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Constant Combat
This veteran-led podcast highlights the experiences of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, starting with their harrowing 2004 deployment to Ramadi; a 9 month combat tour which resulted in the highest casualties in a single deployment - a deployment that most Americans have never heard about. Through candid conversations surrounding these events, the series also explores earlier experiences that shaped the Marines, emphasizing their grit, humor, and humanity while aiming to honor their stories authentically.
Episodes
64 episodes
You Can't Plan War - Paul Hess (part 2 of 2)
Paul Hess part 2, reminds us that there is no polished and shiny versions of the Ramadi 2004 story: famous names showing up on base, mortars landing close, and memories that still feel foggy or sharp at the wrong times. We also talk hooch life,...
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53:42
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You Can't Plan War - Paul Hess (part 1 of 2)
Paul Hess starts his story as a brand new join... and straight to combat driver and dismounted Marine. Great recollections including the convoy into Iraq and the first overwhelming sights and sounds of Ramadi. We also discuss early urban combat...
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56:17
Adapt, Overcome, and Improvise - Ruben Ventocilla
We catch up with Lance Corporal Ruben Ventocilla as he walks us from pre-deployment training to the heat and chaos of Ramadi in 2004, including IED strikes, gear shortages, and the constant need to adapt. He also leads us through his medevac to...
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1:03:16
Dodging Rockets in the RPG Truck - Yancy Harris
We capture the story from MAP 1's Yancy Harris to trade Ramadi 2004 memories that swing from terrifying to absurd in the span of a sentence. A lot of the conversation centers on how routine danger shapes a unit’s nerves. It's RPG paranoia, the ...
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1:02:29
The First Lioness - Ranie Ruthig (part 2 of 2)
Part 2 with Ranie Ruthig, one of the original Lioness soldiers who was often attached to Weapons Company, to illustrate how early missions in Ramadi evolve from outreach to intel work and high-risk convoy life. We also get her blunt take on sta...
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53:49
The First Lioness - Ranie Ruthig (part 1 of 2)
Straight shooting story from Ranie Ruthig, a mechanic Staff Sergeant who became a Lioness in 2004 Ramadi, building a mission from nothing, learning the culture, and surviving April’s chaos with Weapons Company Marines. The stories are raw, funn...
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49:45
Have a Plan - John Mark Lopez (part 2 of 2)
Part two with John Mark Lopez and trace a four-man team’s cordon-and-overwatch role, the shift from highbacks to up-armored, and the thin line between luck and skill. Leadership, loss, and life after service tie the story together with hard-ear...
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37:13
Have a Plan - John Mark Lopez (part 1 of 2)
You can feel the choice before you hear it; Sergeant Lopez with a clear path to promotion walks away from the safe bet to stand next to his brother and friends in Ramadi. That decision by John Mark becomes the spine of this story... from a divi...
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54:12
True Grit with the Duke - Lucas Wells (Part 2 of 2)
Part two with the XO, Duke Wells, going through a near‑fatal friendly fire, a catastrophic VBIED, and the daily grind of raids, politics, and broken systems. The thread throughout the chaos is team, leadership, and the choices that keep people ...
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1:02:05
True Grit with the Duke - Lucas Wells (Part 1 of 2)
Excellent interview with the Company XO, Lucas "Duke" Wells detailing how a Marine weapons company became a mobile, citywide cavalry in Ramadi, evolving from thin intel and a weak handover to a five-platoon rotation that broke sieges and master...
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1:05:54
Surrounded - Joseph Herscher (part 2 of 2)
Part two with Joe Herscher from Rainmaker Platoon, moving from firefights and improvised humor to the hard road of leaving war, finding sobriety, and building a life that serves others. What sounds like a short story is a life time of change an...
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50:19
Surrounded - Joseph Herscher (part 1 of 2)
Everyone has a Joe Herscher story, even Joe: a theater student watches Heartbreak Ridge, and joins the Marines, and then finds himself in Ramadi learning decisiveness under fire. We walk through some pre-war Okinawa moments, the first ...
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53:36
A View from the Arches of Death - Will Nackers (part 2 of 2)
Part 2 with Will Nackers about getting wounded in Ramadi, being evacuated across continents alone, and returning stateside to a system that offered questionable medicine with no follow-up. Humor in the hooch, shifting tactics, near-miss stories...
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51:15
A View from the Arches of Death - Will Nackers (part 1 of 2)
From Mobile Assault Platoon 3, Will Knackers’ recalls his path from Kuwait’s staging grind to the convoy into Ramadi, onto the April 6 QRF chaos, house clears, near misses, and the July 1 blast that killed Sgt. Conde and sent Will on a medevac ...
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50:08
The Fuchsia Feather - Kyle Mader (part 3 of 3)
Part 3 closes with Kyle Mader's memory that unfolds in sharp scenes: near-miss IEDs, a pit of scorpions, hotel firefights, and the long ride home that finally let the breath out. He closes with a little barracks humor, and how talking always ma...
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51:19
The Fuchsia Feather - Kyle Mader (part 2 of 3)
Part two with Kyle Mader: gear that mattered, raids that tested nerve, and the twin blasts that changed the platoon. Between a Gunny tossing back a grenade and Oliver North linking the city to Hue, the story moves from gallows humor to loss wit...
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52:25
The Fuchsia Feather - Kyle Mader (part 1 of 3)
Kyle Mader kept a detailed journal and recounts his path from late arrival on ship to the workup grind, the convoy through Kuwait and Iraq, and two violent days that defined early Ramadi. Street fighting on Easy Street, shifting rules of engage...
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1:01:28
Chaos, Culture, and Carrot Cake - Chris Kackley (part 2 of 2)
Part two with Chris Kackley of Mobile Assault Platoon 1. Chris tells a volatile slice of Ramadi: from a rooftop firefight to a near-miss RPG, and several good leadership examples that made the difference. Kackley also remembers some humor...
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52:03
Chaos, Culture, and Carrot Cake - Chris Kackley (part 1 of 2)
Chris Kackley tells how a three‑day stop in Hawaii turned into short detour on the way to Ramadi, how broken and inadequate gear forced us to improvise, and why the bond we built now powers some late‑night calls and reunions. Humor and hard les...
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58:36
A Chiefs Logbook - Manuel Gonzales (part 2 of 2)
Manuel Gonzalez’s notes are exceptional for a charged stretch in Ramadi: VBIEDs, mortars, a TOW shot that made TV, a lifesaving tire shot, and the quiet grit of drivers, gunners, and leaders who kept moving. Outside of the shots and incoming, h...
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1:00:08
A Chiefs Logbook - Manuel Gonzales (part 1 of 2)
Manny Gonzalez talks about his third deployment in 4 years. This time to Ramadi as a combat replacement. He went from advising a Marine Corps video game to landing in Ramadi and learning the Mark 19 overnight. The story moves through shifting I...
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1:03:59
The Path From The Dark Side - Joshua Alderette (part 2 of 2)
“We went from amateur to professional in two days.” Ambushes, mortars, Bradleys, and the fog of war as told by Josh Alderette in part 2 of our conversation. Two brutal April days, from convoy ambushes and mortar fire, and the small human moment...
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1:04:08
The Path From The Dark Side - Joshua Alderette (part 1 of 2)
Josh Alderette gives a candid oral history: a young lance corporal is yanked from his team and dropped into 81s as a TOW gunner, right after losing a friend. The early Ramadi period shows how expectations fractured early. They were sold stabili...
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1:01:47
The Real Machine Gun Kelly - Nick Kelly
Nick Kelly recounts Ramadi in 2004, from the first push, to the government center, to the fight that swallowed Easy Street, and the strange silence of coming home. Nick also paints the story of what lingers. It's the humanizing part: calling a ...
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1:09:33
A Lifetime of Explosives - Heath McKenzie (part 2 of 2)
Part two with Heath McKenzie of MAP 3. He leads us thru the memory of Ramadi: VBIEDs, RPG ambushes, and his rare Javelin shot... and then recounts the long, messy work of coming home, sobriety, and leaning on people who answer the phone. <...
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38:34