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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
How to Tame a Dragon - Kevin Sakaki (part 2 of 2)
We revisit Ramadi with Kevin Sakaki for part 2 and go thru what it cost in lives and sanity, and how Weapons Company Marines built tactics, SOPs, and coping tools under fire.
There’s history in here - lost awards, messy command chains, journalists who chose safer roads - and there’s heart: the smoke pit therapy, the jokes that kept people sane, the friends who kicked down doors figuratively to drag each other back to life. These Whiskey Company Ramadi Marine’s legacy is more than a battle; it’s a blueprint for adapting under pressure and finding meaning when the mission ends.
• why Ramadi 2004 was overshadowed by Fallujah and media access
• human realities at VCPs and inside the city under siege
• leadership, rapid SOPs, and the no-extended-mourning rule
• PTSD as a normal response to abnormal duration and intensity
• overmedication, VA gaps, and better care pathways
• “cowboy” labels versus street-forged tactics that worked
• award bureaucracy and how unit credit gets lost
• brotherhood, meaning, and building a life after the “dragon”
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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088
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.
All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM
This is part two of our conversation with Kevin Sakaki from headquarters and mobile assault platoon three. Sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. We've uh commented now uh several times that it's absolutely amazing that not a single one of the interviews have the same they're they're not the same. You know, there's there's there's a different feeling after each one of them. Some of them are very reminiscy, and then other ones are much more like conversational or or whatever. But I think across the board we've noticed that to your point that it's been very cathartic for everyone involved.
SPEAKER_03:Man, I love that you're doing this. You know, when I when I talked to Shane about this, how you guys got to this point of doing it and and wanting to put this together to, you know, for posterity and to tell the story before it's there's no one left to tell it. You know, I think that's that's great. I love that idea. It's just it's it's also you know frustrating because again, you know, you you you can't find anything on the battle of Ramani. Now, when you say Battle of Ramadi to people, you know, kind of in the know, they're always gonna go to the second battle of Ramani.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 2006.
SPEAKER_03:Yep. And like I don't even know if there's mention of the 2004 Battle of Romani anywhere other than what we talk about. And there's a lot of speculation on why that is, you know, like why is it that you know, you know, why did we get no whatever it is? There's no hero.
SPEAKER_01:What do you think? I'm curious because everybody seems to have their own feelings as to why.
SPEAKER_03:You know, I I think I I was fortunate enough to be in different communities within the military. Like I worked a lot with you know, in Afghanistan with like SOTIF, JSOC, uh, like the different special operations branches and stuff, and you know, working in the intelligence community, you hear different things about different things. And I think that something that was kind of talked a lot a lot about was Fallujah was the main push. It was it was not, I mean, and the reasons behind why it was it was highly public, right? Like they brought in the media for every like I don't think a single unit didn't have embedded uh media within it.
SPEAKER_01:Every major news network was there and they had aerial footage and all kinds of things, you know. It was definitely uh the biggest part of the first marine division's war on on while it was on TV.
SPEAKER_03:So you're exactly right, and I think that's why. I think it was because that was their baby, you know, their brainchild. It was like, hey, we're gonna show, you know, we're gonna show this angle of the war and how you know how great we are. And and I and I think um it was more kind of a controlled debt, if you will.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I I feel like that. I can't I can't verify that. Like, this is all just observations and things that I've taken over the years. But like, you know, you hear from us, like, and here we are, one battalion, like it's um it would be embarrassing for the Marine Corps to admit that in the sense that I think that they would have to admit that they kind of forgot about us, you know, that we didn't have the support that we needed. We didn't have shit, we didn't have anything. No, no air, no indirect. Right. And and because of that, then the question becomes to somebody well, why did they take so many losses? Why more than any other unit in theater today? Why? Well, the answer is blaringly obvious because we had zero support. We were doing it, we were overextended uh in the in the conflict and the things that we were doing, and we still managed to to do when people hear 35 KIA, 30, you know, I count uh Ryan in that 35. Yeah, prostucked and try to stay. He was still us when he was killed. With that amount of people, people like uh Marines being killed, like they don't understand the amount of insurgents that were killed. Like it was like I think what they say through the April 6th through the 10th, wasn't there something like 200 insurgents killed?
SPEAKER_01:So the initial estimates were interesting, uh, in that they went at about 500 to 550 for between April, uh April 6th to April 10th. And that was both sides of the city, the Sophia district and uh the South Fights down on Easy Street. Um never got full confirmation. That was based on Intel chatter, uh, the dead bodies we drug out of the field hospitals on the 8th, and the uh family members that came to claim the dead bodies that we had dropped off with the Iraqi police. Because I don't know if you remember, but we were just stacking bodies on the Humvees. I do remember dropping them off at the IP checkpoints.
SPEAKER_03:You remember CPs when we would do these like VCPs, these snap VCPs, and there would be bodies and trunks, people would be taking their dead home, and we're like, What the what?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, you know, like it was I distinctly remember you and Jordan searching a truck and then coming back and being like, That was the craziest shit I've ever seen. Like, what what did you see? And you're like, there was a face in a bucket, yeah. And it was just and you're like, it was just a face, there was nothing else.
SPEAKER_02:Dude, I forgot about so I remember one night this uh oh man, completely okay. So we were doing one of those. We came up and we stopped the car, and they were, you know, they were all pretty jazzed up because I guess they were trying to get over to the hospital or something like that. But it was a bucket full of parts, yep. Like it was just a bucket full of like arms and hands and legs, and there was two fucked up people in the back, and we're like, Oh shit, let's check the trunk real quick and go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:But one car that came through had an actual arm, like from the elbow down on the dash. And we're just like, What?
SPEAKER_01:And that was one of the things I never understood. I know that they had put out word that if you had body parts, bring them into the city and to the hospital and the Iraqi police station specifically, and they would appropriately take care of it, but they never told us that. Yeah, we found out in the in the other way by finding people's cars with body parts in it.
SPEAKER_03:Back to the the question though, I think for the why part is because of all that. Like we did more with less than anybody else and lost lost the most people because of it. I don't think anybody really wants to acknowledge that. It's it's kind of like it's kind of like I I feel like for the Marine Corps, it's like a black eye for them. It's like it it is a leadership failure, right? Like we less, so we had amazing leadership. We had, you know, Colonel Kennedy, Sergeant Major Booker, you know, all the way down, you know, we there was there's there was really great leadership, I think. You know, like even with all the losses, like you you look at the SOPs that were developed after that, which was if you ever got to read the Kenny Maraki sent me something that was processed through the war fighting lab, and it was lessons learned from us. Yep. Um, and it kind of became SOP for some different things. But one of those things that's really unique is you look at the no extended mourning period, right? Like like there was no morning. There basically was when we lost somebody, it was have a service with those closest to them that day or as soon as possible, and then you everyone goes right back to work. And what is work? Work is you know, trigger point, going right back to combat. And so there, I think that's also another reason for a lot of people why they had a hard time when they finally came home. I don't know that I mean we saw some crazy things, man. Um, and I don't know that it was the this is just my belief, and it's just like I don't think that combat or um for me, I can only speak for myself, but like it wasn't combat, it wasn't the things I saw, it wasn't any of that other stuff that like caused problems or broke me, as much as finally being able to process everything. Yeah, like a lot like and going through all of that. Like you think um, you know, working in the better community, you hear a lot of nutty, nutty shit from counselors and different things. And one of the one of the things that I heard a while back was you know, anger is fear and sadness, right? And if that's true, then there was a whole lot of fear and sadness for us. Like there were times when you like for myself, and I'm sure you guys can relate to where you felt sad, but you couldn't afford to be sad. You had to suck it up because you're in a leadership position or other people were looking at you, or you you know, you couldn't just sit and break and cry. So you start like, oh shit, not now. And so you fear sadness, you get angry, and then that tool to be directed at something is that's that's a powerful tool. That's something, you know, and there's no off switch for it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and I think that's that's an excellent point. And I I actually talked to my son about that kind of more in a more broad sense of this idea that you know, uh when you get that angry, you know, if you're you know, taking that point of, you know, like sometimes you're sad and frustrated and it feels like anger, but even still inside of that, learn to channel it, to uh channel it correctly. Go ahead and use that to to stay on point, you know, use it to sharp sharpen yourself. And I think the military, especially the Marine Corps, does an amazing job of you know, any feeling that you have, channel it into aggression and to a to a fine point. But what they don't teach you then is like it doesn't always have to be anger, it doesn't have to be aggression. You know, you can you can use that in a positive way too, and we don't ever reprogram that or give other tools.
SPEAKER_03:Right. And that's sense too, because the one that we channel into the most is aggression, you know. Right. I think the other side of that for you know, like you said, it's it's really letting people know that there's more emotions and that emotions have a purpose, if only for like letting you know something's going on. Like I remember doing a project with my son when he was in third grade, uh, Greek mythology, and we were doing this study, and he said he found something in a book that he was reading. He's like, Dad, check this out. And like he was telling me that the Greeks don't believe it, and like they don't say, I am sad, I am mad, I am afraid. They say they're being visited by sadness. Like, so all these emotions are visited with a purpose, and they only hang around until they're until they deliver their message and then they're gone. So they would like entertain those things, right? And it's kind of unique, uh, kind of neat when you think about it, like to that aspect. You know, I don't believe in like being emotional at all. I think I think they serve a purpose, but to let them drive the bus is a whole different thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03:And I think uh I think like you said, like I remember Mikaula telling me a story when he got back and they get they hit the parade deck and they were getting cut loose, and one of their staff NCOs came out and said, All right, gentlemen, you know, it's it's time to put the dragon away. It has no purpose here, you know. And and you think about that, and that sounds really cool and all, but it's like, well, how do you do that? Yeah, like how do you turn it off? Like, you know, like how do you like, and I think I think for each one of us it's really interesting that I'm sure every single person you interviewed and everyone that we talk to or know has in some way or another gone on their own journey to kind of process everything and figure things out.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. Well, and the ones that haven't are the ones that are in the situations that they are, you know, like if you don't if you don't address that, that's that's the ones that are still stuck in the cups, and you know.
SPEAKER_03:I agree, agree a hundred percent. You know, there's um I can't think of his name now, but um, you know, I'm I hike a lot, and the first person to through hike the Appalachian Trail was the World War II veteran. And when they asked him why he did it, he said he was walking off the war. And it's it's um yeah, a lot of interesting things, man. I think um kind of bounced around a lot there. Sorry about that, guys.
SPEAKER_02:No, this is to to the to the point that I made earlier that each one of these conversations have like uh Nylon and I made a uh and uh you know, we talked about it that we were going to create, you know, like leave as much space as possible to let you know our our brother talk about whatever they wanted in relationship to this uh larger topic of Ramadi 04. And yeah, you know, like each part of these things is really important because to what and I really appreciate everything that you've said because I know in my personal life I have several friends that have approached me about mental health and and and whatnot because I talk about it as freely as I do. Yeah, and so hearing hearing you know, you you've just said two things actually that I'm gonna be taking and putting in my pocket to to look over and stuff like that, um, with just how your process, you know, how to process, how to think about it. Because, you know, it's just like war fighting itself, you know, like you'll never know every single tactic, and every single tactic isn't as always applicable in every single environment. And so um the best thing you can do is to train, train, train and learn new and new skills. So uh this is part this is just part of it. So I appreciate everything that you shared.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks, man. I same, same for you guys. It's you know, like you said, you know, don't know what you know until you know it, kind of thing for a lot of things. It's yeah, I um Ramadi was the culmination of a lot, like for me, I think it's like the thing that exemplifies why we're a Marine in the first place, right? Like my my the most valuable award that I have isn't even an award. Like I got an army achievement medal from you know the from SFODA from fifth group from the time that we spent with them. Like me and Neil and Langford all you know got got that as well. That's not the one that's my most prize, it's just my fit rep. It's the one I got before I got out that says lead marines in combat. You know, like it's not it's not anything that like that's the culmination, I think, of what every Marine aspires to do is that's the ultimate test, right? People always ask what it was like in you know, combat are like, I'll get that. Like, well, what was it like, you know, for you guys? And I was like, it's surreal in the sense that it's the it's the it's a place in life for a lot of us where life finally made sense. And what I mean by that is like if if um Shane, you probably read uh Carl Jung, you know, Tribe. Have you read his book Tribe?
SPEAKER_01:I have.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I imagine Blake has probably read it as well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's phenomenal. Yeah, and from that aspect of what he says about the what what what every man uh desires is you know, like you need you need a tribe, you need a common enemy to fight against, and you need common goals, right? There's I'm sure there's more than I'm missing, but but what I'm trying to say is in combat, life makes sense because you don't give a shit about the latest iPhone, the newest app, how many likes you have, or or what you know so and so said about you. It's there's no water cooler talk, there's no bullshit. It's you you don't even make it, you don't even win when you hit the racket night because you know, like gosh, which platoon was it where we had we had the soft top root the canvas roofs, then a mortar round came through and skipped out the back. Was that 81s?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I didn't know one came out. There's they had one that hit so close that it blew holes through the wall, but yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I have a picture of the one that like it was like 18 inches off the side of our boots.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so so like you like that's when guys started like sandbagging their racks at night, like putting sandbags and on the top, putting the the the plywood on top, sandbagging the top, too, yeah, and sleeping underneath, yeah, because slept in a bunker, literally, because it wasn't you made it if you woke up in the morning, and then when you woke up, you were thrown right back into it the second your feet hit the hit the ground, right? Like you you didn't know what you were gonna expect when you walked out the hooch. I remember it was it was crazy because when like the rotation was so unique that was like day taskable, night taskable, day QRF, night QRF, and then it was guard, yeah, right? And when you when you went when the platoons would make it to guard, it was like this whole different animal black out the hooch, no lights, like it would just be deathly quiet in the hooch, you know. Like you didn't you didn't go into whoever's hooch was on guard because you knew they needed their rest because we didn't we didn't get rest. Yep. Like I forgot what it was at the end. I remember, gosh, I wish I remembered this. I wish I wrote it down. But I remember being in the CP and looking at the total amount of days that we had for rest, and it was ridiculous. It was something like a phenomenally low number of rest, like like absolutely outrageously low.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, it was under 15. I remember that specifically. I was like around 12 or 13.
SPEAKER_03:10 and 10 10 to 20 somewhere in there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:The entire eight, eight, eight months that we were in combat, right? And I could be wrong on that, but it was just ridiculously low. And I was thinking, holy shit, you know. I remember uh that that kind of goes back into I'll I'll share something with y'all. When I got back, I I was kind of struggling. I was getting ready to get out, and I kind of got um put out to pastor, and they sent me to combat skills training school, and so I became an instructor there for a while, and it was fun. It was a lot of like you know, like Marines that had come back from combat and were put there to train the non-infantry Marines in infantry tactics and field skills, so to speak. So we got to kind of torture pogues and officers.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, it's your perfect job.
SPEAKER_03:But but um I remember at that time I was I was married to my son's mom, and and we were coming back from no, we were we we lived in Laguna Nigel and we were driving to San Clemente and coming down, I think it was El Camino Real, and we got to the part where we just got into town, it's like stoplight to stoplight. And this guy, this kid was driving like this little Subaru WRX or something like that, and was it was like office space. Um, every time like he'd switch lanes, that lane would stop. So then he'd swerve back over to the other one, and that one stop. He was you know, music blurring, he's getting all pissed off and like you know, throwing his arms up at everybody. And so, like, I remember coming up to a light and the light turned was turning red. So I was just hitting the brakes, and he pulls in front, like angles in front of me, and like I had literally had to lock him up. And my wife at the time like had her feet on the dash and then like snapped forward and like came down, and so I just hit the horn, and like this kid leans out the window, flips me off, hanging out the window, and spits on my truck. And I don't remember anything after that. I just and this was after we got back, right? But I do remember hearing about it later. Like, apparently, I drugged this kid out of his window of his car and was like, you know, opened the door and started slamming the door, slamming his head in the door. And my um Ali got out and like she slid into the driver's seat, turned the truck around, parked it on the other side of the street, and ran up to me and was like, Kevin, and she grabbed me and I turned around and I was like covered in blood, you know, and like was ready to swing on her, and she screamed and she said, Let's go. So I got in the truck, we got home, and she said, uh you know, she went straight into the house, straight into the bedroom, packed a bag, and grabbed her keys and uh said, I'm I'm leaving and I'm not coming back until you get help. And I was like, What? Saw no problem with that, literally at the time. And I remember um going to get going to anger management. This was crazy, but uh on base, and I remember sitting in the waiting room at some little place on I think on Main side somewhere. I finally go in and it's like a lieutenant commander or whatever. She, you know, you had to fill out that whole post-combat checklist, right? Have you ever, you know, and it was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all the way down. And so she, you know, we I go in and sit down and she goes, Hey Sergeant Sakaki, she's like, I she's like, I got some good news and bad news. And I was like, Okay. And she was like, I the good news is I don't think you have an anger problem. You know, she goes, and it's not really bad news, but she's like, I think you have PTSD. And I remember laughing. I was like, ha. I was like, you know, like pissed. Like, I was like, okay, thanks for wasting my fucking time. And I got up and I walked out. And she followed me out in the lobby and she goes, wait. She goes, Give you're already here. She's like, give me five minutes. If you don't like what I have to say, you can still leave. And it turns out this this lady had been dating one of oh gosh, one of our officers that was killed. Like they they were dating before before the Robleski?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Ski? I think it was ski. But so she knew all about you know, 2-4 and our story and everything else. And she started to explain, you know, she said something along the lines of um paraphrasing, but it was when you are she started asking me all these questions first. She's like, Do you find yourself bored at work? Do you find yourself taking like unnecessary risks? Do you drive fast? Like all these questions that I was like, yeah, so what? You know, I'm like, I'm not low crawling through my neighbor's yard at 2 a.m. I don't hit the deck when a car backfires. I'm not, you know, paranoid. I'm not, you know, walking around with a a knife, a gun, and a hatchet in my you know, pants. You know, I'm like, it just I'm just pissed off. I'm like angry, like things set me off, you know. And most of the time it was like rude people or loud people or obnoxious people. Just and so she said that when we were in combat for so long in in the fight or flight, you know, that that parasympathetic nervous system, you know, like that whole thing with uh, you know, she's like adrenaline is an actual drug, you know. Uh is it am I getting it right, Dr. Nylon? F and F or Yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, that they're used in the com in that in the in the medical field. And she said that when you're on it for so long, like we are, like it's the fight or flight, it's the push you through when you haven't had food, sleep, like all the things that we were deprived of at many a different point in that deployment. Um, you it actually changes the physical shape of your brain. I didn't know that. Um, I don't know if that's true or not to this day. I never looked it up. I just but she said that you become addicted to it. And so when I'm in an uncomfortable situation, what got me through all those other times works, and so the body looks to kind of get that fix. So for me to get that adrenaline dump, the quickest way to do that was to get angry, you know. Like that's why I kind of think that the person who wrote the original like Hulk series with like Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, like all that. That guy honestly think that guy was writing it about PTSD, because that's exactly what it's like. It's like, please don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry. And then no one talks to you. You wake up naked in a field, no one wants to talk to you.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's it's sounds like my college years. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Um, but when she told me that, like she goes, um, after she explained it, it kind of made sense. She goes, it's not what's wrong with you, it's just what happened. You know, in those words like that, that's not what's wrong. There's nothing wrong, it's just what happened. And she explained PTSD that it's a normal response to an abnormal situation, you know, that like anybody would anybody in our situation would have the same response for a certain period of time. That's normal. After like so many days, the the DSM says, Oh, 30 days is okay. 31 days is a problem.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, that's accurate. Yeah. So and so 30 days is acute stress disorder, and then once it's past 30 days, it becomes post-traumatic stress disorder.
SPEAKER_03:Right. And so it's like, how who the how do you measure stress? Like what we went through, you can't say to the level that we operated, you know, in the red or the black, is the same as somebody who got in a car accident.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Like I'm not saying that that's not stressful or to that person to believe that they were gonna lose their life, right? But like for us, where there was no certainty, there was no nothing for eight months of living in the in the red and the black, right? No, no yellow, no, no, no green, definitely no green. You know, maybe some yellow, maybe some moments of yellow, but you know, like so. She's simply just said, hey, it's it's not what's wrong with you, it's what happened. And no, it's I don't believe that it's it's abnormal. It's still a normal response. The DSM even says it's normal until this time, right? Well, so then she said, Well, now that you know what are you gonna do with it, you know, the onus is on you now. You don't get to just be an asshole, you don't get to go around and be angry and beat people up and do do whatever you've, you know, the onus is on you to do something with it. And it stuck. And it was something that really kind of made me think about things a lot, you know. And I think for for like I was telling you, why all this? I think I was just trying to say that a lot of us are doing really well, you know. I think a lot of us are doing really well, and I'm and I'm there's so many guys I'm really proud of. And I think it's because we did the work, you know, we leaned into it, we figured it out, we were like, hey, what is you know, like even if it was a reason outside of ourselves, you know, to find that drive and to find that reason to kind of like look into kind of doing better, you know, like like like you know, it's kind of earning the life that we got that somebody didn't, you know. I think that's you know, like the for me it was that not really being able to process all of that, not really being able to even like anytime any emotion came up, we just stuff it down, right? And it's like, hey, just deal with what we gotta deal with, unless it was shenanigans. Shenanigans were always welcome.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I you brought up a good point that I think I'm gonna hit two parts that you said. Uh number one, I wholeheartedly agree that at some point, maybe, with all the studies and the therapies that are being developed, that perhaps combat-derived stress disorder will be a different category than PTSD. There is no chance that a woman that was raped or a person who was in a car accident or someone who got attacked violently by a dog in their neighborhood can be treated the same way as someone who went through an eight-month, very intense deployment. That's those just aren't those aren't the same two stress disorders. It's just a different therapy and retraining that has to happen.
SPEAKER_03:Agreed.
SPEAKER_01:And then the other part of it that I think people are have been unwilling to realize is that once you take on a PTSD label in the military, at one point in time, the only thing they could offer you is drugs. You're very lucky to meet a therapist who apparently had a personal connection uh with the Marine Corps or with combat in any way, to know that that was a regular thing. I don't think most people hear the words that PTSD is not permanent.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, don't get me wrong, let me back up though. Before her, though, like I remember when we got back off the deployment, like when we when we went to not Junction City, where did we fly out of?
SPEAKER_01:Uh Al-Assad.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Remember when we got to Al-Assad, we had like a day to like sleep and do nothing. Yes, or whatever it was. And like I remember they were handing out drugs, like it was cool. Like, yes, here's an ambient. Here's the I don't even remember what they were. Like, I remember I had a small little ziploc with like five different pills in it, and like the one really small one that they were like, you know, like they're like, hey guys, don't be trading these, don't be swapping these out. Take given to you and be careful with the small one if you're gonna take this one, get in the rack. You know, I remember sleeping for like like the entire time. I don't remember anything else about Al-Assad because I took all the meds and I was like, Ow, zombie. You know, and got back, like even when I was going through um after that though, I they did put me on a whole lot of meds because I left her, then then went to back through care through the VA, uh through actually through the BAS and then the VA through their parasite care. And man, I can't even tell you. Like, Nylon, I was on, like, they gave me Zoloft, Ambien, or what are the thing? Cyclopene.
SPEAKER_01:My assumption would be a muscle relaxer, probably.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and benzos, right? Like, it was ridiculous, man. That the the amount of uh drugs that I was on. When I finally got to a civilian doctor, it was a civilian doctor who looked at that and was like, hey, these are all contraindicating. Is that the right term for ones that are supposed to be sub uh prescribed together? Like he was like, man, he's like, because I was on two different um, let's see, I was taking diazepam, gosh, I can't even remember. But like I I was I remember at one point when I was working for you know CST combat skills training school, like the sergeant in charge was like, he's like Sakaki, he's like, I need you this, this, this training revolution. He's like, please stop taking the fuck at all.
SPEAKER_01:You know, that's a good way to put it because that's what they all do, they all give you a level of numbness.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, again, I would scroll through and like I remember and with Sergeant Coffee, he was such a he was he was actually a bronze star uh recipient in Iraq. But like I remember walking past people that like I would normally just like snap on and these and he would be waiting for me to snap, and I would just be like, Oh, pretty. You know, like yelled at, hey, guys, what are you doing with that guy? And I'd be like, Hey, dude, are you having a problem with that? You know, you know, and then I just walked past them, and it was like, I was like, I'm not joking, man. It was it was bad. I I didn't remember months of a lot of things, and I just and then the worst part was like nobody tells you don't quit cold turkey, don't get off these things because they could kill you. Yeah, so I just stopped taking them, and then shit got real interesting. But that's that right after I stopped taking them was when I got into that incident, which led me to going to anger management, which funny enough, I don't believe you can treat anybody with anger management because I think anger is a symptom, you know, it's not cause, it's it's not causational, it's you know symptomatic. And so anyway, that's what led me to that. But yeah, I was way over medicated for quite a while.
SPEAKER_02:That first I that first run, I I I would I would love to know the stats on on some of this stuff, and in particular, that when we got back, we would had to have been within the first few thousand Marines to come back after sustained. Combat since like Vietnam. Because even if you talk about the first Gulf War, if you talk about even the initial invasion, that sustained and I was going to go back to you know that the few days off. And I wish I had, I don't know where it is. I wish I could find it. But I had written down the number of firefights, the number of times that my convoy got hit with an IED, the number of times that my truck, you know, actually took a concussive blast from an IED. Yeah. And I wish I could remember the exact number, but it was something like it averaged out to like every third day we were in a firefight. My truck, our our convoy was hit with like 26 IEDs, my truck with four IEDs and an RPG. And like it's on a completely different playing field, right? A hundred percent. And to dial it, to dial it back to like getting out though, Tap and Tamp didn't know how to deal with us. You know, they they didn't, they, they, they, they didn't have programs in place to how to separate. I mean, Nylan and I, and several of us too. Um, I know Stadleman also, uh, but we got we were out of the Marine Corps less than three months after our last firefight. Yeah. Like with no decompression, no, you know, I I remember getting our DD2 or not a DD214, but our final paperwork done.
SPEAKER_03:And that warner when we got back. I'm sorry? Were you in the barracks when we got back? Yeah. Do you remember like that first those first couple days, like when we turned two on Libbo, like no one was sleeping? Like dudes would be like calling people at like three in the morning, hey you guys want to go to Denny's? You go on Denny's, there would be the whole whole company sitting in Denny's, like drinking coffee and eating, you know, pie, you know, or like walking around town. You know, it was it was crazy.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's because they didn't know how to they didn't know how to process us. Yeah, and it was the same way, and it was the same way with the VA. When I got to the VA in January of 05, and they were Markshot and Saunders actually really encouraged me to submit right away. I'm glad that they did, but even then they were they they were just kind of like, uh we don't have a procedure for this, really. Yeah. And it took years, years. I mean, it's so much better now, so much better now.
SPEAKER_03:It's still play yet light years to it still improved, but it's not even we went through so much that you can't even it like even talking about it, like you would have to categorize everything from start to finish and everything in between, like nutty things like like what we didn't have, like we didn't have armor, but I I as you were talking and you said how many times you'd been hit. You remember when we first got there, we didn't even have EOD. So we were doing route clearing on our own. It was like luck of the draw, and so you just drive fast until it blew up, or yeah, or somebody would sit on the hood of a Humbee to s to do the perimeter, and like with a pair of binos, like you drive real slow one way or the other, right? It was like not the shit that we did with no support, zero support, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and I think and it going back to something that Nylan was saying about like the difference of the of the PTSD is at least, and I'll speak for myself, is I have a very I'm very aware of, and I think about it actually sometimes, of the progression of the deals that I was making with you know the higher powers that I was praying to at that time. Right. Of when you first getting over there, being like, you know, please don't let me, you know, like I don't want to be, you know, disfigured in some way, you know, like I I I I I would give up at that point. And you know, progressively letting more and more happen because you realize that it's unreasonable not to get a little bit hurt. And then finally, just kind of that final flip of the switch of being like, not that you're suicidal, but that you're so resolved to not coming home. Like it's not, it's not that I like you've you've accepted that you're that you're a dead man walking, but it's not it's not hopelessness. Yeah. And it's and it's such a it's such a unique feeling of of that, that that it's so hard to like if you haven't had to make that like accept that, it's impossible to talk to somebody else about it.
SPEAKER_03:Right. We we said this, like we, we, you know, we I don't remember who all was involved with this conversation. I know Anthony was one of them, but we called ourselves the Suicide Kings because we had essentially already committed suicide in our brain, you know, in our mind I'm gonna die. Hopefully, one of the only things I can control is how I go out.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Am I gonna go out, you know, hiding under a Humvee, or am I gonna go out in a pile of you know, brass, empty mags, and hand grenade pins, you know, like that's that's the selection, the switch where you flip it and you're like, okay, and it's it's almost like like really like saying, I'm already dead, fuck it.
SPEAKER_01:We had that conversation in the back of the hooch by the smoke pit when you got a shipment of the liquor chocolates that had liquor in them. We were all biting the tops off the liquor chocolates and doing shots of liquor chocolates. And right after that, I made the suicide deuce uh sign that we hung over the the door on the map to hooch.
SPEAKER_03:Holy shit, that's awesome. Yeah, I forgot all about that. Yeah, the hooch, the man, the smoke pits, that's where that's where therapy happened. Oh yeah, like literally was I I remember I got I got four tall boys of Guinness and a and a small thing at Jamison. I don't know how it got through, but it did. And we were doing Irish car bombs back there one time. I remember K uh Kelly, Kelly's dad would send these like mango tip like cigars and like sit back there smoking like you get back from an op, everyone would wait, and then you'd go sit in the smoke pit, spark up your stogie like, hey, we made it, everyone made it back. And you sit, tell you know, you kind of tell stories and you talk about it, and and it was like this kind of sense of relief, you know.
SPEAKER_01:One of my favorite pictures of Condi that I have is May 13th. There's the date is on the bottom of the picture, those digital dates that were always on pictures.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And Savage had been killed on May 12th. But it was uh me, Moselle, Silton, Condi, uh Day, who was one of our guys uh from fifth, the other 5th Marines unit said it was a combat replacement. And we were all sitting there uh smoking cigarettes and and bullshit. And I don't even know what the hell we were talking about, but it's great pictures, and and Condi's sitting there with his, he's got his hand on his chin like he's a GQ, and it's it's a good picture, man. And everybody looks like they were having a serious conversation, and somebody came and snapped the pictures.
SPEAKER_03:That smoke pit was built on the blood, sweat, and tears of of Lance Corpals punished on working parties to go build a build out of sandbags. Hugh, you will build us for your fuck up, you will build us a couch.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_03:That's funny, man. I uh I don't regret it. I don't regret going to combat. I you know, like I hear people say that you know, a lot of guys that that didn't make it with us, you know, that got out right before we went and said, Oh, I wish I could go. And I'd be like, hey, don't be an asshole, dude. Don't be stupid. Like it's like I'm glad you didn't. You know, I'm glad you didn't, but I don't regret going. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:I I always say, you couldn't give me a million dollars to trade one second, but you also couldn't give me a million dollars to do one more second.
SPEAKER_03:Amen. Man, that's a that's a really good way of looking at it. Yeah, like I said, I think again, that goes back to just saying that's isn't that the culmination of what every infantry marine aspires to do is actually not just train and get out, but actually take the training and apply it. And like I think it's it's like the test, right?
SPEAKER_02:Like well, and I think we also had the ultimate test, though, because I I have never thought about it the way that until you just said it now is not only did we get to do it, but we got to do exactly what Marines are asked to do, which is adapt and overcome, given almost nothing. What's that?
SPEAKER_03:But I thought you were gonna say fight and die in place. That's okay. Yeah, we sure did a whole lot of adapt and overcome, though. Like that was that was the epitome. If we had to have a slogan that defined our deployment, it would be that adapt and overcome in every way. I mean I think like you guys would probably know this, but like prior to the breakdown of a weapons platoon and the formation of a mobile assault company, I don't know that that had ever been done before.
SPEAKER_01:As far as and as far as I can tell from any of the publications, we were the first. And it we were the first, and we most of the pubs reference this things that we did. They don't say us explicitly, but but they reference all the things we did.
SPEAKER_03:And that goes that again goes back to, you know, I don't think people believed what we were doing when we were doing it. You know, like I I hear stories, I've heard stories when I got back about, oh yeah, you guys were, you know, kind of you know, effing up out there and this and that. And I was like, how did we F up? Yeah, it's interesting. Or a bunch of cowboys or you know, all that other stuff, right? Like I heard that more than anything. I remember actually, do you guys remember when 2-5 came in to do the replacement? Yes, and they were uh like told not to listen to us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh yes, you're the third person who has brought that up as well. And they told us specifically we were told you're a bunch of cowboys. Yeah, we are not to listen to you.
SPEAKER_03:Uh until we okay, go ahead, take the right seat or take the left seat. You guys drive. Then it was, oh shit. Conversely, though, do you guys remember when we first got there and we replaced the National Guardian who was there? Yes, and we're right seat, and those guys would like the first time we went out, we're like all kitted up, loaded for bear, ready to go out, and we we get in the vehicles and they just hammered down, you know, long skinny pedal all the way to the fucking mat. You know, racetracked the whole city, and we're like, Are you guys gonna stop anywhere? I think I don't remember how long it was, but I remember it being like a couple of minutes, like actual combat patrol that took like minutes, just hauling ass, you know, hearing that Humvee scream at like 55 miles or KPH, you know, going around sounded like it was gonna explode, and then getting back in, and we're like, did we forget what are we doing?
SPEAKER_01:And they did not go into any of the neighborhoods, at least not with any of the the ride-alongs that went on. We went straight out to the artist, turn around and came right back.
SPEAKER_03:But we switched, and then the very first time we went out, we got engaged with them. And and what do we do? We do what we do best, stop, right? Everyone like this, we did the what a mobile assault platoon or company was meant to do, right? Dismount, suppress, dismount, you know, like that whole thing, right? And uh and they were like, What the fuck are you guys doing? They wouldn't even get out of the vehicles. That was nuts, you know. It's funny, people just I don't I I just think like people have no idea from start to finish, not to bolt, not to, you know, like what we actually endured, what we actually had to overcome to get to actually be sitting here talking.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there was something that you said about the uh the journalist that I had I had forgotten I had forgotten was a part of our larger narrative, which is although we did get embedded journalists, there was a period of time where they stopped coming down because it gotten so hot down here. And I remember talking with I can't remember I don't remember which journalist it was, but we were having a larger conversation about like how we were getting reported upon. And the individual said, Well, it's easier to get to Fallujah and it's safer for us than it is to get over to here.
SPEAKER_03:Agreed.
SPEAKER_02:And so, uh, because it was so close to Baghdad and all that other jazz. And so they were able to get in and out and be on kind of the periphery. Because if they came to it get embedded with us, because of how we were fighting inside the city, yeah. Fallujah was different. I mean, and and I know you guys know this, but but for everybody else's purposes, they surrounded Fallujah. Yeah, they had able to come in and out, in and out, in and out very safe, the journalists that is very safely to those units. Yep. Where if they came to visit us, we were literally inside the city. I remember how many times that we had those journalists jump in the vehicles and be like, oh, we're just gonna go on a little patrol. It's like, okay. And almost every single time I remember, I remember some. Do you remember that one the one journalist from uh I think it was a Christian science monitor? Anyways, she was she was talking, she was talking such trash, such trash. And um she went out and we got hit hard, hard, hard. She went crying in the cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she was the one that yeah, shaped everything else. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Even go even after we had gotten back to the at Hurricane Point, she wouldn't leave the the the Humvee until the bird landed, and she went from the up armored Humvee to the bird and took off. And she was supposed to be there for like two or three days, and it was like 12 hours later, she was gone. Yep. And my point of the story is that I think that I mean that that obviously directly affected our story. I mean, I mean, we were fortunate enough to have Oliver North that helped really lay lay our lay the foundation of our story not being forgotten.
SPEAKER_03:Others did a story on us that was pretty impactful, pretty good.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, the only other two major journalists was Dave Swanson, and he was that photographer that took all the famous Ramadi pictures. Any picture of Ramadi that's famous is his. And and what's and it's it's worthy to mention that the deployment was so impactful for us, but it was so impactful for them that even Dave Swanson, who's been around the world into every damn thing, taking pictures of presidential elections and riots and all kinds of war zones, still writes to this day about Ramadi, about this deployment. And I say and Greg Zaroya was also from, I don't remember what paper he was from, but he was uh an ABC affiliate. Both of them paid people cash to drive them to Ramadi. They did not have any official military escort, they had Iraqis who risked their lives to drag their ass out to Ramadi. Yeah, and Greg Zaroya, same thing. He had wanted to write the story for a long time. It took him three years to gather all the information to write that book unremitting. And it's an amazing book, especially for Golf and Echo Company. Yep. But it's it's like again, for all the shit he's been through, that's what he wants to write about. That's what he wants to spend three years of his life doing.
SPEAKER_03:In as unknown bearded guy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you're the unknown beard. Yep. So if Greg Zaroy ever does listen to this, this is the interview with the unknown marine.
SPEAKER_03:That's funny. But you guys remember too, like during all that time, like it was never reported. The the the city Ramadi was never said, it was SUNY triangle.
SPEAKER_00:Right, yep, right, right.
SPEAKER_03:It was it was almost always put as the SUNY triangle or Anbar province.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, or Habania or Anbar province.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, there's a lot there. Like, um, you know, I hope one day people look at this or hear this and they're like, wow, we you know, kind of need to take a deeper dive into this. And there because so many lessons were pulled out of this. Like you you said you said it yourself, you know, you read the pubs and you hear you, you you know who they're talking about, but there's no recognition for it.
SPEAKER_01:Several of the now, to the Marine Corps' uh credit, in several of the flag officer publications, like you know, two-star and hired general and stuff like that, and and that were shared across service, multi-service pubs, do reference Ramadi, but it's still uh interesting in the way that they do. It's often they were so successful, and then it doesn't say anything else. And that was it. It's real weird as far as that goes.
SPEAKER_02:There's something also to be said about how our chain of command was, and that we were falling up underneath the army as we were, right because because I ended up working for Human Resources Command Army for a few years, and I was actually the unit board recorder, so I was in charge of all of the unit awards for the army, and so that was both historical and current era. It was one of the best jobs I ever had, it was really it was a it was an awesome job. Nevertheless, um, while there, I helped I found the our the muck that we got through the army, and I was reading it over and realizing that uh to make it making the story too long. The point of it is is that technically we should have gotten a puck through the for the for the through the Navy, right? We should have gotten and I I actually was looking at it because they got their muck based off of the work that we did. There was almost no they there there is actually no way that they would have been able to get their unit award that they got without the without the work that we did. And I had approached the Marine Corps and they said, Well, the problem is that you can't dissect award packets like that. And so since the army has submitted you and we're we're the action of that award, we can't ever get an award for that because it's already been acknowledged in this other one. And I was like, You can't rescind it because it's from another branch, and they're like, Nope. Anyways, the reason why I say all of that is is that I think that also helps that does limit then that narrative being able to be out there as a standalone thing of like, okay, during Ramadi, here's the puck citation. Because as for a lot of people may or may not know, but a puck is held in place because the idea is every like the majority of the unit should receive a silver star. That's philosophically the idea of why you would have a puck. Instead of giving a bunch of individual awards at the silver star level, it's saying, well, as a unit, you are all functioning at the silver star level. And so those citations end up being used more in a different way. And unfortunately, we can't ever do it. And so that narrative gets lost.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, that's interesting. And that and it's kind of not surprising either, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Story story checks out very 2-4.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. I remember the unit, like I I came in and um I had gotten out previously, and I was like out for like a little over a year when 9-11 happened, and I came came in right after that. Um, interestingly enough, Anthony was on recruiting duty. Like I called him and he put me back in. We were actually in our first unit together in third LAR.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. I forgot that you guys knew each other.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And so um, I just remember when you know, like I went through MEPS and they're like, well, where do you want to go? It's like Fifth Marines, you want to do infantry? And I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna go back into you know, doing my MOS or or a secondary MOS, you know, in in the infantry. And so his one of the officers at MEPS in Dallas, where he was, was actually um from our old unit. So he was like, he's like, Yeah, he's like, You want to go to Fifth Marines? Like, we'll get you to the Fifth Marines. So I show up and I check in, and I think I checked in with one five or two five at the time. I don't remember why. I don't remember where you guys were, what you were doing, what two four was doing at the time, but I just remember them getting them deciding that I was going to two four and everyone kind of laughing about it and going, Oh, you're going to two four? Good luck.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it was just funny. And the and the moniker Magnificent Bastards has never been more true, you know.
SPEAKER_01:It's so true.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's so true. It's just fun.
SPEAKER_02:Well, our story is out there though. Years later, I was working for a defense logistics company, and uh to make a long story short, a bunch of they were gonna do a fleet-wheeled vehicle maintenance program with the Iraqi army, uh, US fleet-wheeled vehicles, and this is probably 2015 or something like that. And uh, so we brought a bunch of Iraqi generals over, um, and we're having a conversation. We're gonna have this big meeting to finalize the contract, and uh my boss uh I was a part of the team. And so we were having dinner for the first time, and my boss it was introducing the team, and and it was and as he had introduced me, he was like, Oh, and Musser here uh was in uh the Marine Corps, and he's like, Where were you? And I said, you know, Ramadi in 2004. And every one of the generals stood up and came immediately over and like shook my hand and was like, 2004, that's crazy, you know, like, and they were like, they weren't confusing it with 2006, they were talking about 2004, and they were like absolutely they're like, You were the one of the Marines that was there. They there's there's uh maybe the US military doesn't talk about it, but um, we definitely made an impression on the Iraqis.
SPEAKER_01:Well, no, and it's it's worth mentioning too, and I don't know how much you guys have followed Iraq currently, but Fallujah is not doing great, still has a lot of issues, but Ramadi is like a blossoming city. They're building skyscrapers, they have a new university, like it's is a whole different world. Uh, you wouldn't even recognize it. And it's it they're really like the the bustling city of the whole country, uh, outside of Baghdad. Of course, Baghdad has all the politicians, but outside of Baghdad, it's it's really doing well.
SPEAKER_02:Spring break 2027.
SPEAKER_03:The 2004 Spring Break shirt, it says Spring Break Mermati 2004. What'd you smoke this summer? Joel with a uh uh you know the kaffee on its head with a bullet hole in it. Good times. You know, like I'm I'm grateful for the experiences that I had and the people that we went through it with, like you guys, you know, like I think at different times I think um we're what got each other through, you know, after 100%, you know, like after the fact, it was the you know, like the checking on each other. I mean, it was like Jimmy and Lou coming to my townhouse one day and threatening to kick the door open if I didn't answer, kind of thing, and you know, making me go take a shower, get dressed, and go, you know, get cleaned up and go eat a meal with them, and then like, you know, like those kinds of things. Like I think people that don't have what we had, I actually feel sorry for them. People don't have this level of of brotherhood, like people just don't understand. You know, they want to, like you hear all these people saying, Oh, well, I was in the army, and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, you know, I hear you. Or or I was, you know, I was in law enforcement and I'm like, I love you too, brother. You know, but it's the same, man. Like, like people don't understand what it's like to have people that will actually put their lives on the line for you, like literally every day. You know, like people always ask what you think when I, you know, when I thought about the war, like, oh, you were in Iraq. Well, what did you think about what we were there for? I was like, I I don't get paid to think. I didn't get paid to I didn't I didn't get paid to have an opinion, I got paid to do a job. Right, that's right. And that's that's it. Like we we don't we're not afforded that opportunity, we don't get to speak out against the the president or have an opinion, period. Like literally. So everything we do, it's you know, it's not for mom, apple pie, and the flag, it's for the guy to the left and right. And I think you know, that's that's the most everything else pales in comparison. When guys tell me that they miss it, I'm like, you don't miss it. You you miss a life that made sense, just survive with with people that you know, like you did you could not get along with people like people. There could be people that you actually may have had fist fights with or gotten into it with, but on the battlefield, it didn't matter, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, were you facing the right direction? That's all that matters.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly. All that matters, you know, it's it's just nuts. It's um and those those experiences and those people shaped the like the rest of my life, you know, in in a good way. Like, I don't, you know, there were some challenges that came afterwards, but I think for the most part, like if you focus on the lessons you learn, if you focus on the pain you suffer, right? And I think it's there's a lot of lessons to be pulled out of the things that we've did and like what we're capable of and what we survived and all those different things. You know, like that that led to a I will another time we'll get into where Ramadi led me into what what I got to do with my life. It was pretty fantastic.
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