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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.
Constant Combat
When the Smoke Cleared - Felix Garcia (part 2 of 2)
We open on a quiet patrol that turns into an IED ambush on Route Nova and follow the split-second decisions that shape a platoon’s fate. Felix opens up about loss, leadership, near misses, and the broken path home—and what real support can look like.
• LCpl Savage wounded during a concrete-layered IED blast on Route Nova
• Doc freezing then snapping into care under pressure
• Night ops chaos with live power lines and concussion injuries
• Training river escape drills for up-armored Humvees
• QRF firefight, restraint under fire, and controlling chaos
• Interpreters’ risks, “Wilbur,” and the cost of allegiance
• Siloed platoons, downtime rituals, clippers and call centers
• Abrupt transition to civilian life, alcohol, and drift
• Then vs now: poor debriefs versus robust modern support
• Responsibility to those who served with us and to ourselves
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If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ RamadiPodcast@gmail.com, or via the podcast website above.
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This is part two of our conversation with Felix Garcia from Rainmaker Platoon. And then that ambush was right before Savage got hit, or no, so Savage.
SPEAKER_00:Um so we were, and I think I just saw a date somewhere. It was May May 12th.
SPEAKER_02:May 12th is when Savage got hit.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, May 12th. So uh it was after the April shenanigans, and the book said we were delivering a generator. Um okay, but I remember us playing soccer with the kids um in some school or something, you know, it was pretty fun. It was a cool, you know, quiet day, essentially. And I remember talking to the team that to always be alert of your surroundings in reference to finding rock piles piled up. Like if you ever saw rock piles piled up on a corner, then mostly more than likely you're ending up in a in some type of kill zone or right, and uh we never did a real good job if you know uh identifying those. But it was always a topic of conversation for me to the team, and so we're on and what's that road closest to the Euphrates River? So, like if you're heading back to to Ramadi, it's on the right side.
SPEAKER_02:Nova? That was Nova, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So we're on route Nova, but we're we're not like close towards the camp, so we're pretty far out there. And uh I'm on truck, I'm in truck number three, and so the the first Humvee makes it left, the second Humvee makes it left, and I see, and as and as the third truck is making the less, I I see this rock pile. And as I see this rock pile, I look to the left, and that pot can be boom, the the largest explosion I had seen to that date. And the whole sky was gray. Uh, because they ended up putting uh concrete bags over the ID. Yeah. So when it exploded, everything was just gray, like the whole sky, as as as high as you can, you know, see, and you know, mass chaos on the radio, right? We're trying to figure out who got hit, you know, who who's doing what. Um I think my driver was Corporal Fox at the time. And uh, I jumped off the vehicle. We're gonna push through this kill zone, right? Because and you couldn't see anything, right? So I jump off the vehicle, and the reason I jumped off the vehicle is because to the right was a very steep embankment, you know, and I was scared that uh we were gonna miss the road and go into the embankment. Oh, sure. So I so I'm walking in front of the vehicle, and we kind of clear this you know, cement smoke thing that's going on, and I see a vehicle to the far right, and it's the second vehicle, and it's it drove off, flew off. It was still right up, uh, but it was it was down that steep 20-foot embankment or whatever. Uh the the first vehicle drove past the kill zone, and uh so I I run down the hill, and everybody in the back of the of uh that truck was still you know concussion shocked. Regal Spurger, Lieutenant Dobb, uh Savage, and uh I don't remember who else was back there. But uh so as I get there, Savage has leaned over, and there's this huge gash to the bottom left of his back. And uh I was like, oh, you know, it's this ain't looking good, you know. This is this is oh. And uh our first sergeant, first sergeant Mac was there. Uh and everybody was in shell shock still, you know, nobody was reacting to us. So we had a a severe casualty in the back of the truck. Uh the only doc that we had available was Doc Contreras, and you know, he was shell shocked, you know, he was out of the tooth. And uh I'm telling the savage, I'm like, Savage, you gotta get up, savage, you gotta get up, savage, you gotta get up. And his his mouth, I guess he had hit his face or something because his mouth was all slowed up. Um, so I'm telling I'm I'm grabbing Doc. I was like, Doc, you gotta fuck Doc, you gotta get to work, Doc, you gotta get and get to work. And Doc wasn't responding uh for obvious reasons. And uh I started pulling stuff out of his first aid kit, you know, finding you know whatever I needed to find. And uh, so I I found some guys, I unwrapped it or whatever, and I put it on Savage's womb, and Doc snapped out of it, he you know, whatever he was going through at the time for the snap straight into doc mode. I have uh huge admiration for that man, but uh so I asked Savage to stand up twice, and he he he fought the stand-up twice, and then after the second time he passed out. Um so Fuentes and Rose. And this was a bonehead, like this, you know, some afterthought, right? Like he was thinking through it, but uh somebody calls a hilo, so there's a hilo in a route, but we gotta get him back onto the roadside, right? And just 20 foot and back. And at the time I didn't realize that he had shrapnel stuck in his body, right? Like ripping through cutting, you would imagine, I would think, with every movement that we're asking him to do. Um so and at that time we had stretchers on the vehicles. Remember that?
SPEAKER_02:We had yeah, flexible, uh unfoldable stretchers, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, we had stretchers, and my bonehead, my bonehead self just reacting, instructed Sefuntes and Rose to drag them up this hill. So they they drug savage up this hill. Um, and then put them, you know, put them on a hilo and ended up passing away on the hilo.
SPEAKER_02:You got a Medivac uh roadside out there? Uh uh Hilo. Yeah, the Hilo landed there. Yeah, I don't think I knew that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because by the time we had got there, because we responded, by the time we had got there, he was gone. He would already left. I didn't know if if he had gone in a vehicle or how he had gone, but he was already gone.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. Yep, and then you know Regal Sperger was ate up pretty good. Yeah. Um, and tenant Dodd, you know, had concussion thing pretty good.
SPEAKER_03:Was that the one that Holmes also got wounded at?
SPEAKER_00:No, Holmes Holmes was a night, a night operation. Uh, we were by Snake Pit area back there on that and uh we were driving away from Hurricane Point and uh uh an ID hit and tore Holmes's left thumb, I believe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That and that was a very panicky, very panicky, very chaotic, you know, one of those you know, unprofitable moments for me. Like, you know, my team didn't react as good as they should have at that time.
SPEAKER_04:Uh getting blown, yeah, it's it's hard. Don't be so hard on yourself. You get it, getting blown up is a is a very disorienting thing. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh I don't know. I just you know, at the end of the day, you know, there's as a leader, you kind of take take responsibility for what uh those, you know, what and those that that was not a very prideful moment for me as a leader. But uh you know, best case scenarios happened though, right? You know, just still with us and yeah, he's doing fast fantastic things and working through his PTSD on however he's doing it. Uh so very proud of performance is also yeah, he seems to be doing quite well. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I remember responding to the home ID as well. Apparently, uh it just is the way the rotation went. I guess we were your reaction force. Reaction force you guys got hit and we would come because uh I came to that one too. And I remember coming to the vehicle and Doc was finishing bandaging home, and he had he was peppered, he had all kinds of bleeding on his face and stuff too. But the biggest thing I remember that made me nervous about Marines moving around because they weren't paying attention is it had blown through and broke multiple power lines, and they were hanging down and sparking because there's no transformers or anything like that in Iraq. They're all live power lines, and and things were some of those were high voltage and some were low voltage, and the high voltage lines were crackling back and forth. And I was like, somebody's gonna walk into that and die. And I was trying to push people away from that. And then how are we gonna tow this vehicle out? And there was a power line literally right down right next to it, and and it was yeah, that was a shit show, unfortunately. Um, and somehow we got everybody out, and no one no one got further hurt impressively.
SPEAKER_00:No, yeah, it was uh it was a one-off type situation, uh, which was a blessing because like I said, we weren't you know act acting or you know, responding our you know our best that day. That was uh and when did Holmes get uh get hurt? You guys have a date to that?
SPEAKER_04:I don't know. Holmes, I don't have an exact date, but that would have been June.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know. I don't have that on my on my list of dates, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's you know, and when you know I started to fight, we you know, um that mental you know headspace of you know self- you know, preservation versus keeping your head in the game. Hodges was very you know instrumental and pivotal to keeping a lot of guys attacked, you know, head head, you know, you know, hot you know Hodges, but yeah. Yeah, he's an asset sometimes. Uh especially in combat.
SPEAKER_02:He's a force and not so much, but he's a force of nature by far.
SPEAKER_00:Uh he's fantastic. He's a fantastic person to be in combat with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Do you have any do you have many memories of uh doing any of the bug hunts or were you did you guys as rainmaker, did you guys end up doing a lot of door kicks?
SPEAKER_00:Uh we ended up on some night mission uh towards towards the back end, I believe. And do you remember we had a group of Marines that stayed with us, transferred back and went and served with 2-4 uh for like three to four or five months, and then they they EAS the PCS out EAS, right? They EAS back into but off but from that.
SPEAKER_04:Um yeah, so so what happened with them if you're if you're talking about the same thing, is is that when when 2-5 got tasked to come, just because the Marine Corps knows how to squeeze every last drop out of everybody, they looked at everybody's service records and said to a bunch of Marines that were supposed to EAS while they would have been deployed, that they had the option of going to combat with 2.4 and getting out at their normal time, or if they deployed with 2-5, they would be forced to uh you know be involuntarily extended until they got until they returned. And so a big portion of them. So we had for me, I don't know who Rainmaker had, but I had like uh Adams, Martinez, and Clark came from that group, but I don't know who Rainmaker had.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we had uh we had Brian Fox, uh Corporal Fox. He and he he ended up being my driver and Asami board for me, like very instrumental and uh keeping my head spaced to where it was. Very funny guy, very, very positive guy. You know, we didn't have I I don't know him from Adam, you know. Uh so that was nice to not have uh like a previous relationship, right? It's just you know another NCO. Um fantastic driver, fantastic. So anyway, so so he ended up leaving, right? So I guess his contract was done, and we went back stateside, probably like halfway for deployment. And ended up uh I ended up picking up another driver. We're Facebook friends, but I don't remember his name. Uh and this this guy could not drive. So uh and I guess he had like some night vision issues issues that nobody really knew about it, you know. He's probably 18, 19 years old, you know, 22, 23 at the time. I think it was 22 at the time. And uh yeah, he had some night vision issues, and at the at the at this time we had the up armored hubbies, right? Like yeah, and I was like, fuck this. So we started doing drills. Uh and I made the whole section do drills that if the vehicle slid into the Euphrates River, this is the order that we're gonna get out, this is how we're gonna cut our straps, is you know, the driver goes out first, or the turret guy goes out first, the driver, and then so on and so forth. And you know, I'm I'm the last guy, right? I'm thinking, I ain't gonna make it. You know, you guys gas is gonna get stuck on a turret, you know. The you know, the power is gonna stick on a turret. And I'm like, I really hope we don't fall in this roof radius because if we if we fall, you know, the panic and the adrenaline, and you know, you're gonna consume oxygen a lot faster than you would normally don't think that you can hold your breath for a minute and a half. That shit ain't gonna happen with you. It's bad. You need to pray about it. So, and we would do drills, and I had the guys do drills, right? So we would do drills. Okay, hey, boom, we're in the water, right? So then we're working on trying to get out the turd and stuff like that. So we're on this bug hunt thing, it's how this memory comes about, and uh huge convoy. I don't know. And it might be a hyperbole, but like 30, 40 vehicles. I mean, this thing was freaking huge, right? And we're we got the cat eyes or black, black, you know, whatever it is, right? Blackout lights at all. What is it?
SPEAKER_04:Blackout lights, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Cat eyes, yeah, blackout lights, either one. Yep, trying to drive with night vision, you can't see shit.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, and uh here go here comes my driver drifting. I'm like stainless in the road, stay stainless of the road, stainless in the road, and he's down and keeps drifting right to the right is the Euphrates River, right? I'm like, stay stay in the lane, stay in the lane, stay in the lane, and uh, and we're all it's silent, it's a silent raid, right? So no radio communication, no nothing. And he keeps drifting, he keeps drifting, he keeps drifting. And as he's drifting on him, I'm screaming at him at this point. I'm like, stay in the freaking what the fuck are you staying? And uh the the back right tire comes off the road, right? And it starts to slide because it's a heavy, it's you know, just things four times more weight than a normal Humvee because all that damn armor. And it starts to slide. I can feel it slide, and my heart just like comes out of my throat, and I'm I'm trying to kick the gas, uh, press the gas, press the back, all right. And he's he's out there, and this is supposed to be a silent raid, and we're out here making all this commotion uh back there. You know, there's however many Humvees behind me, and uh so you know, so I'm telling him, Gun it, gun it, got it, gun it, gun it. So he guns it, and that oh thank god that tire catches the edge of the road, and we get back um back on the road. And uh man, you know how when you're so nervous, you know, and you're drilling and hyper focus kicks in at your cotton mouth kicks in as well. Yes, yeah. Oh man, I I I could almost swallow my tongue, is how it drives my mouth. Uh and uh anyway, so we we ended up uh trying to get a hold of somebody because at this point they took a left turn, right turn somewhere, you know, they're they're far, you know. Uh but we were able to you know catch up, and then we just provided security for whatever that bug hunt was for. But uh one one prideful moment that I'll speak about the team is that uh we ended up um QRF, we ended up being called, and there was a seven-ton pinned up somewhere. Uh it was a it was a daylight operation, and everybody was pinned up. So so Rainmaker gets there, we we uh jump off the vehicles, we're pulling up points, we're we got people uh as angel watches up top. Um and we're taking we're taking fire down this road. And this is in the book too, but it doesn't it doesn't talk about this, and I'm and I'm gonna talk about it.
SPEAKER_02:Uh and anyways, so there's actually a whole lot of that, and that's uh it just real as a quick aside, I don't want to derail you. There's so many moments in that book that are beautiful for golf and echo, and I truly think it is the pivotal work that tells the story of golf and echo. But there are so many things that it's like, hey, there were two or three weapons company platoons right involved in all of this, and you did not mention any of them, you didn't even say they were there. And so I I again, this is I'm really glad you're sharing this story because it's it's missing. Yes, yeah. Go ahead anyway. What you were taking fire down the road.
SPEAKER_00:I'm sorry to and I I even think the N Lion S was part of this group too. We got there and and the Lion S was already there. Um, but uh, so we're we're pinned up in this intersection. There's this huge seven-ton vehicle there. Um, we go to you know, navigate towards one area, and you can actually see the rounds, you know, the way the sun was hitting, you can see the rounds coming down, you know, it was very crazy. Surreal, yeah, yeah. Um, and uh, I'm like, no, we're not, and we're not doing that, we're not going down this road, it's not happening. So we backtrack a little bit and we did something else. And there's this guy, right? We're we're we're taking RPG fire down this road, and there's this guy hooting and hollering, oh come on, motherfuckers. You know, it's why it's a piece of me, let's go, let's do it, rah, rah, rah, rah. And I had just come back up to the scene, and uh, it annoyed me. And I got in this quick, quick thing of rage, and I ended up grabbing this guy's flag jacket. I I leg sweeped him, I threw him on the ground, I got to the prone and I waited for this guy to come back out. And when we did, I shot him with one shot. And uh unbeknownst to me at the time, I didn't realize that I had leg sweeped an officer, and uh and uh right, so you know, and I didn't know until after we got back, like everybody in the section was telling me it's like, hey, did you know that you just fucking I was like, No, I I I didn't even know it was him. I just I saw some some guy over here, you know, acting like a clown at the moment, and uh, you know, let's engage and ended up engaging. And uh so that threat was eliminated. So we were able to do some forward progress. We did some forward progress and ended up seeing bloodstains on the ground. Uh, so we walked walked in there and uh ended up being another bad guy uh on the ground. And this was covered in a book two where uh Lieutenant Dobb um had his weapon, you know, his muzzle. And the guy guy fought pretty hard asking asking Lieutenant Wheeler to uh to finish his life, but that never happened. So we checked the rest of the house. I ended up we ended up finding money and maybe like you know, some you know, bad guy peripheria type stuff, and we we pushed through. We ended up in this huge field, uh, and I guess it was a rice field or something. And we're all online and we're pushing through. And I didn't think we were gonna find anything, you know, we're just going through the motions, right? We're we're clearing through you know, houses, we're clearing roads, and no shit. There was like two or three bad guys with like weapons, like in the prone. Oh wow, yeah, and uh you know, so we start reacting and we're all you know taking a knee, we're in the prone, and I see this guy with a rifle. Um, and but they're not being aggressive, you know, they're not, you know, they're not taking action, you know, they're just in the prone. And so I'm in the prone, and you know, we're all screaming to this guy, you know, get up, get up, stand up, hands up, hands up, get up, you know, let me see your hands up, not reacting. And we weren't sure if they had like IDs, you know, you know, waiting, like we didn't know. And uh, so I took sight. I took sight, I lined a line of sights, and I'm like, well, I don't want to kill him, you know, because I we don't know the situation, but the worst case scenario can happen. So I take uh I take an aim to his legs, like to his foot, you know, and I shoot. Guy doesn't flinch, guy doesn't move, and I'm like, I guess I missed him. Then I'm screaming, and we're all screaming. Like, put your hands up, put your hands up, put your hands up, put your hands up. Still, not nothing, no, no reaction. I shoot two, two or three, two, two or three more times, maybe three times total. No grunt, no scream, no nothing. Uh so we finally decided that we get up, and when we get up, his his leg is like ate up. And this whole time I thought I was missing, and I was just demolishing this guy's leg. And uh no reaction. I'm like, this guy's high as a kite, it has to be high as a kite. And it was just insane. So uh, you know, I'll remember who it was, but uh, you know, we did the whole, hey, let's get on his back, hey, on account of three, we're gonna roll over, you know, to check to check to see how an ID or something, you know, the whole night. Nothing, nothing. And it was just crazy. Ended up calling, uh, you know, that was scary too. You know, oh, this is it. I'm about to drop a flak jacket on his ass or something. And you know, the army came with uh with uh another net of ac whatever it was, like art, you know, light art armored vehicle.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they're Bradleys. Yeah, well, they had well, it depends on who came out. They had two Bradleys, they also had M113s, and they brought out both, depending it depending on what day it was. Uh, I think if I remember correctly from the book, that was that was during I don't know. I don't remember. I I think that was probably April like 8th, 7th, something like that. It was during the April time frame.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_02:And so it was probably the 113s because the Bradleys didn't, they went out north uh out on Nova.
SPEAKER_00:So we heard um as a debrief from the army uh that he was you know under the influence and um ended up you know speaking badly about the the Americans and you know budget, positive Baja Had. So I didn't feel too bad after the fact. During it, I was like, man, I just blew those guys like that. Uh yeah, you know, the team did a fan fantastic, got everybody cleared out, nobody got hurt that day. Uh to get to the team. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I want to know how you managed to keep girlfriends too, because I had a hard enough time keeping one wife.
SPEAKER_00:Girlfriend, yeah, yeah, it was uh so um I was dating while we were in Okinawa, my girlfriend at the time gave birth uh to our son in March of 2003. And uh we were on ship when it happened, but um so we were dating, you know, and I prayed to God, I was like, God, you know, help me help me, you know, love this woman and commit to this woman and so on and so forth, and really tried to you know to make it happen. And during during the Ramadi phase, you know, I'll call her and uh you know, we chat and stuff, and uh she kept keep she kept pressing on marriage. And I was like, you know, I'm not really committed, I'm not ready to get married, I'm not in a position to get married right now. And she took exception to it, uh, as she should. Um, you know, we have a child and we've been dating on and off for a couple, two, three years, and uh, you know, she was expecting something from me that I couldn't give her. Uh, so she ended up breaking out with me while I was in Romantica. So uh, you know, that was and it's hurtful, right? Um, it's warranted.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not saying well, maybe so. Yeah, but still, you can't do anything, and also those damn phone senders that you were calling her from, you could get 15-30 minutes at best before they'd cut off anyway. So, I you know, how much relationship could you even get in?
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. Um, no, because you know, she was my outlet, you know, at that time. So when that happened, I was like, well, I gotta fix this, I gotta I gotta pivot and check and adjust. So ended up pulling up my black book and calling every female I knew, right? Just going through just going through the road.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and uh this one this one girl that uh answered, her name was Charlene, and she's my wife. Um, so she answered, um and we went and we had a messed up breakup, so she was hesitant to answer. Uh so she answered and she was like, Oh, hey, I heard I heard you're you're in combat. And you know, she was just being nice and reciprocal. I'm like, Yeah, she's like, Well, do you need anything? I was like, Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. Can you send me some underwears and some socks? And you know, her her side of the story, and she was like, This mother effort, you know, after all this time, you know, ask me for some you know, underwear and socks. And when her mom and her dad finds out that she's sending Felix, you know, and they're like, You're doing what? You're not sending him freaking no, there's no way. They're like, Oh, yeah, but he's in combat. By the way, so that that was the the girlfriend's plural ended up uh getting you know hooking up together and getting married uh after that.
SPEAKER_02:Um dude, that's that's a crazy year. Start of start of a marriage story right there.
SPEAKER_00:December will be 20 years.
SPEAKER_02:That's amazing, dude. Congrats. That's really funny.
SPEAKER_04:You talking about the call center made me remember that uh I was in there once when uh a mortar round hit like while I was trying to talk to people. Oh, yeah. I think everybody has having to like explain and be like, what was that? And it's like uh don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_02:I think one time I lied and told my wife that a truck hit the the trailer.
SPEAKER_00:That's funny. I I didn't use the call center very much. I had access to the GPS phone.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah, the iridium. Yeah, yeah. But sat phone was nice. I had access to that too, but you know, you still you're only supposed to use it for you know an hour or so or whatever, but I use both.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, it would be like late at night, you know, one o'clock in the morning or something, and it's more weird.
SPEAKER_04:See, and I the my biggest and what I've realized talking to uh the guys here a little bit more is is kind of how intensely siloed we were because you know you were Rainmaker out with Sledgehammer, you know, technically, you know, same platoon, um, but we were split at that time, and so we were functionally running as two separate platoons. Right. But I would argue like I have almost no idea what you guys did. Like, I mean, like there would be a few conversations here and there, but you know, the due to tempo, and sometimes you know, if you were on day and then we were on nights, and you know, like it just the conversations just didn't just didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00:And so yeah, it's always like uh almost like a drive-by high. And I mean, and we lived right right next to the yeah, no, yeah, exactly. Well, it was good.
SPEAKER_04:It was and I think the only time that I really got to see people a little bit more is um there's a couple of guys that liked the way I gave haircuts, and so they would come over to the hooch when we had to do it, and they liked the way that I cut hair. So I cut a lot of hair over there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But uh I I liked there's only so much card playing you can play in the hooch, you know. And you know, I listen to a lot of a lot of my music. I I watched you know DVDs also having a personal DVD player and stuff like that, but there's only so much you can do. Um I mean when you're not when you're not on mission, man, like war's boring, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Going through clippers. Like at least a clipper day, then things would get so hot.
SPEAKER_04:Yep, yeah. Well, that's because that's partially because I didn't have it wired correctly. There was too much juice flowing through the damn clippers.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Yeah, even with the inverters we did have, you still would get a bunch of power surges. It was awful.
SPEAKER_00:That's interesting. I don't know that.
SPEAKER_04:Did you uh I don't know why this made me think of it, but um so there's a whole long story you could have with uh the absolute debacle that happened with uh the interpreters and stuff like that. But but just to kind of the the ones that we ended with, we ended up running around with uh well his real name was Chasm, but we uh we uh he his American name was Wilbur. Um did you guys run? Run with an inter and with an interp much going out or I don't remember his name either.
SPEAKER_00:And to your point, I think we we went through two. The second one was like he was hardcore. He was, you know, very uh his English was was you know great, uh spectacular. And it's uh he was gone gone home. And I and I remember him dating somebody and went through this whole you know process of telling us that the problem is is that he doesn't have enough to provide for his family, you know, to I think you're talking you're talking about the same one then.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it was Wil it was Wilbur, yeah. Wilbur? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He was a cool cat. I I I kept I kept in contact with him up until Did you really? Yeah. How did you get it? Yeah, we traded like letters, letters. Oh, okay. And um up until 2000 and when did uh when did this when did stuff really kick off with the uh the Syrian revolution? Like when did that really start sliding? Like anyways, it I lost track of him in during kind of the era the during that larger Arab uprising. I lost track of him, and unfortunately, I think he might not be with us anymore. But um this is just because he he stayed pretty close with the Americans, and uh one of his last letters was trying to get me to help see if I could help get him in contact with like like America to get him, you know, like pulled out because he was not safe. And there was I I didn't have the resources. Like I didn't know what I didn't know who to call. I don't have the uh the president on speed dial.
SPEAKER_02:So, you know, like I I I tried, but I think that's a very common narrative too, with you saw with Afghanistan with when we pulled out there, there was so many people, they're private organizations going over to try to evacuate the because they were like, Hey, we're we were helping you, and when they come back, we're all gonna be dead. And I assume that's probably what happened with him too. You know, yep. If your family's not safe, what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. He took off. How many tours are these guys do?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, well, both Nylan and I, uh, we you know, you were faster, but we weren't we were, I mean, literally, uh, we we caught the breeze of the door shutting for you for us. We got out December 28th. Uh, so we were right right behind you.
SPEAKER_02:I went back later as a uh private contractor, but I didn't as with the Marine Corps, just the one time.
SPEAKER_00:How was that uh that period of being back in the States and what did you guys end up doing?
SPEAKER_04:A month of leave, and then yeah, it was a month for for me, it was a month of leave, and then uh I think I think it's probably similar for Nyland that we had already started getting clued into that there was such that it was called a school cut, and you could get out early from your EAS to be able to start the semester on time. And our EAS was in March, and so we both took an up we took that as an opportunity, and so we got out technically early on a school cut. And so I I didn't we didn't take any more leave after the our October leave. So we were around the barracks for Thanksgiving and and Christmas and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02:It was a weird you was it was it was not good. You didn't miss much, but it was weird. Um I obviously, as you can imagine, barracks life, a lot of people drinking and stuff like that. I lived out in town, but I still was privy to it. And then the transition of where all the officers were going and the senior staff were all, I mean, similar to yourself. Everybody was catching B-billets or going to new units, and so we lost leadership fast. And the new people that came in that were trying to negotiate and wrangle a bunch of essentially kids who just got out of combat was impossible. It was the level of insubordination was really high as well. So there ended up being a lot of, you know, a lot of barracks cleaning games and a lot of motor pool games to try to get people back to remember, hey, you know, there's this other thing that you do in the Marine Corps, and there's still a rank structure, and you don't get to just say whatever you want no matter what you did. That's interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But there's a whole conversation you can have about how difficult the or difficult, that's the wrong word, that the military did not have a system in place at that point of how to transition combat vets. Oh, the you know, the the way that they well, the way that they transitioned us was would be fine if you just got back from a normal deployment from a like Oki, like a 30, you know, like you just got back from the 31st Mew in September, you're out by October, you know, December, you know, so what, you know, it doesn't matter. But you know, we were in, you know, like less than you know, like a little over three months after we had our last firefight, where a civilian with zero support, um, thank God Nylon had me help him put his floor into this condo at the time and gave me a little bit of a of a landing place for like just something to do because I was completely I was not in a good headspace. And then I went back, then I went to college, obviously, because I was on the school cut. But I was I was uh definitely a liability. I I have we don't need to tell those stories. Uh that's not that's the purpose of this podcast, but but I have a couple stories from uh 2005 that uh doesn't does not cast me in the best light.
SPEAKER_02:I think just like what Felix was saying, I mean, I did the same thing. I I have a picture somewhere of me standing next to the barbecue grill uh on the house that you're talking about where you helped me put in the floor. And I'm 20, 30 pounds overweight. I was easily drinking every day. My wife was in the throes of a master's degree program, and so she was doing homework 20 hours a day. So she, I mean, we were supporting each other, but supporting each other by passing each other in the hall.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And I definitely did the same thing. Like I would come home from school, and you know, schoolwork was not difficult compared to what I had just been through, and and easily consume enough alcohol to kill myself. And then I do the same thing. I would wake up and I'd go right to school because my alarm went off, but there was no it was all bad choices. It was all bad choices, there was no recovery.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, those it's it was all check-in-a-box activities because we're supposed to do them, but no, but yeah, just just going through the motions.
SPEAKER_02:And the transition that we I mean, I don't know what you guys got. Well, clearly, Felix, you got nothing. Um, we had a check-in with the battalion surgeon who he said, Are you having trouble sleeping? You can take a little Benadryl, it'll help you. Uh, any other issues, any physical problems? Yes, no. And I I didn't have any significant physical problem. I mean, I had pain from getting thrown around and blown up and running for four years, everything, you know, all the normal stuff that you get as a grunt. Yeah, but nothing that I would complain about. I was like, no, there's nothing to report. He's like, How are your teeth doing? Go see the dentist. That was it. You know, like I think I got a feeling. And then we went to that transition course where we there was a forklift company that was like, hey, you can come build forklifts. And then Lowe's was like, you could be a cashier at Lowe's. And that was the two job offers we got. And a person who had probably never actually written a resume tried to teach us how to write a resume, and then we were out. That was it. No, nothing about any about stress, about support, about community, about faith, about anything, literally anything that could have helped you get through this transition zero. I mean, we never even talked to the chaplain, which that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, it was uh essentially the same for me. So I EES um out of uh DI um 2007, and it was just a very rushed process, you know, like a just a whirlwind of activities of a package this and you know, transitioning to that, you know, but nothing that really sticks, you know, and nothing that was very heart heartfelt. And it's funny that we're in this conversation because um so I'm an entrepreneur, I'm self-employed, and I do a lot of things. And one of the things I do is I I sell roofs, I inspect roofs and you know, for a roofing company. And uh I'm on the roof with the adjuster, and uh I see that he has boots on, you know, like military-style boots. And I'm like, uh are you in a service? He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm uh Air Force. I'm like, I appreciate service. I'm like, Oh, you're welcome. I'm like, so uh so how does this work? He's like, Well, uh, I got 20 years with the Air Force, and the uh there's this program where I do a civilian job and it's like an OJT type scenario. So he's an adjuster for an insurance company and the the Air Force pays him for it. A three, six month program. And I and I didn't tell him that I was a Marine or anything like that. I'm thinking, wow, you know how times have changed, you know, yeah, where there's actual programs now, you know, looking for for the betterment of you know people that that are getting out versus you know, forklift driving, you know, cashier and go figure it out.
SPEAKER_02:My close friend of mine who uh just left the Navy SEAL teams uh has the most amazing support network. They first sent him to a retreat to decompress where he learned how to work with horses and he didn't know anything about horses, but he learned how to like pet and clean horses, and then they had like therapy circles. They then signed him up for therapy where he got free therapy, which he didn't necessarily felt like he needed it, but he got free therapy. And then he had four different doctors, a generalist, and then several specialists who looked in every hole and looked him up and down, and they put him in an MRI machine, even if he didn't want it, and said, Hey, no, you've got problems here and there. These are the things you should follow up on. And then a specialist wrote all of his disability paperwork and told him everything to follow up with his either private medical insurance or the VA. And I was like, I got a thank you for your service in a Snickers bar, and they kicked me out. Like I it was the uh complete opposite. You got a Snickers bar? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think I bought the Snickers bar.
SPEAKER_04:I got a butterfinger.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, and I've yet to check in with the VA, uh, to talk about to-do list, but I mean, it just goes to show how you know disassociated we were from something new from you know in all aspects, you know, top down.
SPEAKER_02:Well, dude, this has been great. Do you want to continue?
SPEAKER_00:Uh I I really appreciate this platform and what you guys are doing. You know, a lot of people talk, talk to talk, but you know, actually doing the walk. Just getting started, obviously. I mean any any adventure you do is the first step, and you guys are rocking it. I felt very comfortable. Uh very safe space, so thank you for providing me the space to talk through some things.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Literally anytime, on or offline. You know how to get a hold of me.
SPEAKER_00:100%. Likewatch. Same, same. All right, gents. Well, appreciate you until our next adventure.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. Take it easy, buddy. Yes, sir. Likewise. If you like what you heard, make sure you subscribe for future episodes on your favorite podcast service.