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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
Running Down Alleyways - Jaime Rocha (part 1 of 2)
Jamie Rocha paints a picture of the first weeks in Ramadi in 2004: a broken flight, a slow convoy, and a first mission that turned a crowded market into silence and a defining memory that never really fades. Early raids, QRF nights, and hard choices about restraint and pursuit shape the story. From truck assignments to map frustrations, fear and humor all rode in the same vehicle.
• deployment journey through delays, snow, and convoy into Ramadi
• Warth wounded, emergency cordon, and shock of close blast
• buried artillery lucky near misses
• holding a street while choosing not to escalate
• night QRF, improvised rocket launches, and searching the fields
• failed breach, wrong-house raid, and weight of bad intel
• leadership sprinting forward, pursuit risks, and unit cohesion
• getting lost on rooftops; NVG limits
• memory gaps, reunions, and finding old teammates
If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.
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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
All right, buddy. Uh we start with uh having uh you do a quick introduction for yourself. Tell us uh your name, what rank you were in Ramadi in 2004, and your primary uh job over there.
SPEAKER_04:Um Jamie Rocha. I was uh last corporal at the time of Ramadi. And uh I was a I was a team leader for uh with who? It's been so long.
SPEAKER_00:I want to say hammer baby.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, yeah, but I don't even know who was over me. I think it was like Reeves or somebody. I don't remember to tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_00:You're in my truck a lot. Huh? You're in my truck a lot too. Yeah, we didn't have we didn't really have set truck teams. I mean, it it changed depending on the mission. But I know you rolled out with Reeves a lot and you rolled out with me.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and you know, with Gwizdak and uh uh Stadleman Worth. So yeah, and uh yeah, I was just uh a team leader. I was actually their team leader, Worth Gwizdak and Wolf. There you go. So that's Wolf, I haven't heard that name in a long time.
SPEAKER_01:Wolf in Ohio, I think.
SPEAKER_04:But is he funny story? Just real quick, I was uh I went to the 2-4 associate reunion lat uh uh a few months ago, I'm sorry. Yeah, and uh um some of his boots were there. Oh, really? And uh they knew that I was uh his senior marina, they kept on asking all these questions about him, like how was he? Because he was real hard with us, or you know, I was like, Wolf? Are we talking about the same wolf, right? Like the one that was real timid with me and like scared and wouldn't you know, wouldn't speak up and like, oh yeah, but he kept to himself, but everyone was kind of like don't really talk to the guy with us like why he was the sweetest guy you ever meet. Like that was funny.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, but you pick up those rockers if they're uh you pick up those chevrons, you uh you turn into a different person.
SPEAKER_04:I I guess so, yeah. I think he was serious or corporal, I'm not too sure. Like after I got out, but I mean sure he picked up so that was cool of them.
SPEAKER_00:So let's uh let's start at the beginning. What do you remember of uh getting over to uh over to Ramadi?
SPEAKER_04:Huh. I remember being on a remember how we flew over there was it like a 46 or something or or a 52? I don't know what it was, but it was the worst flight ever. We were all sitting in our gear with our guns facing down, and we could it was like a damn near 18-hour flight, and then we stopped in Jersey and a plane messed up, and we circled back around and we had to stay in Jersey for like three or four days or however long it was, I can't remember. It was snowing over there. And then we finally get there, and we get to Kuwait to climatize, and then pretty much bust into Ramadi a month later. That was a worse way to go.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Uh actually going back to the the jersey piece, and when you said the snowing, I forgot about that part. And uh the snowing, the reason why that what what I remembered of that is is there was a handful of guys that had never seen snow before. Yeah, I was one of them.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. South Texas, a little snow over here, probably.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I just got I got uh I just got 13 inches yesterday. And so uh I'm I'm used to I was my relationship with snow is a little bit different. So I thought that that that always struck me. Uh like it got to number you guys that were like, what is this stuff?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, no, it got to 52 degrees over here, and I'm freezing my ass off. Dude, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01:That's crazy. You had to deploy to the Middle East to see snow. That was that would not be uh that would have been on the checklist at all.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I know. I mean and then didn't we stop in a um I think we stopped somewhere to refuel, I think it was what uh Ramson Alaska.
SPEAKER_01:So no, Alaska was on the way to uh Okinawa, but uh yeah, that on this particular trip we stopped a couple of times, like you talked about. We stayed in Jersey while they replaced the engine. Then we made a sudden stop in Canada of all places, and then we flew over and made, I believe, a pit stop in Shannon Air Force Base, if I remember correctly, but we didn't get off the plane, and then we stopped at Romstein, Germany, where we did get off the plane and went into those little cold ass uh metal buildings. I don't know what they were. Yeah, and then we flew into Kuwait.
SPEAKER_04:You see, it's it's it's crazy because I remember this now this now that you're talking about it, but I don't I don't remember small details. Like I guess it was so long ago, and yeah, uh my memory as good as used to be from all the damn IEDs over there.
SPEAKER_00:You know, so yeah. Well, some some of the art uh I think uh Nylan and I have the benefit also of we've been talking to guys, and so some of these memories are more to the forefront because we literally just talked about them, and so uh it's not that we have that much better of a memory, but so we're so you got so you're talking about Camp Victory. Um do you remember how you got up to Ramadi from Camp Victory?
SPEAKER_04:There was uh there was a group convoy and uh and uh uh I want to say we were the ones in the in the five-ton trucks, right?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. I went up I went up in uh one of the earliest convoys, um, and I was a driver going up. Oh, you drove no I was in the back. Yeah, and then there was a and then the the main element came up separately, and so you guys came up in five tons, is what you remember?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I remember going because I do have a quick video of like everyone loading up on five tons and just behind little sandbags, you know, like pretty much gonna do anything besides just nothing, pretty much. But yeah, I I remember getting on those and then heading out. I can't remember how long the drive was, though. For the life of me, I don't remember how long how long we were back at those humpies, but to me it felt like a damn lifetime.
SPEAKER_00:Fuck, you know, felt like hours in the back of that thing. More than a day, two days, probably.
SPEAKER_04:Scared and I know what's gonna happen, you know. The first time in a country like that that don't want us there. Yeah, you know, that's pretty pretty wild. Yeah, it's funny.
SPEAKER_01:It's funny how it felt so long because if you went right now and drove a regular standard car down the highway from Kuwait border to Ramadi, it would take you six and a half hours. It's really not that far. But we drove 40 miles an hour because those seven tons couldn't drive at 80 miles an hour the whole time. And we stopped in Scania was the name of that place where we refueled and stayed the night. Uh, and so it felt like forever. It felt like we were driving, yeah, I don't know, all day and all night.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so see, I I don't to tell you the truth, I don't even remember stopping and staying anywhere. Yep. I just remember just pretty much it felt like forever in the back of that that 710 or and then just getting off and being in a hurricane point and then looking at our hooch and saying, What the fuck am I gonna be you know sitting here for? There's no fucking like there's a damn near there's paper covering on the top of us and the canvas roof, yeah. There's no roof. I was like, man, we ain't gonna last long here. I was thinking to myself like Jesus. Oh well, we're gonna start writing them them letters, huh? So but yeah, but yeah, that's that's what I remember how we got there. It was two those seven tons and whatever, and I just it's like at the time it felt so long, but then like now that I think about it, it felt like I was just there in a blink of an eye to tell you the truth to them because I don't remember stopping.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's I don't know, I don't know that we necessarily stayed all the way overnight, but we definitely stayed for a very long time at that refueling point. So and a lot of guys caught a nap. I obviously didn't because I was wandering around planning shit, but yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's that's what I could you know remember about all that, you know, as far as getting there.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. And then you would have been we would have we started rolling into some early uh patrols and stuff like that. Um you would have been in the back of you would have I was with uh Gunny Cook at first. He was my vehicle commander and I was a driver. And then you first truck. And that was our we were first truck, and then you were right, then you were always second truck. Yes. And that was Warth as the vehicle commander. Yeah. And then you would because he got hit uh early early on. And that was probably our that was our first probably I don't I don't know if you remember any missions prior to that, but what do you remember of when Worth got hit?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that was crazy. Uh um I remember almost everything. Like, damn. I remember going, we actually Worth wasn't driving. Stadleman was driving. Worth it.
SPEAKER_00:Right. I uh yeah, was a vehicle.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Me and Reeves were in the back with I don't even know who else. And Gwizdak wasn't was the gunner. I don't know why they put Gwizdak as a gunner, but we sure did, right? And uh I remember going on the market market square, that market, and it was just fucking packed with people. Just packed. I mean, we would have to get down to kind of pushing away from the truck to and then I remember circling, and then we we circled, we did our little patrol, whatever, and then we came back that same route. And when we got back there, I I remember there was nothing in sight, no person, no female, no, no one walking, no nothing. It was just like dead to the world, like it wasn't even a town. And then I remember we're passing by, and I do remember your truck passing a bike, a bike, and then I heard over the radio because I had, you know, one of those uh little uh headsets, and and and heard over the radio stop as a possible IED or something to that nature, you know. It was it was something like that. Well then the way I was sitting, I was facing a kind of catty corner, and this thing just fucking blows up. Boom! And it hits my truck, well, it hits the end of my truck, so because I'm sitting in the back of it, and it felt like it blew me out because you remember that scene in Blackhawk Down where he gets hit by like an RPG next to him, and then he's looking up and a guy's trying to talk to him and he can't hear him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. His ears are ringing, he's like bells rung.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it felt like that because I was on the floor and I was like, what the fuck? Right. I'm like looking around, scared as shit, my heart's pounding because it's that was our first actual when he attacked us, yeah, right, like personally. And I was like, what the fuck, right? And then Reeves is like, hey, get up, get up, and I'm like, dude, my body fucking hurts. Like, but I don't know if I got thrown out of the vehicle or or what, right? And then I finally get up, and that's when uh we hear Warth and Warthers yelling. He's just like, I can't see, I can't see. So I go over there and I look at him, and I'm like, I don't have the fucking heart to tell. I'm like, man, well, you got no fucking eye, like you know, like because you could see it wasn't more of blood, it was more pussy. And like you could tell it, it looked like his eye got deflated, you know. So, and then he took off, well, because when he took off his oak lease, that's like that, like that's when you could see his old eye, and there was just it just looked like it was just deflated, like pus, white, and all sorts of shit is just coming down. And he's like, Does it look okay? And I'm like, you know, I mean, I don't know what to tell you, buddy, but I mean, I couldn't tell him like you ain't gonna have that fucking eye no more for very long, right? I mean, so and then I do remember, I think I was with you, Muster. We uh man, we we put a security team around our Humvees and stuff, and then they took they took Gwizdak and Worth out of there because Gwizdak got hit in the face, like he had a big old gash on his cheek. All right, and then they took them out of there. They asked me to leave, but I stayed with Muster, and then we ended up going to a school, I think, right? Or or a building to like search it.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And then uh we did that, and then as we're coming down, I was like, man, my fucking arm hurts. And I think it was you, it was like, Do you have a fucking metal rod point out of it? And that's when I looked down to my right, right, and there was like a metal piece hanging on my arm, and then you decided to pull it out, like break it. I was like, Oh my god, I said fuck it, I'm gonna die, you know. And it was really nothing, but it was just like no, it wasn't interesting. Just grabs it and breaks it because it was so hot it didn't burn. Yeah, it just made a hole down to my bone, and it wasn't a big hole, it was just a fucking hole you could see to my bone. And you know, so and then after that, it was just like, oh my god, Jamie refused medical evacuation. No, bitch. If I knew I was hit, I wouldn't, I would have left too.
SPEAKER_03:Fuck, you know.
SPEAKER_04:But uh I'm not a hero, I just didn't know. Yeah, you know, and then but it was just so because you're like, oh yeah, look, you got someone sticking out, you just like grabbed it, but but you didn't pull it out, you like bent it and it just broke off because it was so hot. And so that's why I had to go. I think I went to uh uh combat outpost, and then they dug like all the rest of the pieces out for me, like with their fucking our makeshift docks and stuff. They just went and they started just pouring out small pieces out of there, yeah. And I was like, oh man, I don't want to go back out, but yeah, so and I always wanted to, like I was like, what if that would have hit a few inches up? It would have hit me right in the throat, right? I think that would have been a little bit worse, dude. There's a lot of stuff like that, yeah. Yeah, you know, like that would have been a little bit worse, yeah. Just blood gushing out.
SPEAKER_00:No, we there is I and I know you. I mean, the I can I remember a couple of the times that we got hit where it is absolutely I I don't know how we made it out of there just because it was it it shouldn't have happened. There was that it was lit way the the this is the one that I always think about that I thought was just wild was we were coming back, and I think you were in my truck on this one, but nevertheless, it was at least two, if not three, daisied IDs that they had buried was like one five five, but they buried them too deep, thank god. Yes, and also that and when they popped it, it hit exactly in between the trucks, and so it didn't actually really hit anybody, it knocked Wisdak back. He was on he was on the gun, it knocked him down, but no one really got hurt, and that one I always think about being like if if if we were just a little bit more forward, man, that would have been bad, bad.
SPEAKER_04:If they hadn't buried him too deep, because I do remember that they're burying a little too deep. If they're just a little bit, you know, above ground, either way, if they would have hit between the trucks, it would have messed up some people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, oh yeah. Well that rooster, that rooster tail that popped for all for those things were just it was just I just remember seeing it go straight up, and it was I was just like, oh man, that was that was crazy to see, anyways.
SPEAKER_04:It's funny how you we could just fucking say fucking just laugh about it right now, right? But yeah, I guarantee you that happened back then, and you see our faces back then, you would think we're scared little bitches.
SPEAKER_00:That was the one that you uh uh it was you I I took off after the guy. He was out in the middle of the field, and I took off after him, and then uh you and Wade came uh behind me, but I must have had an adrenaline dump because I was out I'm I was not that fast, but I was out ahead of you guys by like 200 feet. Oh yeah. That's awesome. Anyways.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so you got wounded, you got wounded super early then, because we crossed oh yeah, we crossed the line of departure on March 6th, and I mean that was the very first vehicle crossed. I don't know when, because there was two convoys, so your convoy may have crossed even later than that. Uh and the bike IED that that hit your truck was March 20th, so 14 days later.
SPEAKER_04:It was our it was our actual, I want to see our first real combat mission. It was the very first one we and and it well quit and after it happened. Funny story, right? Uh, you know, because we're talking about Sakaki earlier, yeah, right? Before it just happened. Well, me and him got in a fight on ship, a fist fight on ship. Yeah. Like and of course, Gunny uh, we're with uh Gunny Coleman was our you know Gunny at the time, right? When he got mad at me, where blah blah blah. Well, fast forward, we went to Iraq and I got hit. And when I came back to Hurricane Point after getting patched up, he's the first guy I saw. And he comes running to me, gives me a big old hug, and he's like, I'm so glad you're okay. He's like, Fuck, you had me worried. And I was thinking to myself, dude, we just had we just got fist fights not too long ago, but appreciate it. Thank you. But but yeah, it was real early in the deal. That's why we're I was always so upset that Warth got hurt on our very first mission. Like it was our I I want to say, I mean, we got there, and it was like a week and a half, almost two weeks later, he got hurt.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, so it was just like I think I I until you said that, uh, I I I had forgotten that, but I think you are correct. I think that might have been our like very first non-left seat, right seat from like yeah, because we went out with yeah, just us ourselves.
SPEAKER_04:It was, you know, uh uh well he was Stats Ryan at the time, Stats Ryan Cook, yeah, and he was leading the whole platoon, and and you know, I think Escabel was with us and Reeves, you know, and just the team leaders and and the teams, you know what I mean? So just like I I I want to think now we probably made that mistake of going back the same way we shouldn't have, because we're not supposed to. I mean, like they train you not to go take the same route twice, and I'm thinking that that's what we did because we already passed that point once, and then we turned back around and went down there again, and boom, you know.
SPEAKER_00:That was uh I had um part of that was we were still getting used to the city, and I remember uh Staff Sergeant Cook at the time was very, very aware of not wanting to get lost in the city. Like that was that was he had me that was the number one reason why he wanted me to be the driver is uh he absolutely did not want to get lost in Ramadi uh for the first couple of times until he started getting familiar with the streets. And so I uh if I remember correctly, we had whip back, we were whipping back around because we weren't a hundred percent confident of well how the roads were gonna come back up.
SPEAKER_01:So now for the first thirty days, we had the official map. That were one in 25,000 scale, they were so zoomed out you couldn't see 80% of the roads that were even in Ramadi. All you could see was that the major roads. And so if it wasn't Nova or Racetrack or Michigan or Easy Street or any of that, like if it wasn't any of the major ones, it wasn't on there.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. That and I I I forgot about that part. And that's why, and that's why because I think we had gotten I think we got had gotten called to go back for some reason. Like we were supposed to like link up to something. And that's why we had tried to run. And I don't remember. Yeah. Yeah. No, we got baptized early, that's for sure. I remember uh that because that was also when we were holding that uh right afterwards, you know, when they were consolidating casualties and um going to push off to combat outpost. I remember holding the one street, and there's a lot of people coming up that street that we were holding back and they were throwing rocks at us.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm glad it was just rocks because oh well, I was hoping to throw some 556 around down there, but we you know.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that was that was that was the hard part. Well, and that was the hard I remember very, very specifically having to make the decision like this is they're not technically escalating. We need to not engage. Yeah, so that was you know, but that was hard. That was that was a very hard decision, um, especially since you know we knew that Worth had gotten hurt so bad.
SPEAKER_04:That was so was I because I mean Warth was my roommate. Wars was my roommate, Savage was my roommate. Savage was was my roommate at Okinawa. Warth was in my roommate, you know, uh homeside, and then back back when we got back from uh Iraq. I mean, it was so funny. It was like that quick little story with him where when we got back, we became roommates again. And Worth had that prosthetic glass eye that only moved a little bit, you know. So like when I first saw him, I was like, hey Wars, what's going on? He gave me a hug and I was like, wait a minute, I was like, fuck, and he's he's like, don't be staring in my fucking eye, and I'm like, look at me. And he looked like I'll move my head and he would look, and his eye would move just slightly, and then like in the like the other eye would move all the way, and the other one moved slightly. I thought that's just too fucking weird, dude. I was like, you need to take that shit out. You know, put some because like he had multiple eyeballs, you know, for like he could just take out and put different color in, and I'm like, damn. That's just gross. I told him, we looking at me no more. Yeah, but he's a good guy. I wish I would have kept in touch with him, but you know 90% of the guys I wish I would I would have kept in double touch with.
SPEAKER_00:But no, I feel you on that. There's a there's a couple guys that I'm slowly trying to get, I'm using uh friends of you know, family. I'm trying to track them down because I kind of remember what hometown they were from and trying to trying to see what I can do to resurrect maybe a conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that'd be good. I wanna you know, hear back, see how they're doing.
SPEAKER_04:How um how they grew up, I guess we wanna say, since we were kids back then.
SPEAKER_01:I've always shaved my head. You can't see the gray hair, and you can't get any more bald when you're already bald.
SPEAKER_04:So yeah, so that's so that's uh what I actually remember, you know, about that day with Worth in the bike. That was uh it was an ugly time because like you know, like you said, it was our first mission, and you know our first mission that someone got hurt, I guess. You know, because I do remember our first raid. Mustard, do you remember that? Yeah, I do. Go out.
SPEAKER_00:You tell the story though.
SPEAKER_04:I remember when I I I'm I'm a I I I'm I remember it was late at night, maybe two, three o'clock in the morning. I don't fucking remember, but it was late, and we geared up, take off. Well, we're supposed to like there they're supposed to ram the fucking gate in, and we're supposed to like fucking SWAT, break in there, and rush in there and be all tactical and badass, and fucking everything just went wrong. Like, I'm talking about from the fucking moment we left fucking camp to hitting that fence, and then they made so much noise, we might as well set a fucking bullhorn and be like, hey, we're here, you know, like fucking start shooting at us, who cares, right? But uh, and then I I remember I don't know who it was, uh Cook or whoever, but he was like, just get on the fucking trucks and start jumping the fucking the because it was like a it was like a uh C Man wall or something, I don't know what so we're just jumping over. And the whole time I was thinking to myself, man, if they really want to start picking us off. Yeah, that's the time in good way, and then we just raided the house and tore everything to bits, you know, because we got intel, found like 1 AK, you know. An old man was in there, looked like he'd been beaten up by Saddam, you know, like he had bruises all over his back and you know, scars and stuff, and then he had little prayer bees he was praying on, and we felt so bad, and they're all sleeping in one room. We kind of tore up his house a little bit to look for anything, we found nothing. Then they come to find out that we got bad intel and we raided a wrong house. Uh fuck that was I remember that was our first raid, and I felt so bad for that old man because he was legit scared. There was like 20 Marines inside his house just walking around like they own the place, like you know what I mean, and pointing guns at everybody and putting the women in one room, the men in one, and you know, detaining them the men, and then you know, I think the youngest person we took to the detention center was like 15 or 16. Like, yeah, I I have like my daughter's 17. Imagine you know, six 16-year-old being taken by a bunch of Marines with M16s and you know, fucking guys just wearing face masks because they just think they're fucking cool, just scaring people. I mean, fuck man, you know, like I always feel bad about that. I mean, and we rated a bunch of houses over there. Remember, oh no, I got that. That one always stuck with me.
SPEAKER_00:No, we that was that one, that one in particular. Uh I remember we were do you remember it?
SPEAKER_04:This kind of like the same way, because that's what I kind of remember.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I think you did a great uh that was the only thing that I would add is I remember after I think that's the one that we didn't we never got the rammed it open. And uh when I it was you and I, there was a couple of us that got over the first, and I went over to the gate to try to unlock the gate so everybody else could get in, but we had rammed it enough that it was jam, it was jammed towards us towards them like we like I mean and I also remember when we first when we were first getting in there, we were trying to be all like you said, tactical, but we didn't like there's no depth perception with NVGs. And so finally I remember I at least I I don't know who was with me, but there was another guy, and I was like, take these off and turn on the lights. And I was just flipped, just ended up flipping on the lights just so we could see, and I was like, this is I'm not gonna get shot because I don't I've never trained with NVGs on.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and so yeah, it was it was like and that was funny. Like I I mean it was it was funny now, but I I feel bad for the family because they really had nothing to do with it.
SPEAKER_00:And that but and that was that was something that I did try to take whenever we did do the raids, was you know, although uh go in there believing that there's bad guys, and we did get into some scuffles um because there was some bad guys.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean there was.
SPEAKER_00:I mean but try to I I always tried to be at least respectful to the women and the kids and stuff like that. And actually, uh as a crazy side note, um, years later, um, when I was living in DC, I would do um talks at the at the schools about being in the military and stuff like that. And um, and uh it was like this is 2011 maybe. And I go to a school and I'm doing my spiel, and um this this girl raises her hand in the back of the class and she said, uh what when were you over there? And I said, 2004. She said Ren Mermadi. She said, and yeah, and and she's like, actually, I think I remember you. You said your name's Musr, because I don't know if you remember this, but Muser means Egypt in Arabic. Like, and so you know, it's kind of a memorable name. And she actually uh remembered me uh because we had done a raid at her house and had taken her uh uncle, and I was like, Oh shit, this is you know, like that's intense to have this conversation in the classroom, you know, like there's a bunch of juniors and stuff like that. What are you doing here, though? Yeah, well, no, well, and that's when and then and and and I was like, Are you okay? Is everything fine? And as it turned out, what it was, she said, No, I'm fine. Um, that was scary, but it my uncle was a bad guy and he was attacking you guys, and you he was there, you guys took him, and now we're refugees because my family turned him over and we had to get taken out, and so she was a refugee because she had been yeah, she's fine. Yeah, no, that was uh that was a little surreal moment.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's actually really cool though. I mean, that's that's I don't think I had talked to anybody that was from every time we raided, I just kept my mouth shut. Well, I that because I had that damn stuttering fucking more I stuttered more in Iraq than I did my whole fucking life. We knew what you meant. You didn't remember that uh I think we're a night QRF and we got we got hit with like rockets or some shit, right? It was like we found like some weird makeshift rocket deal.
SPEAKER_00:It looked like uh North Side of Nova, yep. Yeah, the angle iron. You're talking about the one that's the angle iron that they had welded together. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And like I I remember always we were looking for the guy, so we're like scattered and we're walking down like some kind of grassy knoll area, like it was grassy, and they gave me the radio, and I was running next to Escobar because Escobar was driving a truck and I was trying to I was trying to uh like communicate so he could drive and I can and I was like kind of jogging next to the truck. We're going very fast, but I kept stuttering so much that Escobo was like, you fucking stuttering bitch, give me the goddamn radio and just fuck away from me, blah blah blah. And I'm like, fuck and like after that, they they took away my mic for like a week, like I guess punishment or some crazy shit. So I'm like, what the fuck? Hello man, that was yeah, but I I remember that one too. We we I don't think we caught the guys, but we caught that weird angled iron, you know, that they're shooting at us with or whatever.
SPEAKER_00:We uh if if if I rem if I remember correctly, um we didn't capture the guys because we sh they got killed when the north tower engaged the vehicle.
SPEAKER_04:You see, could and that's what I you know kind of remember with them. I don't want to say because I was like, no, I don't know, because we didn't see them.
SPEAKER_00:We we we recovered the um the apparatus that they used to fire the rockets at us and also found the the the wires because they had a and then the car battery. Yeah. Um but the north tower started to engage them, and uh they jumped in the vehicle, and I think I think they I think they, if I remember correctly, they took the vehicle out. Yeah, yeah, I don't remember very well, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was uh Mc Mackenzie and Latham were on the North Bridge post and spotted uh the rockets hit Blue Diamond, and they'd hit they had also hit us, but the they had just hit Blue Diamond right when Latham and Mackenzie spotted the point of origin and they lit it up with a 240. And to my knowledge, I know they disabled the truck, I know they killed one person, but I don't know the rest of the story. And and Latham told uh the rest that he had known, and you guys went out and recovered the the rocket apparatus and I guess search fields. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, we we we patrolled the north side of uh the Euphrates for a while trying to kick up something more, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it was uh pretty intense too, you know, because it was night time. So we I mean it sucked at night because MVGs suck, everything is just flat. You know, you you can't be stealthy with MVGs on. This is not saying fucking the Tom Clancy movie, like you know what I mean. You're not gonna sit there and be stealthy with MVGs, so this up. A lot of us just took them off. Yep, and we're just walking blind ourselves, like, whatever we hit, we hit like it is what it is at at this point. So yeah, I've got to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I remember getting to the point of like even with being the especially being the vehicle commander, not running with my NVGs on while we're driving. I felt like I could see better, which is just with my night vision, even with the blackouts on. Um the stupid NVGs.
SPEAKER_01:But well, we just didn't have any of the extra gear that goes with NVGs. We didn't have lasers, we didn't have IR flashlights, we didn't have really any of that shit. So we just had moonlight, and then we had most of us had monoculars too. We didn't even have binocular uh NVGs. I don't know about you, but most of my platoon only had monoculars, which is even worse. I remember having a pet two for my MVGs.
SPEAKER_04:Oh nice, but I like like like I said, that's only to shoot at night, you know, they're still not gonna be able to walk in them. And who would want to walk and shoot at night with MVGs on? You're you know what I mean? You're gonna trip over and shoot yourself, like you know, that's not you know, or shoot somebody else, like you know, so you don't want that shooting in your conscience, like you know what I mean. So it's like there's there's no point of having a pet two on your it's just to look cool, I guess. Fuck, I don't know. I had it on mine, but I never used it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean it would have been nice to be able to mark areas of targets and shit like that, but I don't know. I think we had one for our whole platoon, we never used it. Yeah, so that was uh well after Worth got wounded, and then you guys, let's see, as far as that raid goes, that was probably I mean, that was definitely after April. What do you remember of April?
SPEAKER_04:I don't not really much, man, because we we we didn't go out as much as y'all did. Yeah, because we were night QRF. Yeah, that's what I remember. I remember a lot of us went out, but a lot of us went out in separate times. Like we didn't go out, you know, like how Rainmaker and y'all was going out at the end of the day, y'all stay out all day. We we we went out in different you know, times with different people when kids we were like I said, night QRF at the time. So we would go out a little bit here. I think I went out on the seventh with like Cook and uh uh McLeod. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Well, well, we were sp well just for clarity, if you're talking specifically about like the the fourth, fifth, sixth that that the battle of Vermont, we were on camp guard that during that yeah, okay, there it is, during that endeavor. And so I know that first day, none of us went out, but I know a lot of you guys got grabbed for the other days.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like we didn't I felt uncomfortable because I went out with not my not my not my platoon, like not my not the guys that I know what you know what we trained to do and what we did already being there for a month or so or whatever, you know what I mean? So it was uh like I went out, bam, and then normally when when we went out, it was more to it was for like body count, like I guess to go grab you know wounded Marines or or whatever, but it was just intense because it's hard to shoot out of a window, you know what I mean? So you're just getting targeted by rooftops and shit, like you know what I mean? And it was it wasn't fun. I mean, I imagine I can only imagine the guys that are on the field stuck until of course we got there and you know helped them out. That was good. Like I like doing that because I I like to help out that way when we went in there and grabbed people out and brought them back, you know. Of course they just ambled up and went right back out, but you know, whatever. Just to be the you know what I mean, sure.
SPEAKER_00:We did a lot of we did a lot of raids for the battalion, a lot.
SPEAKER_04:Um sixty uh sixty-two of them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um I remember uh uh wider that told me that one time.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, yeah. We we ended up doing 62 of them. I ended up doing I ended up getting pulled over to do a some for the battalion too. So I did it with golf company and Fox and stuff like that. But yeah. Um actually you uh when when was the uh the mission when we were coming back from combat outpost with uh Kennedy and Booker. Oh and we got shot at. Do you remember this, Rocha? When Booker jumped out and gut shot the shit guy that shot the RPG, and then he went he went he went John Wick on on uh Ramadi for a little while, while uh then we had to go track down the guy that got gut shot, and I and I uh ended up.
SPEAKER_04:It wasn't I remember it because he pulled me and you.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And we ran down this damn alleyway with him because he wouldn't stop, and there was fucking blood everywhere, and he didn't shoot him in the thing, he shot him in the throat. And then uh he shot him in the throat, and it looked like it didn't look like one of those fucking Jason Voorhees murder scenes where someone gets stabbed or whatever, and there's like like the we we found him through the blood trail. Like you guys, I guess I feel it was hitting hitting them. He was just like walk walking around because I remember coming up to like it was like two double doors, but they were kind of like a like a garage type looking deal. Uh-huh. And then when we go in there, he's on the floor huddled up on his side, like holding it, and it's just fucking it's still gushing out blood. And Sergeant Major's like, this is all this is the last thing you're gonna see, is my ugly face or my ugly mug or some shit like that. And he's just we're just standing over him, and they're calling the doc. And the doc was like, There's nothing fucking we could do, like, am I gonna do about it? I mean, we so we of course they try to help, whatever, but then I guess he died because I remember putting him in the back of my vehicle. I think it was your vehicle at the time, or who was it, but he was in the back of it laying down. It wasn't mine, but and I was like, man, I don't want to sit back there with him because that was the first real casualty that we actually saw the eyes fall. And and they put on face up looking at us, and I'm like, his eyes didn't even so like what, you know, I don't want him looking at me. So I kept on, I kept on looking down, looking at him, but then I was like trying not to because it's like a I don't want him to jump up like a fucking zombie. I was so scared.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was pretty early in the deployment too. That was April 1st. Uh I remember there was a bunch of April Fool's jokes about it too. But they also it's in that unremitting book as well. They they tell the story, but they forget to put in the part about uh 81s being there and that's uh pulling security and making sure the sergeant major doesn't get killed.
SPEAKER_04:That was uh we had to run with them because this dude just ran off by himself. He didn't get fucked, he just took off. And we're like, and then he like turns around and me and Muster are like we just ran with them, like fuck, I don't know what to do. Like this dude, and everyone's pulling security while he just ran off. Yep. So we're like, holy shit, run with him. You know, we just ran with them. We just took him off.
SPEAKER_00:I very I very I very specifically remember after we dismounted and saw him running, and you were getting out of the you I was getting out of the I was already a vehicle, I was a vehicle commander at that point, and I had gotten out and you had jumped out of the the back of the truck that was in front of me, and that's when I saw the sergeant major take off, and I just grabbed you and I was like, We're following. I was like, I remember I hit I hit the bike real quick and I was like, I don't know where he's going, but I'm gonna follow Sergeant Major.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I remember that. That was uh that wasn't the first time we did that, though. Remember, uh, I want to say we followed uh Cook. Was it Cook that shot someone back in the head? And he they took pop shots at us. That and that Bronco was with us.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no, no. Okay, yeah. Okay, so um somebody I can't remember exactly, but I mean okay, somebody so so if I I I think this is the same one. So this is the this is the one where uh there were some guys from like Kenya or something like that that had that had come up. I can't remember where it was, Sudans, Kenya, whatever, it doesn't matter. Um it was like an all-expensive paid trip to get up to like Syria, get some training, and then they got dropped off and they were supposed to go to a safe house. Yeah. Well, there was like there was like 12, 12 of them, 14 of them or whatever. And this was when there was a curfew, right? And so we come around and we're up on Nova, up by Nova, and we're coming back down and we're gonna link up. And uh there's there's these 14 guys standing on a street corner, obviously not Iraqi, and we're like, this is past curfew, what's going on? And as we kind of rolled up on them all of a sudden, they see us and they all try to take off. Some of them stayed, but a bunch of them took off. And it was you, uh, Cook, Escavel, and and myself took off running after a couple of the guys that ran down the alley. And I remember I posted up, I was I hit the prone coming around the corner because he came around and and I was gonna shoot him. And then Escavel stacked behind me, and then Cook was in the standing, and we all shot at the guy. I have no idea who hit him, but we ran up on that poor bastard, and he got clipped in the back of the head, and uh, he was still alive and he was in that shit water and just aspirating on that. I and I just I I remember I flipped him over real quick when I realized that he was breathing that shit. And uh Gunny left. I think he left with you because I remember I was there with Escovel with the guy, and we were like, I don't I there's nothing I can do for you, man. And um I think you went and I think you guys went back to go get Doc. But that's when we've but but the reason why I remember that story in particular is that after we after when we were debriefing afterwards, we realized that uh when we took off with Escavel, myself, and Gunny gone, we had just eliminated basically all of our like all of our leadership left. The rest of the platoon. And we were like, we can't go chase people down. We have to send people. We can't have all the leadership running, which was a pro which, you know, it's a it's a good and bad thing because you know, I mean, it's what Kennedy and Booker were doing too. It's what you know, we we had a we had a tendency and a and a ethos inside of 2-4 of like the the the leaders wanted to fight just as much as you know, like we didn't have any wilting little daisies. Um and we didn't we didn't do none and all that.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I can name like one, but I I I I'm I'm I'm not going to, you know what I mean? Yeah. Well I won't say nothing until later on. You know, that's what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00:We'll drop you you'll drop names when we're not recording. I appreciate I I I I I appreciate the discretion, friend.
SPEAKER_04:Um that was I I remember those two. And then one is that kind of remember me and you running chasing someone too. Jumped off like the second floor, uh second floor. I don't remember.
SPEAKER_00:Like are you talking? Are you talking about when you and I got separated?
SPEAKER_04:Yes. What were you doing? We're doing a raid. I don't remember. I just remember running down that way with you. You're like, hey, what the fuck? We're by ourselves.
unknown:Oh shit.
SPEAKER_04:We're like a few blocks down, we don't know what the fuck was going on.
SPEAKER_00:No, I that's one of my more vivid memories, buddy. So well, that one was uh we were doing a huge coordinated hit on a mosque, and it was the first big mosque. We talked, we talked about it in another episode, but what what the the short version is is we were gonna do a major mosque. We we brought out a bunch of elements to do this because we were gonna actually send some of our interpreters into that mosque. And we had a guy with a video camera and uh was uh one of the interpreters, and uh something happened, and I don't remember. Well, the guy inside the mosque shot, and there was a bunch of pan pandemonium happened there, but there was a guy that we started chasing for some reason, and I don't remember why we were chasing him down, but it was it was the same night, and he was just outside of our ability to grab, like he was only a few feet, and we chased this guy for fucking ever and we kept and we jumped like one or two walls, like it wasn't just down alleys, we had jumped. I I remember boosting up over a wall, and I jumped over the wall, and then we jumped over another one, and we thought he went into this house, and so we kicked down the door, went into the house, and I remember we got up on top of the roof of the place, and all of a sudden I was like, Fuck, I don't know where we're at, and we're really far away, and we were outside of Calm too, because those little stupid squad mics only went like four feet, and so I remember looking at you and being like, We're in danger, like we're gonna like we need to be very quiet.
SPEAKER_04:I don't I remember most of that, but I'm like, Wow, why were we doing that? Like, I don't remember what the fuck our adrenaline got up and we were tasting down. I don't even remember how we got back to tell you the truth. I picked I I know they fucking just gave us a ride back. I don't know, like I think we don't remember.
SPEAKER_00:Be like, hey, we're lost. Uh could you give us a ride home?
SPEAKER_04:No, like I really don't remember that. It's like I wish I knew I I wish I could remember those details like that, but I mean it's I mean it's probably that I don't, so I guess we did you know.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I don't remember, I don't remember picking, I remember leaving the house and starting to work our way back. I don't remember exactly getting back, but I definitely remember chasing the dude down and then having that moment of epiphany uh with you and I standing on that roof being like, this is not good. This is this is not good at all.
SPEAKER_04:We're lost in a fucking different country in Romani. Fuck, what else is going on, Ronnie? That's too funny. That was good. That was a good little story. I actually forgot about that until you told me about that last year at the reunion. Oh, and I was like, oh shit. Oh, and it just I kind of came back a little bit. Oh fucking dude. Oh man. That was that was good. I liked it.
SPEAKER_00:If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.