, Sergeant Hessing and Keely Sergeant Baldino, we all go to the fucking Piha and it is a goddamn refrigerator. It's freezing. Yeah. Like I step outside of the tent. We were in for a second. Sergeant Hess is standing. In this field, and he's pulling out grass and he's stuffing it in his shirt and all fucking orifices in his pants. And I'm like, Sergeant Heman, whatcha doing? He's I'm fucking trying to keep warm. But I lucked out that night'cause some poke sleeping next to me. He's Hey, you look cold. I'm like, I'm fucking freezing, man. And he's Hey, I got extra. I got an extra sleeping bag for you. Here you go. Fucking bugs. So wait, you got killed and you were allowed to take all your gear? Oh yeah. Yeah. Here you go. And I remember Sergeant Sing came over and this how you knew Sergeant Chen was a leader too, because he came across the bait and he is Hey, can Keely share that with you? I was like, yeah, he absolutely fucking can. So me and Keely cuddle all fucking night long, warm as fucking can be. And I knew to this day, I think about it, Sergeant Husing was the, it was cold go. It was cold. And I'm like, I know he's freezing. I know he's freezing. Sergeant Mulino, I can hear him rolling around in one of those thermal blankets trying to get fucking comfy, and so that's how I was like all Sergeant Husch is a real one. Yeah. This was Joe. That's what we do, man. Make sure that you guys are taking care of first and then we will figure it out later. He definitely did. Keel and I slept under that fucking thing and had a, finally had a night's rest. So Pi Haw wasn't all bags. We got food in the morning. Yeah. So I'm fucking first Sergeant's trying to chew Sergeant Bald Dino's ass next morning. I can't remember for what, I think we didn't have covers on or something, but we're like, we're dead or the haw. And I didn't get to grab my patrol cat before I fucking died. So I remember Sean just looked at him and turned and walked away and he's fuck you. And that was lemon. No lemon. I don't, I didn't see that motherfucker. He was eating good somewhere. Oh. This was some random fucking first Sergeant at Piha. Oh. Probably a Pogue first Sergeant, like Graves registration guy or some shit fucking easily. It was a Pogue. And I remember standing there and I'm watching him try to yell at Sergeant Ball. I'm playing with his fucking life. Look at that a fucking die. You don't know who that is, bro. Yeah, no. I've seen that so many times where somebody will say something and call, try to call Sergeant Baldino out, and he's just I don't have time for your shit today. And he just walks away. That's basically what he did. He is oh. Yeah, I'm not doing this with you. But then nobody, they don't follow up. They're just like, okay, I'm not gonna fuck with him.'Cause he already has that look in his eye all the time. Yeah. He, that first sergeant's yelling at him and he sees that look, and he's, right now he's hiding behind this. But if the dude has the fucking nutsack turn around and walk away mid-sentence and he has those kinds of eyes, just let him fucking go. He's gonna eat you a lot. He's gonna, what's that? That line from the movie, the thin red line. I'm gonna sink my teeth into your liver. He would've ripped it out right there. Fucking done it. So he left it alone. He left it alone. Which was probably better for his health.'Cause it's not like you guys wouldn't have jumped in if somebody would've tried to assist that dude. Well, bro, anything we'd have gone to, hell came back, ate lunch, went back to help that dude out, man, fuck him. One of the reasons why I was standing there, so I'm like, if anybody else walks over, and me, Keely and Sergeant Escher are like, alright, there's gonna be a problem. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. So what happened when you got back to the unit? Yeah, so we get back and right back to the same village and we're preparing to make movement to shoot our cordon. So we're about the end now. Yeah. This is a. I think one or two days before, but this was right around the time I qualified. Oh yeah. Right around that time. It was, it's still a good memory. I still remember it. I was having a fucking blast with these guys.'cause the sun had come out. It wasn't freezing fucking cold. I just made one dumb mistake one night when it was warm, and I'm like, I'll just use my Whoopi. And I woke up in the middle of the night spooning hayhurst, and he was in his fucking, he was in his sleeping bag. I remember just getting closer and he'd scooted away and I'd get closer and he'd get the fuck off of me. I'm like at that point I'm like, no, I'm cold. You're warm. I don't, you can yell at me. You hit me. I'm fucking sleeping on top of you. But I remember getting up, pulling my, my sleeping bag out eventually because I was just being lazy. But the day before we moved out was a really cool day. We were gonna move out at, I think midnight that night and nobody fucked with us. It was just me and the squad on this little hill outside this village. And it's a good memory. It's a warm memory. I still think about to this day. And it was just, training with that fucking ladder. Took my rucksack straps off and put it on that fucking ladder. And Corporal Fisher was teaching me how to like, get it out, get behind and hold it so you guys could run up. Yeah. Into, breach. The breach, the windows. Then a lot of it was fucking napping in the sun and fucking around with each other. Wrestling. We actually got res in our bellies. It was a pretty good fucking day. I remember that day a lot. I think about it often.'cause it was the last time we were all together. Yeah. Little did we know, took a picture of all of us, but that picture's, gone. I don't know where it went because fav, it was F'S camera. Oh shit. Yeah. And that night I had fire watch with fav and that was the last conversation I ever had with him. And it was just me and him. And he was telling me,'cause Fab was from Michigan and I remember now where he is buried. He's buried in Owosso, Michigan. Okay. And he's telling me that about this girl in Michigan, she goes to Central Michigan University. And he was like, yeah, I think she's the one man. And she's telling me all about her for an hour or so. And then we went to bed, someone took over for us and then midnight rolled around and we were up and in the back of these LTVs facing out and just basically making our way slowly to shoot our cord every so often, getting out. That was the worst part, was getting outta these trucks and going off into the fucking. Into the brush, the wood, the wood line, it's cold, it's wet, it's dewy, yeah. So you're soaked and it's not even raining. You're soaked. We kept having to do that and try not to fall asleep on the back of these trucks as we make our way. And I can't remember. I didn't, I don't remember what time we stopped. We stopped probably a mile away or so from the actual objective. I remember it reminds me,'cause we had that same, exercise at Campbell with that big Mount city. Not the shitty one. Not that shitty shoot house that you guys were talking about previously on the other Oh yeah. Probably range 42. The actual city. Yeah. We went to the actual city and I remember breaching that and seeing Sergeant Major Nielson fucking bandage across his head, smoke a cigarette as we're walking, as we're running in the breach. Go get him boys. Oh. Fire skull man. Great dude. He was he was, I I, he checked up on me. After everything remember my fucking name, that impressed me. So we get there and like I told you, I tried to leave that motherfucker behind. I took that ladder and I left it in the truck. Yeah. I was like, fuck it. I'll ask for forgiveness later. I wanna fight. I don't wanna carry this motherfucker. Everybody's looking all cool and shit, and I'm running behind him with this fucking ladder looking like an asshole so we all rally up and my squad's in front, Sergeant Haynes, he notices, Hey, where's your ladder? It's on the truck, because we keep getting on and off the trucks. And I'm like, fuck, I'll just leave. It's time to say I forgot it. We got on all, yeah. It's on the truck. He's go get it. I was like, man, fucker, God damn. I'm walking through the darkness, just fucking bitching and moaning. Mother fucking stupid. Goddamn damn man. Scared your fucking self and outta the darkness. I hear Sergeant Baldino Park, get the fucking ladder. Get it. I was like, Ugh. You get up, you start fucking running, falling all over yourself to pull this ladder outta the back of the truck. And from there, it was just movement until we got to this road that led into the city. See, and that's a scary voice coming out of the dark, Sergeant Baldino just get the fucking ladder. Yeah. That would've lit a fire under anybody. God himself would've moved faster to create the world if Sergeant Baldino would've been around, like shit would've been done in two days, not seven. Like I, yeah, exactly. It would've been done in two days. Like I was tripping over myself. Someone had just dropped a grenade near me. Yeah. Don't doubt it. Like pushing old ladies outta the way and shit. Just trying to get to this fucking ladder, i'm sorry, dad. I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me. I'm sorry. I swear I, I didn't mean it. That reminds me. Not to go off on a tangent too far, but just, I'll do it. Sergeant Baldino and that voice he uses. I remember one time in the company, ao we're all waiting to go home, but nobody will shut the fuck up. Everybody's talking. It's loud as fuck. Everybody's talking. Some people are arguing and all of a sudden he's just shut the fuck up and just dead silent. And the entire fuck. Everybody's just shuts the fuck up. Looks at the ground. He hears Sergeant Baldino standing there with his eyes and I'm like, oh, fuck yeah, he's serious. Everybody. NCO, it didn't matter who it was, just shut the fuck up. But I had one of those moments like you talked about where you said you disappointed him. I told you about those stupid QRF Olympics that we did Yeah. In Afghanistan. He kept picking First Squad'cause I was in First Squad at that point. And he made us do all of the individual squad ones. And I'm just like, oh, here we go again. First squad. Oh no. Oh God. And it was in front of the whole platoon. And he goes, Gil, shut the fuck up. I need all NCOs over here right now. And I'm just like, oh. And I just dropped my head and walked into the formation and he chewed out every NCO because of me. And I'm just like, oh. And everyone is just staring at me.'cause I, they're getting their ass chewed because of my dumb ass comment. And yeah. And so after that, every event he would ask Della Santos, he's like, how did Gil do? How did Gil do? And I'm just, oh, I had to like, push 150% to try to make up, to make him, satisfied that I was doing a good job. It was fucking bad. So I, yeah, I totally get those comments, man. In those eyes, man. Ooh. Yeah. I can still see it in my head. I can still see it. I did this, I did something similar to you today. We were doing Sergeant Baldino PT one time, and you know how that is, that's Oh, it's brutal. Yeah. That's a nuts stomp in and of itself. And this was that cable. And I remember looking at my watch and doing this,'cause we're like five minutes past the fuck, I'm not doing it to anybody in particular, but I'm tapping my watch and I hear, Hey, Benji. And I was like, fuck, I'm in my head, I'm like, you stupid son of a bitch. And he's know what we do? And people pointed at their watches. I was like, no, sergeant. And he is we go longer. And everybody's just looking at me and I'm like, I just wanna fucking dig a hole and crawl into it. Yeah. It's hurtful when everybody knows more pain is coming because of you. You're the fucking cause of it. Yeah. That was I didn't wear a watch of PT anymore. I don't blame you. I probably wouldn't have either. All right. Sorry we got sidetracked a little bit. But it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. Yeah. All right, so we're moving towards the objective now. So we're moving towards the objective. It's dark and there we're on the side of this, on the side of this road. It's really hard to set it up. It's like a dirt road, and it's going right into Chukar Gordon and around us is behind us is a tree line and the road is lifted off the ground. I don't know how else to here's the road. There's a, they've created a berm. A berm basically. And so I'm, my squad is long the road, we create a security perimeter. I'm the very first one. And I'm laying prone, but I can't lay prone because if I lay prone, I can't lift my head up because my kpo hits the ladder. So I have to lay on my side like that. And there's these pyrotechnics going off these explosions because these Abrams are breaching the city. And fisher's maybe two or three feet away from me. And I have this ladder on my back. And if anybody, I just to preface this, if you know anybody doesn't want hear this just know that it's gonna get a little upsetting in a minute. Just trying to find my breath for it. You're good bud. Take your time. So I'm watching these power technics go off and I don't remember what Fisher said to me. He said something, he was talking. One of the things that hurts the most is was because there was these rumors going around in the brigade that people were saying, oh, I heard they fell asleep. The fuck we did, we were awake, we were wide the fuck awake. Anybody who heard that's fucking bullshit. If I hear it outta somebody's mouth, I'm gonna choke him. I'm just going to'cause he had just spoken to it and it's loud. We have these Abrams going by in front of us. We're watching their fucking, their flanks because op four, we don't want'em to come outta the woods. So we got this big circle perimeter and laying on my side.'cause I, again, can't lay prone and I'm watching these explosions go off. They're breaching the city and I feel something go like this and hit the ladder that's on my back and it's grinding. I'm like, oh shit. And it pulls me. And luckily I had taken one of the straps off holy shit, earlier in the night when we got, when we laid down. I don't remember. I couldn't tell you how long we were there for. We were stopped for a while. I remember that. We were stopped for a while. But I knew there's only one thing this could be. And it happened really quickly in my brain media. I was like, oh. Fuck, this is an Abrams because I could you can't see anything, but I, you can feel something looming over you. And I, I jarred my arm out of the other strap and I rolled down that embankment. I went one way. I don't know how it happened because my rifle was slung to my D-ring, but I lost my rifle. And when I finally'cause it, it was dewy and wet. When I finally stopped sliding, the first thing I thought was, get up, grab. You have to get back up that embankment and grab Fisher's ankle and pull him. But by the time I rolled and stood and tried to push myself up, it was too late. Just so you know, I know we talked about this on Memorial Day. There's nothing you could have done and there's no blame to you at all. Yeah. And I know that's hard and I know that you don't accept that, but that's just the facts bud. No, I appreciate that. As I've tried to accept it for a long time I still can't, but it's al it to be honest. It is nice to hear, know that the guys that you looked up to so much, never put the blame on you. And that means a lot to me. Yeah. There, there's no way that any of that, any, if anything I put it on the upper chain of command for not giving us, calms not giving us, be able to communicate with attached elements. There's so much of a cluster fuck that happened above us that that was the first failing, and then there's just a myriad of it after that. But I know that wasn't easy, dude. And I'm, I appreciate you telling it, and I hope that people will hear it. And I know that people have said you guys had fallen asleep, and I've always said that was not the case. We were not asleep. Yeah. I couldn't hear it. People were like you would've heard it. I wouldn't have. Yeah. I also forgot about all the pyrotechnics going off, and all that shit blown up around you. It doesn't matter. You may not necessarily hear an Abrams come running up. I didn't. And I was wide awake. I didn't hear a goddamn thing. Yeah. Other than those explosions. And no, Fisher wasn't asleep'cause he just spoke to me. Yeah. I can't remember what he said, but he had just spoken to me and he had said something to Freto too. FTO responded. Yeah. So this whole myth that we were asleep, let me kill it now. Yeah. We weren't I did what I could. I wanted to save him so bad. And I heard it, it all, I'm not gonna go into detail, but the noise is still in my head. Yeah. Every day of my life. And I did not know that it also got Frio at the time because, and this is why I love Second Platoon in my squad so much, is because when I fully realized what had happened, I turned around and I was yelling Fisher's name. And I tried to run back and my squad grabbed me, will Zach Hayhurst Baker. And they're pulling me back and I'm fighting them because I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. I'm yelling, for Fisher. And they flashed white light. And I remember Hayhurst grabbing my face, and he pushed it down and he's yelling, don't look. And I'm, I'm hysterical at this point because this is my team. Yeah. And it was just me. F Fisher and Sergeant Baldino, I could hear him running outta the woods. Stop. Stop. And next thing like the entire platoon is grabbing me. And they're pulling me away from the whole thing near this. There was like a hill. And we went up that way. And cave was next to me the whole time. I'm collapsed on the ground and he's sitting with me and he is arms around me and he's not letting me go anywhere. And he's just knowing that he's telling me, I'm not alone. Sergeant Stom is there. My squad is there. And I it occurs to me I don't have my rifle. And, that's drilled. And you drilled into you as an instrument from day one. Yeah. So I'm like, oh God, my rifle. So I'm getting, I'm trying to get up to go get my rifle and they keep pushing me down, but I'm not understanding at that point. And I'm, they're like, no, leave it. Just stop. So Cave kept me there and just held me, and I'm not gonna be ashamed. I was crying. I was, these were my brothers and. But you weren't the only one at that moment, I promise you. No, absolutely not. I'm you to that point we saw, I could see coming out of Schu Gordon, this Humvee come flying out. A minute or two later it goes flying back towards Schu Gordon and a couple minutes after that you see a Black Hawk take off and just, and I knew they were on it. I knew it, and the whole time I'm thinking this can't be real. They're gonna be okay. They're gonna be okay. And then eventually these two officers came. One was a, it was a male and a female captain, and they came and told, I gathered a whole platoon around and they said, hey they didn't make it. And the whole platoon collectively just went in, just immediately started crying. And I think this is where, in fact you become bonded in blood. And we all just, were leaning on each other at that point. Everybody's crying. And like you said about Lieutenant Colonel Prasser, this female captain steps up and says, I. This is what we do as soldiers. We're about to lose men. And all of us look at her like, yeah, I remember Hessen wanted to fucking punch her. All of us looked at her like, you don't, yeah. This was, this was the army of the early two thousands. This isn't the army of today. So all of us looked at her like, the fuck do you know about it? Yeah. And she's but we're gonna continue this mission. And then I remember the fuck we're done. We have to bury two of our own. We're done. And I'm sorry I miss some things sometimes because you're good bud. Everything happens. Take you're good. From there, guys just stayed around me and I remember they put us in the back of this LMTV or was a deuce in half. I don't remember. It was the lmtv. My, it was an l, Mt V. Yeah. And I remember there was, I don't even know who this soldier was. It was our platoon and just some random soldier. And he kept trying to crack jokes, laugh. I remember, do you remember Wolfley? Paul Wolfley? Yeah. Yeah. This guy just keeps talking and talking. Wolfly is he looks at him, everybody's silent. He goes, why don't you shut the fuck up? Shut up. Nobody wants to fucking hear you. And the look on his face is all hurt and shit. But nobody no. Not one of us gave a fuck about it. Yeah. And then they dropped us off and wanted us to pick up brass. I was like, really? I remember that's when I ran into vol. Oh, the RTO. Yeah. He came over and gave me a big hug. They had already heard, everybody had already known, they took, we immediately went to after that, took us to the CID Yeah. I, and they brought me into this little room, and I'm by myself, and they gimme a cup of coffee and they, just start asking questions. What happened? Tell us in detail. And from what I understand, I wasn't in the lobby when it happened, but apparently now when it happened, I could hear the tanker crying in the darkness. And even to this day, I struggle, fuck, fuck your tears. I struggle to forgive certain things. And I know he was acting on the orders of his tank commander, but apparently he had walked in with his commander into the lobby, and everybody in our platoon just stood up. Oh yeah. Yeah. They should not have brought them in there with us. No, not that was ridiculous. I, and I wasn't there to see that, but I'm sorry. You're good, buddy. So this is when I almost punched a captain in the mouth. Afterwards, we're all sitting on the front lawn of the the CID building because we're, we're soaking and we're, our bones are still frozen basically. And we're just getting the sun in and this goddamn tanker co or whatever the fuck he was, he's oh, accidents happened. And I just looked at him. You knew we were there, shit. Brick. Yeah. They didn't have a, we it attached to you. They didn't even have a ground guy in JRTC. They're supposed to have somebody walking in front of their tank at all times. Yeah. Not this time. And they didn't, we were there, but we had been attached to them for two weeks. Yeah. Like I said, there was a myriad of things that, that happened that wasn't supposed to happen. And it's just ridiculous. You have zero blame. And I'm gonna reiterate that a million times, buddy. No I honestly from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate it. It's nice to hear you. You hear that from people who aren't there, or people who didn't know these guys, and it doesn't mean a thing. It means a lot coming from you guys. Yeah, it always has. And that is still something I struggle with. I take a lot of, I, whether it's deserved or not, I take a lot of responsibility of not being able to get there in time, not being able to do something. Ha I always go through my head. Had I, I couldn't look, I couldn't, I'm not making ex, I couldn't look, I couldn't look to the left because of the fucking ladder. Yeah. And what if I just put it down for a second? What if I looked around what, what if I was a little more observant? Those things go through my head. You realize that it was already restrictive. You, otherwise you wouldn't have taken one arm out in case you guys got attacked. You were already prepped, to, in case you were assaulted, but you weren't also thinking,'cause you had fava to your left fi was slightly to your left, so you knew your left side or to your right. So you knew you were covered. Plus there were, the tanks were sitting to your left, so you didn't have to necessarily worry about that side. So you were more worried about the attacks to your right. Yeah, that was your mission. That's what you were, that's where the, that's where the fighting was coming from. So I was looking that way. And yeah, it means a lot coming from guys who were there and guys who cared about these men and knew them, on a deeper level than just her hearing their names. Yeah. And I, that was the first time I ever caught off a First Sergeant in mid-sentence.'cause Sergeant Baldino came over and I was just laying on the grass. And he said, he looked at Baker and he said, baker, take Benji over to the gas station right there and get some snacks. Okay. So they're not letting me be alone. And rightfully oh I, and I appreciated it. I didn't wanna be alone. I wanted to be with my brothers, yeah. And that's, that was my, y'all were my biggest source of strength after what Lemon did. I felt utterly alone and separated from ultimately my family. Yeah. We're gonna get to that. Yeah. And so we walk over to this gas station and I'm wearing those cold weather boots are so fucking heavy too. Yeah. And I remember Sergeant Sto when I put'em on, I was like, don't fuck them. Wear those things. I was like, but my feets, and that's why your feet are fucked up now. Yeah. I wore'em anyways. And this first sergeant comes outta nowhere. We're walking across the parking lot, Hey, get the fuck over here. Me and Baker look and we come over and, go at parade rest. He's the fuck are those aren't regulation. And we're covered in mud. I've got two weeks worth of fucking camel on my face. And he's just chewing our asses. Finally, I just, I was like, first John, we just lost you guys. I'm not interested. And he just fucking stopped and was taken aback and he was like, carry on. Just moved on from there. I know they rushed me out the next day. One heartwarming moment I can remember on that bus ride home in the darkness was listening to Rizzo all the way in the back of this bus old schizo singing Feliz Navi that over and over again, Feliz Navi that and that was the first time I even had a little bit of a smile. Yeah. Was listening to him sing Felise Navi Don in the back of the bus. Damn man. You gotta love Rizzo man. He's a character. He always was. I loved him. He always cracked me up. We were at a platoon party. It was at a platoon party.'cause afterwards he was trying to put a dog, someone, the neighbor's dog on a skateboard and push it down the street. And the husband came out and was like, you've hurt that dog. And I'm like, and what? He hurts that dog. And what comes next? Look at all those guys over there. Just go back in the hospital. Yeah, we weren't at that moment. It was probably not a good idea. We were a ticking time bomb. Yeah, it was, and that's one of the reasons, obviously it's the biggest reason why I'll never forgive our first sergeant for that. He took away my family and took away any motivation I had to be a good soldier anymore. Let's take a quick piss break and then we'll come back and we'll get to Iraq. Sounds good. All right, bud. Alright, so we are back. And Benji, you said you wanted to just wrap up a few things before we moved on to Iraq. The night after it happened that night, or I remember Sergeant Major Nielsen called a formation. And he didn't go on about the mission. He'd be, oh, you lose men, blah, blah, blah. He talked about them and he knew my name. That was the craziest part. He's it could have been any one of us, and God, it could have been Benji. No, he said that, and I felt someone from a different fucking company put their hand in my shoulder. Like people already knew who I was. And that was a that was a weird moment for me. But him checking up on me was something, special to me. He was a soldier's leader. He cared about every single one of his guys. He had, what, 1600 guys, roughly? And if he could have touched every single one of them daily, he would've, and when I say touch'em, not some fucking perverted, queer way, I got you. He would've come by and shook their hand, asked them how they were doing. That's the kind of guy he was. Absolutely. And that's why I, I teared up when I found out that he passed away. Yeah. I donated money to his his GoFundMe when they were putting that out.'cause I didn't know there was a GoFundMe or else I would've Yeah. It was before he passed. It was right when he had his first stroke. I went ahead and donated to that for his medical expenses and stuff.'cause I just, I remember that dude in Afghanistan on Anaconda. He's walking around with his nine mil on his hip and his holster, drinking near beer, smoking fucking Marlboros, handing out ammo when we were short, not Bandelier, but like magazines filled with ammo. Like he's just here. You guys short? Yeah, thanks Sergeant Major drinking his fucking shoulder. Yeah, his old duals near beer, walking the mountain. I'm just like, you're fucking you're something special man. He's a legend. Alright. Is that gonna wrap you up? You wanna move on to the Yeah, I think like we talked about a lot of it the afterwards effects of it in the previous on Memorial Day. Yeah. We wanna, let's lighten it up a little bit. That was, I know that was very hard. And we said this again when we came back before we started recording. That's yours, fishers and FTOs story. And I know you keep trying to make it about us and Alpha Company second platoon. We, we just want you to live a healthy, happy life, healthy-ish as you said. And so I, I think our bond in Second Platoon, as you mentioned before, it's just bonded there and it was bonded in combat, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, so that it's unique. That's why we're so close. So I agree. I agree 100%. Let's move on. Let's get into Iraq, baby. So you guys, unfortunately I was stuck behind with Christine Baldino. She loves it when I say that. So any chance I get to say it I throw it out there. But you guys deployed and I'm the rear D commander now. So you guys did the great truck assault across the border, not me. No, you did. Okay, so fill me in then. No this goes in before anything Christine Baldino was an angel when all of that stuff happens. I'll tell you that right now. You don't have to be nice. She's not online with us now. No, she was. You can say she was mean. Nope. Nope. She was amazing. So this is where the first bone I have to pick with First Sergeant Lemon comes into play. We're already getting started. All right. You know that little fucking radiator when you first walk into the fucking battalion? Oh, the little heater thing? Yeah. Heater. Radiator. Yeah. Yeah. Will Zach and I used to go and Baker would go sit over there in winter months because it was fucking cold. Yeah. I was sitting on that radiator and First Sergeant Lemon comes walking outta that fucking blue door looking around. He sees me. He's come here. Fuck. What? I go upstairs and apparently I'm being sent to fucking aviation to work their door gun. Now, to jump way ahead, we got kicked out.'cause all those grunts, they decided in aviation's a nice little chow hall filled with plastic tables and chairs to mix. 3, 2, 7, 1 8, 7, 5 0 7 altogether. And a brawl took place. We got kicked out. We got sent back to our units. The next day you guys got in a fight. Who started it? A guy from our unit, fucking Rock of salons knocked dude's food out of his hands and it went fucking ate from there. That's awesome. Yeah. So we got kicked outta there first. Sergeants running around in circles. Your animals are all fucking animals. I still hear it in my head, like that's what we get paid to be. Hey when you guys need rescued or you know when you need protection, who do you call? We destroyed their little chow hall, broken tables, chairs just destroyed, but they kept five oh douche in three, two heaven. But kicked the rocket salons out the very next morning, and I'm talking first light, we're sitting on a ch 47 being sent back to the 180 7. That is fucking epic, man. So how long were you there before you guys got kicked out? I would say a month, A little over a month maybe. Trumble and I got set. Okay. And Trumble, me and Jason Roberts and there was a couple other guys, I don't remember. They were from like Bravo Company. We got set. I can totally see Trumble jumping right in and just going fisticuffs. It was a brawl. It took a while where they basically were like, let'em tire themselves out. What are the pos gonna do? Stop it. Come on. Nothing. I ne and you knew there were pos by the way they reacted. This was normal to us, but they're first driver look like he's about to break down into tears. You're fucking animals. You're all animals. And I'm not even making that up. He's yelling. He's calling us animals. You guys are fighting. He's just calling you guys animals. No, after it was all broken up. He's just, he's pacing back and forth. You're fucking animals. You're animals. And I just remember no, that's not insult. Hey Sar, I'm okay with it. Sergeant Baldino probably wasn't mad'cause he said, as long as you win the fight I don't care. The five oh second, three seventh, all the love to you fellow grunts, but. It's not the same. You guys didn't stand a chance. That's awesome. So yeah, I was on a door gun. And that was the second time I faced my own mortality because What's that? I was gonna say, how, what's that about? So we were on a a two bird chalk and we were sling loaded Conex boxes, and I'm out this door gun and outta nowhere, we hit this fucking sandstorm in the middle of the fucking desert just slams into us. Are you in a ch 47 or? Yep. We're at, we're in a Chinook, and I can see the other bird out my window. I'm on, I'm on my gun and I'm watching them. And we have comms with the pilot. We had a head like a helmet, and there's a headset and a helmet. And I watched this other bird slam into a sand dune and slam it didn't slow down. See, you watch the sand dune explode. Holy shit. And I lost sight of him. And I'm looking out the window and I see this ConX box. It just, and next thing you know, they, they cut it. I see it go tumbling across the desert floor. And I heard a pilot scream just screech into the mic and I'm like, I had a monkey tail on. And I, for a few seconds I looked out the window and considered unhooking it and just whoop and taking my chances with the fall. We were that low. Holy shit. And next thing we just, ow I flew forward, smashed my face into the fucking, into the wall right there and woke up fuck, we were on the ground. Holy shit, dude. Yeah. And we were there for a week, five days in this fucking ch 47 because the sandstorm did not let up. Not knowing if those guys were alive or not, because we couldn't get him on comps. Wa was there a fellow rock salon door gunner in that other Chinook? And I don't remember exactly who, I think it was Jason Roberts. Yeah I got really close with him when we were in the aviation unit. Yeah. And as soon as that fucking storm started to settle, we could see the bird from where we were at. And I was like, oh, thank God they were walking towards us. They, all of them, everybody lived there. Everybody was fine. Every pretty sure. That's where I got mine knocked to the head. That's why I have chronic migraines these days. I understand. But that, that was the first time, and people always say, oh, I just accepted it. I did you just were like, all right, fuck it. Let's do this. I think I told my therapist once I'm on Killable. I've had so many close calls with death and survived, and they're like, stop saying that. Don't say that anymore. I'm like so far it's true. Yeah, so far so good. Yeah. So that you've had a near death with a tank, a near death in a Chinook. Now you're back to the unit. Now what? I get back to the unit and we now had Sergeant Major Malloy. Okay. Yeah. I'm on rear D because Nelson was the rear d he was the division rear d Yeah, Sergeant Major. Yeah. So we had Sergeant Major Malloy, and we get back to the unit, we'd land in this compound, I think we called it Range 54, and it was by sja, Iraq in the province. I remember the hat the patrol cap I got. Before we deployed was way too fucking big for me. Rest around like my fucking eyebrows. Constantly have to push it up, so I rolled it, I ranger rolled it. I only, I didn't do it to look like a fucking ranger dude, to keep the hat outta my eyes. Yeah. He takes one look at me. He's you're not a fucking ranger. Sorry, Sergeant Major. Flip it out. Put it back on. My bad. I just don't want it in my eyes. So I had written for Sergeant Lemon and Captain Ford while I was in aviation and said, I want to go back to Second Platoon, please. Can I come back to Second Platoon? You wrote him an email? No I wrote them just snail mail. Oh, okay. One of the other rock songs units he wrote a letter too, but he cut in cardboard. He cut out a Tory and wrote it on that. That's awesome. So we, I get back and they lead us over to the first Sergeant Lem. He's sitting outside a building in a chair and he's getting his head shaved. I think it was Duncan who was doing it. And I'm like, this is like fucking, like a outta a movie or some shit. He's smoking a cigarette. And he's like, all right, you, and you go to First Platoon and he pointed you and you go to Third Platoon. I'm like no. I wanna go back to Second Platoon. I have to go back to Second Platoon. He was, he's I'm the fucking first Sergeant. I'm like, I have to go back to Second Platoon. And he's I don't fucking care what you want. So he's go. So we started, so I turned around and started to walk away and he's wait, I changed my mind. And I knew, I was like, this guy likes to fuck with us just for his own shits in fucking giggles. He's you can go back to Second Platoon. Little did I know he's gonna break us up in a, a few months. So when I get back to the unit, and I remember my squad was out on a mission, so I'm just like pacing back and forth, waiting for them to come through the door just so I can fucking see him again. And first one to the door is Wilsack and he's fucking just beating sweat all over his face. And I was like, I remember just giving them all just the biggest fucking hug. I was so happy to see him. I was so happy to be back at the unit and back with SEC Platoon and I was like, I felt whole again. Yeah. Because I had been writing, letters to Sergeant Hayes and stuff like that too, because that whole trip to aviation it was fun and it was an adventure. I wanna be with my guys. And I remember that first night, just us dumb privates, man. We didn't have any power. We didn't have nothing. We're just running around in the dark with our fucking flashlights, giggling like little assholes trying to get. Trying to catch these scorpions and these camel spiders and put'em in these big water bottles. We can get cram'em in there and make'em fight, that's awesome. Two, make two camel spiders fight. Okay, that one killed that one. And finally we're like two camel spiders against a scorpion. Good idea. So we're digging through the sand and get a scorpion, shove it in there. And we, like 20 fucking young assholes just around this thing with a flashlight watching do it out like gladiators, a scorpion one. And they usually do, his reward was to be doused hand sanitizer and with a flame. And I remember at that moment I was whole, it's an animal suffering. And I get that a lot of my trauma from my rat comes from some animal cruelty. But at that moment, I was whole. You were whole because you were with your guys. I was with my guys. That's what it's not.'cause you were burning a fucking scorpion. You were whole because you were with your family again. Exactly. I was with, I was home, I was with my family, I was with guys I loved. And I, for the first time in Iraq, I felt, this degree of happiness other than, I didn't EI didn't partake in aviation, but there were a lot of rock on. Probably have little Rock running around now, or they're adults by now. But those aviation girls could not get enough of us. I tell you that they deployment pretty. They loved them. Some grunts, I'll tell you that. I wish they would've been around in Afghanistan.'cause we didn't, they weren't around when I needed them. There was one female medic that made a visit to our base one time our range 54. And I was out at the piss tubes one time. It was just dug a big hole. Stuck PVC pipe down there, buried it. I'm sure you saw it before. Oh yeah. Big water bottles. I'm my shit's out and I'm taking a leak and I didn't know she was there. And I see this volleyball, they were playing. Volleyball comes rolling over next to the curb next to me and I look at it and then all of a sudden this female medic leans down and grab it. And she looks up at me, looks down at my junk and jumps up, runs away. Best sexual experience of my life. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. You went to the Port of John that night. Oh, I had a People magazine in tow People magazine. Oh. The shit we used, man, she looked at it. Yep. That kept me going for the rest of the time. That's awesome. Yeah, I, we had one female medic that I ran into in Afghanistan. I remember I ran into her like in bar Nashville or Silverados or something. One of our watering holes. Yeah. And she's Hey, Sergeant Gill. And I'm like, oh fuck you were not as pretty as I thought you were. But again, deploy, deployment pretty, she was hot as hell over there when having seen immediately just thought of that scene in the office. You ever seen that? Those that show? Oh, the office. I love it. Yeah. Angela comes up behind Dwight and he's fuck. Oh yeah. Do not sneak up on people. He's Ugh. Yeah, the deployment pretty,'cause I got hit on in Kuwait by some po who shaved her head. Interesting. I was like, no thanks. Did you wanna go to the meet at the MW 10 later? I don't, I'm not gonna lie. I Gil I was pretty back then. I can't help it. I couldn't help it. You would've, you, you would've cleaned up like big old guy like me. They'd have been like, eh, maybe. Oh you were grunt. They, you would've clapped some cheeks for sure. Oh, anyway, sorry I keep going on tangents for the time, dude. That's what this is about. They're, you're not doing anything wrong. You're perfect. But halfway through that deployment, lemons, revenge, he breaks us all up and that day will is forever stuck in my memory. I remember I went from just this, we were in a shitty place. We were sucking shit through a straw. But I was happy'cause I was with my guys, yeah. And even we were on a combat patrol one night. I see the dude in front of me sidestep on my nods, sidestep something. I'm like, oh, what the fuck was that about? I kept walking and I go right down into a shit sand pit of shit. Ah, almost sucks my boot off. The guys behind me had to fucking pick me up and get me outta there, like just stupid little shit like that. We were on a combat patrol, just me and the squad one time, and there was these, all these burned out overturned trucks and shit, and it's in the middle of the night and we're pulling security for whatever reason. And Sergeant Es comes running across the street. He's pull security. Pull security that way. I'm like, oh fuck. Heyhurst and I we're like, what do you see Sergeant? What do you see? We're trying to find a target. And he's I gotta bust a shit. We're thinking we're about to get fucking hit. Yeah. We're ready to rock and roll. My, my selector switch is on fire, bro, and I'm looking for a target and he's just I gotta bust one. I got busted. Shit now. People don't, right now, they don't show that shit in movies, but bodily functions do not stop in the middle of combat. I remember'cause sergeant Sergeant Duckett had fucking bubble guts. One night we were on a combat patrol and that guy sweat through his entire fucking uniform and his brag was, I fucking made it though. I didn't put my pants. But that's awesome. I used to have a whole litany of just those little stories, while I did get to spend time with the guys, like we were outside of, I can't remember, was it El B? It was El b We're out, we were guarding this grain silo, big old grain silo. We're guarding it and Keely is on guard at the guard gate out front. We had those little fucking walkie talkies, yeah. And we're playing football around the corner in this building. We're saying, we got our, wow. We're running around throwing this football around, playing football. And all of a sudden over the radio, you hear Keely go first. Sergeant's coming. First Sergeant's coming like really fast and garbled. First Sergeant had the same fucking radio. Oh, shit. So he speeds up and peels around the corner and there's nothing but assholes and elbows towards that door to get our shit out. He's got you got, he should have had, they should have established a code word ahead of time. We should have, but we didn't. All respect to Keeley, he was trying to warn us. Yeah. Oh no, I get it. Yeah. But he is oh I fucking heard Keeley. I, he goes into his fucking spiel like, Jesus fucking Christ. Do you ever shut the fuck up? Yeah. You love hearing the sound of your goddamn voice. Yeah, I, in Afghanistan, he was all about ice water. Like when we were in the guard towers, he made sure every tower had ice water. He didn't give a shit about anything else, but every guard tower he'd have that gator and he made sure they had little jugs those little egg glue coolers of fucking ice water for the people on guard. That was his sole mission. He, he didn't do anything else, but we had fucking ice water at the guard towers. Oh, fucking a, yeah. Great. Thanks buddy. Yeah. Oh, that also reminds me, when we were in Kuwait, we had those little shower shacks. We had these fucking shower trailers. You go and shower, you shave, whatever. And there was one morning I was in there and I just showered and I was shaved in the mirror right next to me was Sergeant Major Nielsen. I it had, I'm pretty sure it was him. Either way, my rifle was leaning against the wall. I finished shaving, walked all the way back to the tent. I was like, wait, where's my rifle? I go sprinting out the fucking tent, pushing people outta the way, sprinting across the, the sand to get in there again. And he's still looking in the mirror. Sh and there's my rifle. And I remember just he's just sneaking back out. Huh? Just bolt out the door. He knew. He knew. Yeah. But he also knew who I was. He was like, it's not worth it at this point. Lemon would've lit you up. He did. He did. When we were in, el Bos, he gave this whole speech. He came to the we secured this like pool hall and we were sleeping in it. And it was my squad that, that cleared, it kicked the door in. Know, let's clear all the rooms. Okay, it's safe half a second between sleeping on pool tables now as beds. And he gave us whole spiel. Everybody, when you're outside, you're in full kit, blah, blah, blah. We left all our shit on the front steps of this place. And right after he left, I walked back out there, heyers was on guard me at the street right at the gate. And I walked out because I left my water out there. I grabbed my water and I turned to go back inside and he, Hey, Benji, yes, first Sergeant I fucking, he's just laying into me. I fucking just told you blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm in the front lane, rest in front of Sergeant Duckett as I'm getting screamed at. Sergeant Duckett has me write like a hundred, 250 page fucking essay on why it's important to fucking always pay attention and listen. And I was like, this guy man, this fucking First Sergeant. Like I said it, he just, him and Baldino did not like each other, and so therefore he took it out on anybody in Binos platoon that he possibly could. But he had to have justification because if it was bullshit, Baldino was gonna be 10 feet up his backside and he couldn't do anything about it. He just he just reveled in it, it seemed oh until, yeah, until, who was that guy from? Scalpel was his name. Ross. There was a Ross in the company. I do remember someone dressing up in those black pajamas when we were in Iraq. They gave us, and he pulled a BVA over, baklava over his head, and he kicked in the door of their little hesco tent and stole first Sergeant Captain for were eating dinner and stole their ketchup and ran out. I remember that happening. First Sergeant running out that that's ballsy right there. You might get shot, but like I said, halfway through the deployment, I that day will forever be in my head. When we were told Sergeant Baldino is leaving, he's gonna First Sergeant School, and I, the whole platoon cried like a baby. And he went around to all of us. Every single one of us gave us a hug, shook our hand told us You are all, I look at you all. And he said, I, my sons and I love you all. And I am crying like I'm at a funeral. Yeah. An hour later I'm out back with my squad. In this, behind this building. And I can't remember who it was, came back and he was like, Hey, basically yeah, you and Will Zach are gonna first with two. And I was like, wait, what? And I still remember that feeling like my heart shattered and nothing in the Army was ever the same for me after that. Not to say I, like I said previously, that there weren't good guys in first platoon because there was a shitload of good guys right off the top of my head. Bentley Frankie Caruso, Sergeant Kraus, there was a lot of good guys, but they weren't my guys. Yeah. And some of the other NCOs, I did get, I was not exactly included. For instance, I was after that'cause I had hurt my hand on combat patrol, remember?'cause I came home early. You pinned me as a specialist. Did I? Oh shit. Oh yeah. Fuck, I'm sorry, brol my head. I've, there's a lot of memories that got smacked out on that pavement that night, yeah, I get it. I get it. I get it, brother. I'm honored that I pinned you and I'm sorry, I do not remember that. No, I mean it, I don't expect anybody remember, but it was, but I remember it. I remember we were in the company CP and you pinned me specialist. But while the lower enlisted accepted me, for the most part, I had hurt my hand on a combat patrol. We apparently had loaded the wrong truck. We'd been walking around for six hours. We loaded the wrong truck and I went to get down off of it and my wedding ring got caught and just shattered this finger. Yeah, I see. It's all fucked up. Yeah. I had to have surgery, everything, it was this whole deal. But since, and Captain Ford said I can't go on missions anymore, so I spent my time in First Platoon, like taking out the trash and making sure that the Kurds were burning the shit. And stuff like that. And while it wasn't intentional, it was demeaning. Yeah. And the only way I can think of, I could only, I just couldn't stop thinking. I want to be with my guys, I wanna be with my family. And it was hard for me. There was an instance where and it, and I know it wasn't anything I did, I was watching the curb, the shit. It wasn't my, it wasn't my, my, my time was up. I went back inside, someone dumped someone, took the barrels up, but didn't put'em back into the shitters. And there was just a big pile of human fucking feces in the bottom of the shitter now with no barrel. And I was the outsider, so guess who was using an old p t-shirt to clean it up? Oh, fuck me. Bear fucking hands, and I went from, and it really hurt because I went from a platoon where, you guys looked out for me and respected me to a platoon where I was, while the lower enlisted, respected me. They were very kind to me. Some of the higher ups, not so much. And it wasn't a good experience from then on out. Shit detail, Benji's going first Sergeant wants to set up a moving fucking target range, Benji's going. And we got a couple new NCOs around that time, and I remember one of them just chewing my ass for something. I didn't even know what I. I just, I at that point, like again, I said I didn't care, so I just turned my back and walked away and he's, don't you fucking turn your back on me? And at that point I was like, I don't fucking care. Yeah. Anymore. Your rank doesn't mean anything to me. And I had another brand new NCO and we just got done doing PT and he just had a mouthful of water. It spit it all over me. And I remember looking at him telling him like, if you didn't have those bars on you, I'd fucking hit you. I'd punch you, I'd beat the fuck outta you. And I was at my limit. And finally out of anybody there, doc Holt, I don't know if you remember him, I remember the name. I don't remember him as much. He would look at my hand. It was all like, bandaged up. And that's a whole other story that was funny that night it happened because Sergeant Duckett had to get pictures, but finally one day I am just day in and day out. I'm not going on missions. I'm, I'm taking out the trash. And even Bentley, this is another thing I remember, he goes, you don't have to do that every time. I was like, I was told I have to. He's that's bullshit. You don't have to do that. A lot of the lower, a lot of the lower, unless guy's really good to me and I don't want, I don't wanna take anything first until, because first to was a good fucking platoon. But that's not, those aren't the guys, I bled and suffered with. Yeah. They were good to me. They were kind. Richie Cunningham is another one, Evan Pitchford. They were good people and they were good to me. And I always remembered it because at the time, I was hurt very deeply. And that's not something you can talk about because you're around people you don't really know. Yeah. And finally Doc Holt came to me one day and he was looking at my hand and he's no, this is fucking stupid. He didn't even go to sar, he didn't even go to Sergeant. He didn't go to lieutenant. He dug, he drug me all the way to the First Sergeant and the Captain's quarters and was like, this is bullshit. Either take this shit off him or send him home.'cause this is ridiculous because it shattered my fucking finger destroyed the attendants. I was more than willing to just pick up a rifle and continue to do my fucking job. Yeah. He and Sergeant Ho, do you remember Sergeant Hodges? He even said, he's I want you to get trained on driving these lts.'cause I know you'd rather be out there with us than sitting in this building. And, I always appreciated that too. Yeah. Hodge was a good guy. He was. And he didn't treat me different either. There was one time I was in the shitter with a people's magazine. He kept pounding out on the fucking door. Get your fucking pecker outta your hand. I gotta take a shit. That sounds like Hodge. I was like, how the fuck do you know? I had my dick in my hand? But that was a really rough time for me. Once we got back to Campbell Rooney ended up being my squad leader. I'm sorry. And he would just constantly fuck with me. And it hurt me because I was like, bro, we were one and the same. We were bastards, what are you doing? And one day he pulled the rest of the guys in the squad, like Brendan Fuchs and Vince Edwards, a couple guys aside. He's I don't, Benji just doesn't fucking listen to me. He tells me to go fuck myself. Like, how the fuck do I get this guy to listen to me? And they broke it down for him. They're like, he's the senior E four in the entire fucking platoon. And you talk to him like he's a child. Why would he listen to you And to Rooney's credit before or after formation One day he pulled me aside and them aside, he's they told me this. Is this true? I said, yeah, it's fucking true. I said, Rooney, a couple nights ago, and this was when I was married and I was living in Lee Village on Campbell. I said, A couple nights ago, you called my house swearing up a fucking storm on my answering machine, and my wife checked it. That's not respect, bro. And he, and to, to Rooney's credit room dog's credit, he said, I'm sorry, I'm wrong. And I was blown away by that. And instantly he was back, to being a fellow bastard. That's impressive. I wouldn't have expected that. I didn't either. And that's why it blew me away. I was like, holy shit. And he listened to what they said, because then that's exactly how I was feeling. I was a senior, E four in a fucking platoon, might have been in the company and I was being treated like an E one. So it was a really hard time for me after that. And obviously I was dealing with PTSD. I didn't know it at the time, but I was dealing with it after, the accident. And even after I got out, I tried to rejoin eight times, eight different recruiters. And each one of them were like, yeah, want everything to do with me. You weren't the only one. There was a ton of us with survivor's guilt. PTSD? No. Oh, no. Doubt it. But we all thought because we were infantrymen, this is our job. We've gotta learn how to deal with it. We're not allowed to talk about it, we're not allowed to accept it, we just move on. When they med boarded me, I got a high rating, but it was zero for PTSD, which is ridiculous. And, but I didn't ask for it. I didn't even put it on there as a symptom.'cause I'm just like, I didn't know. Yeah. I knew, I just, I was like, I don't deserve it.'cause I was doing my job. So why would I apply for it? If a fireman gets burnt in a fire, he doesn't get paid the rest of his life. Yeah, exactly. And that's the way I thought too. And when I got out I had gone to the VA and they put you through the whole rigamarole. Yeah. And they're throwing all kinds of narcotics at me. Luckily I didn't take any of them. But, a psychologist diagnosed with PTSD and he's you need to go down to the order of the Purple Heart and you need to apply for benefits. I'm like, benefits what? So I did it and not knowing that, it just torched any hope I had of being a soldier again. I still have dreams to this day that I'm a soldier again. You are in a different way with what you're doing. But yeah, and it gives me, it's not the same. It's not the same. It never will be. And one of the hardest challenges was always trying to accept the fact, trying to accept the fact I'll never be that soldier again. I don't think any of us were the same after that. No, you're right. So I don't know that we ever would've been. I know a lot of us got out right after Iraq. We were like, I remember, yeah, I remember. I came to your house one day and I remember you were preparing to move out and leave. Yeah. It was, everyone was like, we're done. We're we've seen enough. I think even, I don't know about Baldino, but I know Gore was on his last leg. He, at that point, he was like, fuck it, I'm this close to retiring. I'm just gonna go, yeah. And Sergeant Gore, man, lemme tell you, when I got back to Road Detachment, when they finally sent me home with that hand injury, that dude took care of me. He put me in charge of the fucking boner patrol squad, all the broke dicks and the guys who had reasons why they couldn't be sent to Iraq. Always had massive amounts of respect for him. Yeah. He's a good guy. He like, he every y'all need to be doing something. Go out there and fucking dude, Benji just kinda watch him. Because I was the only one who had been to Iraq, and he knew that. And he was just always so fucking good to me. Yeah. When I was, when I got home and I always app, I always appreciated it. Oh, there's one guy who went AWOL before we left, came back shortly before the deployment ended, and they were preparing to send him to Iraq. And Sergeant Gore had me and Trumbull teach him, battle drill one A and you know how to be an instrument again. We spent weeks with this kid using pool balls on how to fucking maneuver. And the night he's supposed to fly back, to fly to Iraq to the company. Dude doesn't show up for his flight, but he shows up to the fucking company the next morning. And I remember Sergeant Gore calls me into the office and this guy's in the front leaning rest and then his brass on the ground, and he said, Benji, what's up Sergeant? He is this piece of shit didn't show up for his flight. And I looked down and at him, I was like, this motherfucker right here. I kneeled down. I crouched down, I grabbed his bra, I put it on his back. I said, this stays on your fucking back. It doesn't going on goddamn ground. And I'm like, so what you're telling me is that my men are over there. You, they're over there risking their fucking lives every goddamn day, but you're too much of a pussy to get on a fucking plane and go, awesome. I rear back kicked him in the fucking right in the basket. Nice. Fuck yeah. And fucking trumble punched him. Trumble punched this guy. We were standing outside. He's pow. He just fucking hit it. The chest dude almost fell over. Fuck you. What you're telling is that you're too good. You're better than our fucking guys. Yeah. Your life means more than everybody else, apparently. Yeah. You don't have the fucking cajones to go ah, better bad. Just always laugh this hard. Go's like, Hey, look at this fucking piece of shit. Yeah. We had a couple you remember petty vaguely. Yeah. He went AWOL at one point, and I would always just lean forward to him in formation. I'd be like, just kill yourself. Go awol. Just save me the paperwork. Just, I was horrible, man. I know some of the shit that I said to people. Yeah, maybe it was right, maybe it was wrong. But like I said, some awful things to people because I was just, I was broken. I was tired, and I was just like, I don't have time for your shit. There's more important things going on. You guys are in Iraq, I'm on rear d dealing with everybody's wives.'cause at that point I was the rear D commander and these guys are just coming and going oh I went awol, but now I'm back. Can I get chaptered out? Oh yeah, I'm gonna get you out, but it's not gonna be easy the way you want it. I'm gonna make your life fucking hell. I remember you and Sergeant v Danker. Yeah. Yeah. I remember sitting in staff duty with Sergeant v Danker one night, and he tells me this whole story about he could have clapped Jennifer Love Hugh's cheeks. Yeah. Yeah. He, I didn't believe the thing is he was serious. He was, he, but he was telling the truth. He had her phone number. Yeah. Yeah. He did the same thing with me. But there's no way that dude had a chance with her in his life. I believe him. I believe SAR Van, I believed him.'cause I'm like, nah, SAR van's not a fucking storyteller. Like I, I think she came to Walter Reed when he was there and she was just like giving out her phone number to the soldiers to call and stuff. But I don't think he ever had a chance to clap them cheeks, bro. You look at that chick compared to his goofy looking ass. Ain't no way, bro. I don't know. I always love Sergeant Van. Dude. I sit in staff duty, he'd be three the morning. He's I'm gonna go do something real quick. And six hour later he'd come back. Yeah. Took a nap somewhere. I always just brought a cotton and slept right behind staff duty. I'd be like, Hey, wake me up if in a couple hours. And then here you crash for a couple hours. That was the cool thing though. Sergeant Van, he would go sleep. But we did staff duty at Brigade one night and we had the AWOL guy and it was me and him behind the desk and Sergeant Van's just go to fucking sleep and make this motherfucker sit up all night. Roger that song. You got it. Nice. That's my, I had fucking amazing sleep that night when this asshole sat up all night. Rightfully man, fuck that guy. Piece of shit. All right dude I know I've kept you for a while from your wife. Anything else you wanna throw out? No. Just I really appreciate the opportunity, especially to set some things straight of all these years later. Some of the rumors that were passed around being passed around by about Fisher and Frio. And I'm here to tell you, they were untrue. It was a fucking lie. And I remember hearing that and just feeling violent.'cause it, it was wholly untrue. Yeah. And rightfully for you to set that straight I appreciate you coming on here and telling their side. I don't, no one has ever heard their side. It's always been speculation, like you've said, it's always been hearsay. It's always been third party. I know I've told some of my view from it and others have told some of their views, but we weren't right there like you. And that took a lot of balls, what you did. I know you said it's easy telling it to me, but at some point I'm hoping thousands of people are gonna hear this and it's gonna help somebody. I hope so. Somebody that needs to hear just a story of overcoming, of what you've been through. Because, we, like we talked about on Memorial Day, that training accident happened and two months later you're sitting in Iraq. No downtime. Yeah, you're, you just went go. And that was hard, dude. That was hard for all of us. And I can't even fathom being taken away from your boys. Yeah. And put in the situations you were put in. Man it hurt for a long time and it still does. And again I just wanna preface, I'm not talking shit about the guys at First Platoon. I'm not I love them. They were good soldiers, but what I want people to understand is I was ripped away from my family. I was ripped away from my support system. Yeah. And it hurt, it tore my heart out, and it's not something I can convey to people who were basically strangers. So I had to just put my head down and go through with what was going on. But there were excellent soldiers that platoon Justin Jurkowski. When found out when I was being shipped home, he helped me pack my shit helped me out a lot. All of'em did. So I don't want anybody to walk away thinking that I'm shitting on First Platoon, because I'm not, yeah. I'm just, I'm telling you from per sec perspective of someone who was already broken and trying to heal and then being separated from his support system and thrust into an unknown place, that that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. And a good leader would've known that and saw that and would not have done what Lemon did. And that just speaks about him.'cause, he's unfortunately also from Michigan, so hopefully I never, I don't live in Michigan anymore. I will when I retire. So hopefully I never run into him at the va because you'll see me on the news. You'll see that on the news. I'll come bail you out buddy. I promise you that. I appreciate it, brother. I really appreciate it. Sound needed. Yeah. You won't be in there long'cause there'll be a whole train of us coming up and we'll figure out where he's at, if he's still alive. And we'll finish the mission. Good. I just wanted to say that, I really appreciate this opportunity to the men of First Platoon. I love you all. You I don't get to, I never really got to talk to you and we were young, didn't know how to really convey emotions at the time, but I love you all and you guys never know how much everybody in that too meant to me. I think about you a lot. It wasn't easy for me when I got out. My wife took off on Veteran's Day of 2005. Shit, dude. Now I came home to an empty apartment. And now to get that straight, she wasn't a bad person. We were just not good for each other. Yeah. We never should have been together. But, it was a long road from there to here there was quite a few times where I'm lucky I, I own several guns now, but, through the, that, that period I'm glad I didn't own any weapons because I definitely, probably would've chewed on a bullet by now. Just being separated from you guys that, that separation anxiety persisted for, it still does, but even when I needed it the most, when I was going through those years, I went to college and that was a whole fucking story in and of itself, listening to ROTC fuckers call themselves veterans. It was a long road and I, several times I just wanted to check out, but luckily I met my current wife. She's an angel, she's my soulmate, and I lucked out. It's a blessing, bro. It absolutely is. It's a blessing. And we're glad you're still here and you're thriving, you're doing well. It can be expected. I had a counselor at a Wounded Warrior project event said, we're never gonna be the same as we were. We just have to adjust to the new normal, and you're doing well in this new normal and just keep pushing and keep, keep striving to live up to that bastard standard that we have. Absolutely. Absolutely. I still, I do, because of the nature of my job I work out as much as I can and I still wear our battalion p t-shirt. That's awesome. When I work out and I, sometimes I have a hangover hey, it happens. Hey, Baldino still works out. I guarantee that dude still does 20 mile runs. That guy is what, 15, 20 years old to me, and he'd still smoke me. I guarantee it. Oh yeah. He'd still go to an active duty unit right now and destroy those fools. I guarantee it. I was just down at Benning earlier this year for defensive tactics instructor school, and to see it. Now, it's not the army that you and I serve. Oh I believe it. I've heard horror stories. You only see ones season and two, you don't see formations and squads running. Ones and twos just trotting along the fucking path. Stop betting ain't the same anymore. But hopefully the Raan, who was the head of the fucking department of defense will change that. Oh yeah. The sec dev baby. I sent him an email when I was in college and he responded, no shit, like 2006. I was like, Hey, Raan, sir. He is like, Hey, fucking, hey, that's awesome. He's gonna get that warrior ethos back in the military. I hope fucking ain't right. He gonna, he's gonna make everybody remember that. God loves the infantry. He sure does. He has to.'cause nobody else fucking does. All right, dude. It's always been Alright, brother. Hey, love you. Thank you for today too, bro. You were amazing. No, thank you. No. Hey I just get to sit here and listen to your amazing stories. So you, it was an honor. You did all the work. It was an absolute honor. It was an absolute honor. No I think it's an honor for you, but we'll settle with that. We're both honored that you were here. We'll go with that. How about that? I really appreciate it. All right, brother. Take care. I'll be in touch tomorrow. All right. Sounds good, brother. All right. Have a good one. Bye-bye. You too. Thank you for listening to another episode of Memoirs of the Veteran. Remember, social connections, save lives. That's why we're here. If you served, call up someone you served with. Tell'em a joke. Let's laugh together. Brothers, if you didn't serve, but you know someone who did serve, call them up as well. And also, if you're a veteran in crisis, call 9 8 8, press one. If that's the veteran crisis number, there's always somebody willing to listen to your story. We love you guys. Take care. We'll see you in the next episode.