Dodging Rockets in the RPG Truck - Yancy Harris

We capture the story from MAP 1's Yancy Harris to trade Ramadi 2004 memories that swing from terrifying to absurd in the span of a sentence. A lot of the conversation centers on how routine danger shapes a unit’s nerves. It's RPG paranoia, the weird routines that kept him going, and what it feels like to come home and the long memories of deployment. 

• a mistaken RPG attack that ends in a weapons cache find 
• the “RPG truck”
• “Pistol Pete” and the one-shot Beretta
• CQB training, confidence in training 
• hooch life culture 
• the Humvee flipped in filthy water, and the scramble to keep everyone safe 
• cordons, bug hunts, and the split-second confusion
• bridge duty mishaps, losing gear, and learning the hard way 
• coming home, driving in civilian traffic, and applying lessons through tactical fitness and security drills 

----------------------------------------------
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 

Transcript

Meet Harris And The Platoon

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Fantastic. All right. Well, let's uh start by introducing everybody to who you are, what your rank was in 2004, and what platoon you were with.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

All right. My name is Jan C. Harris. I was a Lance Corporal and 2-4 Weapons Company Mobile Assault Platoon 1. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

That's what I remember too. Well, wherever you want to start, brother.

Flyover Panic And Hidden Cache

SPEAKER_04 1:04

Uh well, I was thinking about uh actually it's a pretty funny story, kind of humiliating towards me, but it was really funny. Um there was a uh uh it ended up working out good in the end, but in the very beginning, uh we were set up in an alleyway, and I think we were coordinating off of um an area for a bug hunt. And uh uh somebody we only had one working radio in between the whole everybody in that truck, and the gun was sitting there. Um, Johnny, he was sitting there on the gun, and he got a call over the radio. He had the only work in radio that said um there was about to be a flyover from a jet. But what he relayed to me was there's a guy in a car shooting RPGs at everybody. So I go to the corner uh of the building, you know, aiming down this alley, and there's a big pile of rocks right next to me. And then these I don't remember, I think it was F-16 maybe, flew over the head of us, and it sounded just like a damn RPG. So I dove headfirst into the pile of rocks and I started trying to dig myself into a hole. I ended up tearing off my fingernails and everything else, and he was just laughing. And then when uh what was funny about it though was it ended up being a door underneath that thing that led to a little weapons cachet that we ended up confiscating, so it worked out good, but he uh yeah, he got me really good that time. That's hilarious. I don't think well that um I don't know, you were you were in map two, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Correct, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

I don't know if you remember they called our truck the RPG truck for a while because we got hit or was shot at by six RPGs in one week, just our truck, not not the platoon, just our truck. Nice. So we started getting like really freaking paranoid with RPGs all of a sudden, yeah. But um there was one that came over, and it came like over the fence, over my head, and then over Johnny's head on the top of the truck, and then it bounced in between Silver's legs and slammed into the wall, and the guy had never pulled the pin and it never went off, just buried itself in the wall. Like literally just went all between the three of us and slammed into the wall.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

That's crazy. And what kind of truck were you in? Were you in a highback?

SPEAKER_04 3:45

No, we were in an up armor. We were there was the first truck with the lieutenant, and then there was us, then there was the high back, and then two more omens.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Okay. Yeah, I was just thinking it seemed seems like from everybody else's stories, a lot of times the highbacks were getting targeted. I was wondering why why you were maybe they just hated your gunner.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

I think either that or they all were just terrible shots. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Well, yeah, there's that too.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

I think that's definitely the case.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

That's funny. Well, if it's it's funny, your stories about the flyover. If I and uh you have to correct me, but I feel like the flyovers didn't happen until in the summer, like June-July time frame. Does that sound right? Like it was pretty hot out when we had the flyovers.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

Yeah. We had been there for a while. Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_05 4:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

That wasn't early. And of course, you know. I don't know if you remember, but when the everything started kicking off um back in April, map one was on uh the bridge. We were on the bridge. So there for like two or three days, all y'all were getting all the action, and we hadn't got any, so y'all started calling us map none. And we were instead of map one, and we were like so pissed. Like, and then I mean it wasn't another day, and we got into a firefight, but like at first we were man, we hated y'all for a minute.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Yeah, it's not like there was any shortage of things to do uh in that city, it really but yeah, that sounds like something I would do. I probably even made that up, actually.

SPEAKER_05 5:24

Probably.

The RPG Truck And Close Calls

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Uh so you mentioned a couple of names. Uh I remember Silver real well. Who was in your gun? Was it Johnson?

SPEAKER_04 5:36

Uh Johnson.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

And then we called him John. We called it we called ourselves Team Johnny. Um we called the truck the pale horse, and Johnny was deaf. And then uh Solise was our team leader.

SPEAKER_05 5:57

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

And um, he didn't know how to spell Johnny. I misspelled it, and it had like two H's and two N's in it, so we just kept it that way. It was it was pretty funny.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

That's awesome. Have you heard have you heard from Solis in a while? I haven't heard from Solis in a long time. That's one guy I have not kept up with.

SPEAKER_04 6:19

No, I haven't heard from him. Like uh uh I went down with him, me and Johnny and Silver and Gutty, and somebody else went down with him that last year we were in to his um family's house over in Tijuana. Yeah. I think he went, I don't think he went back down there after he got out. So might just be because he's down there, uh, but I haven't heard from him.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Sure. Huh. All right. Yeah, Gutty, that's another one I haven't talked to in a long time. I've seen him on Facebook, but I haven't talked to him in a long time either. Well, that's good. All right. Well, wherever else you want to go, man. That's uh that's a hell of a way to start. That's a crazy story.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Yeah, that was funny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:00

Um let's see. Uh there was um and he won't mind me telling it.

SPEAKER_06 7:08

Uh you remember Peterson? Oh yeah. Uh the way he got the nickname Pistol Pete. That was really funny.

SPEAKER_04 7:17

Or not funny, whatever, however you want to take it. But uh, we had a roadblock set up, and a guy ran the roadblock and jumped through Jackass, which was the high back with everybody in it, jumped past Jackass and started going. And Pete was on the 240 on the top of the Humvee, and he was uh aiming that way, but instead of shooting the guy with the 240, he just pulls his nine mil out now about 40 yards, shoots one time with one hand, and just drills the guy right through the chest on the windshield, and we were all just kind of staring at him, and he's like, I got it. But you had a machine gun. So everybody started calling him pistol Pete after that.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Dude, he had the only accurate beretta in the whole damn battalion, probably, because every one of those things I ever picked up, it rattled like crazy. It had 50,000 rounds through it, and that's good.

SPEAKER_04 8:21

Yeah, I uh maybe guardian angels were curving the bullet, I don't know. Yeah, that could be. Yeah, we never switched it up. We did have two guys uh come in I think a month after we were there that were um from different battalions that had transferred out and they were staying. But besides that, and we stuck them in Jackass, the high back, so just two more people in the high back. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah, that I mean, again, we talked about this before, but that's a cat concept, is like, and that's how we all trained was all cat, right? It you mostly stick with the same team, so everybody kind of knows all the positions in the truck, but you're the same people, so you know each other. And uh, I don't know. It it uh just worked well when we moved the mobile assault platoons. What was your MOS again, Harris?

SPEAKER_04 9:29

31 machine gunner. Okay. Oh no, I was saying I think our whole truck was.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

I was gonna say Solis was and Johnson was for sure.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to remember if Silver was, and I'm pretty sure he was. I remember I'm trying to remember from the uh machine gun competition. I think he was.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Well, Shane and I were uh asking, I was trying to figure out when when did you come over to 2-4? Did you get dropped to us when we were still in Oki towards the end, or did you come more towards the when we got sent to Iraq?

SPEAKER_04 10:09

No, uh I got there and uh right when uh right before we went to Guam. You remember that one?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, that was uh so that's okay. That was my memory too, is you and Johnson and uh and at least one or two other people kind of showed up right in the middle of everything.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, it wasn't Emir, Chico, and Jax that came.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Oh, so you so so you came onto the ship.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

Okay. And y'all were so happy about still being on that ship.

Nicknames And Truck Team Culture

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yeah, man. Yeah, you saw you you saw us in rare form at that point then.

SPEAKER_04 10:51

Um yeah, so uh it was uh he probably won't care if I tell us oh prior. Got me to uh which I was stupid and boot, I didn't know what I was doing, got me to gun run over to Gunny Maraki and tell him that I love him.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Oh that is fantastic. Um let's see.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

What do you remember of the uh of the of the dial-up? Did you do a lot of any did you go to any division schools or anything like that, or were you just part of the normal getting ready to uh make the jump for Ramadi?

SPEAKER_06 11:40

No, uh I went to the um what was it, Assault on V school did a lot.

SPEAKER_04 11:49

We did a lot of me and uh a couple other guys did a lot of uh CQB training with Sergeant Condi a lot in the free time. Like when we're off.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_04 12:01

That guy could CQB better than anybody in the world.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, with his previous experience with the fast teams and all that, he really had a whole lot more training than we did. And I and from what somebody else said is I guess he him and Gunny Marocke knew each other like prior to coming to 2-4 and they had trained together. That was I don't know, that was an interesting tidbit that I had didn't know. But that's cool that he trained you kind of like in his off time. What uh what were you guys doing? Just like tape house stuff out in the backyard or what?

SPEAKER_04 12:35

No, we were uh Claring Barracks rooms, but in different uh different people.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Is everyone a willing participant in that?

SPEAKER_04 12:46

To my knowledge, nice, nice. Maybe sometimes they weren't, but he probably wasn't in there for the sometimes they weren't. So nice.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Uh that's cool, man.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

That uh that made me think of that. Uh I forgot that that was something that we did uh using tennis balls as grenades and uh sometimes uh randomly clearing rooms after we learned how to do it really well. And uh some good times.

SPEAKER_04 13:16

Yeah. Um trying to think of some more stories. Uh they um I remember there was only three movies that everybody could agree on out of all the DVDs we had. One was Spine. I don't know if y'all remember that one. Yeah, a little bit. That mess one where the guy's making meth and the guy's all meth. It was stupid. But that one belly, but the only one that we watched all the time was uh Finding Nemo. Like every night. Well then when we were at QRF, yeah, Santiago used to kick in the door and be like, QRF up, you know, and we take off running with our gear, and as we'd go out the door, uh somebody goes, shark bait, and we'd all go, ooh ha ha, like that. And then we keep saying it all the way to the trucks. I don't know why that was sad, but I saw a video the other day on uh TikTok of these Marines when they had they were they were bouncing the guy up and down on a pole and they were saying shark bait, and I was like, hey, that's maybe we started that nice.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Uh yeah, it's always funny the hooch life shit. Uh people always think like, you know, Marines are gonna be watching like I don't know, Platoon or or Predator or something all the time, and it's uh every time it's goofy kids movies, it's romantic movies, it's some goofy shit. It's hilarious. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

Well, we got the first season of Smallville on DVD, it was like all 28 of us packed around the TV watching like every episode without fail.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

That's awesome. Now, um while you're there, what else do you remember of Hooch Life then? What else do you guys do when you're when you're bored downtime Marines and Ramadi?

SPEAKER_06 15:16

Well, I had a lot of scrabble.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

You had to really mix it up where it was like, okay, you can only use words that could be construed as sexual, or uh you can only use like curse words no matter what language they're in. Because it just got too boring just playing Scrabble, so we had to mix it up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

We can do play with that. That's a that's a pretty uh eyebrow game for uh for the infantry.

SPEAKER_06 15:53

Yeah. Well, I remember the um who was it? I think it was Salif.

SPEAKER_04 16:00

You know, I mean he could talk fine, but yeah, I had trouble a lot of times spelling, you know, because it's not his first language. Yeah. Yeah, he was he was sitting there staring and like I think Johnny had played a word and we were doing sexual words, and it was just like four M's in a row. Um he's just like, mmm, what's that? Mmm. And we're laughing and we're like what say it again? He's like, mmm scrabble. That was a lot of uh me and uh you remember French?

SPEAKER_06 16:40

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

Uh me and him used to do uh uh crowd, Magav and uh knife fighting out in the back in the dunes out back of the hooch. Yeah. I swear if you're equally matched and neither one of you are that very well trained, and you both have a knife, it always ends with both of you with one knife trying to stab the other person on the ground every single time.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Now now were these were these training knives or were they real knives?

SPEAKER_04 17:11

No, they were training knives.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Okay, well, that's good.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

Yeah. Could have been real nice sometimes, but either um we play a lot of Texas holding.

SPEAKER_06 17:24

Nice. Lots of Texas hold them. That's not that's about it for a hooch life, really.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

The other thing I remember specifically about your hooch, I used to I didn't come over there too much, but I did come over every once in a while to you know talk to somebody about something, who knows what? Usually it was Santiago or Anthony. But uh I remember you guys had a like a big old wood table with a naked chick drawn on it. Somebody had drawn that. Do you ever remember you remember that? Who drew that?

SPEAKER_04 17:51

Yeah, I'm trying to remember who drew it. I don't actually remember who drew it. That's what we played Scramble on, though.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Yeah, yeah, it was your table. It's like a four by eight sheet of plywood that had this giant uh chicken like a camo uniform with her boobs out. Yeah, it was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

Yeah, I'm trying to remember who I think it was Stevens. Nice. I think it was Stevens because we were bitching about how uh the place needed more class, and then he started drawing on it, so we just kept laughing him.

SPEAKER_06 18:24

Nice. Um let's see. Anybody say anything about that uh home v that went down into the little river?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

A little bit, yeah. We had uh we had Fuentes, we interviewed him early, and he talked a little about uh Drake going in to save the gear and some other stuff, but yeah, you you tell it, man. Let's hear your version. He didn't talk about it too much.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

That was just funny because it was a tiny little tiny little bridge over that. And um, like the Humley, like the there was a couple of uh uh trucks and everything that could barely get across it, but the Humbeast had you know like maybe six touches on each side of the wheels, you know, to go across it.

SPEAKER_06 19:19

Yeah.

CQB Training And Predeployment Memories

SPEAKER_04 19:20

And the convoy was like 40 trucks, and somehow or another, and I'm not being sexist, but the only truck driven by a woman ended up falling into the river. And it was bad. That that water was bad, and then she got out and yeah, I I I completely forgot about Steph Star and Drake going in after that.

SPEAKER_06 19:45

Oh yeah, yeah, it was it was bad. That water was terrible.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah, well, not only and they drugged that truck back to Hurricane Point, so it stunk. And but I remember Drake stunk, and I I remember thinking, like, man, he's gonna get some kind of disease. I don't think he ever did, but god, I was sure we're I was absolutely sure he was gonna get some kind of weird Iraqi herpes or something.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Yeah, I think we uh I think we used bleach, dy fish, all sorts of crap on him trying to make sure he didn't. I think dog gave him a bunch of like antibiotics too.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Nice, yeah. Probably a smart idea. That was the that was the civil affairs truck, right? Is it civil affairs you guys were escorting?

SPEAKER_02 20:34

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

I know we had one or two guys punch through on uh on some of those cesspools and it ended up dying their skin. It was so gross, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:45

Yeah, it was bad. And then you see like some kid walking over there and like playing in it, and it's like, oh man, come on. Yeah. Um, I do remember, I don't remember his name or anything. Whoever that um when we went to arrest the police chief.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

Do you remember that? Because y'all were the the second cordon, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Right here, yeah, yeah. We were almost always the other cordon.

SPEAKER_04 21:15

Yeah, and we were the grab team. And I remember us pulling in there, and Johnny moved his gun, and I stepped out, and there was five different machine gun masks pointed at us. And I was I was like, Well, that's let's really pray this goes well because if they decide to pipe, I don't think we're gonna get a shot off. Yeah. I think that was the longest operation ever because I think it only lasted like five minutes and they were already coming out with him because he came peacefully. But for that five minutes, I was like, man, if this pops off, I don't think anybody's we're not surviving.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah, that was. I'm trying to remember the date on that when he it was like June something, but I can't remember. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I think it was June 1st or 2nd, something like that, when we arrested the police chief. Yeah. Was it was it that early? It was because I thought it was pretty early.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah. Because it was towards the end of the month that the governor got kidnapped, right?

SPEAKER_06 22:18

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 22:24

Um I do remember one there was a uh

SPEAKER_04 22:30

It was kind of funny. Man, most of my stories have to do with RPGs. I feel like we just constantly got hit with RPGs. But um it was a um it was a bug hunt. We were outer courting. I think it was it was either Fox or Golf that was coming through. No, we were in her, so they were working our way towards us. So we knew when we saw them coming through that we were about to be able to take up the Constantina wire and get get out of there. And I'd been standing in the same spot for like I mean, you remember like 12, 13 hours, right? You know, and they uh they started coming through. Well, I went over there to take the uh Constantina wire down, and Celise was up on top of Building Guardian Angel, and uh Silver was over in a ditch on the other side of the wire, and Johnny was on the truck, and as the people from Fox were coming through, an RPG came off a roof long ways away and hit him in the legs, and I can't remember his name. I know it blew one of his legs at the knee off, but I can't remember what his can't remember what his name was. Anyways, they thought it was me because he was standing, laying down, screaming right exactly where I was standing. Oh yeah, and I thought Johnny, Johnny got hit because it was basically hit Shratnel hit the truck, and Johnny dropped. So I'm screaming Johnny and Celise's screaming Harris and Silver screaming Harris because they think that's me there. And then Johnny gets up and just starts, he had the mark, and he just started blowing the building apart. And uh mass confusion there for a minute, but I don't think we got that guy. I think he got away. Unless he was in the building, and then he definitely didn't do it away.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yeah, they shoot and scoot was uh especially on those things, they were so far away they could just do that and just blow off and blend into the crowd and take off.

SPEAKER_04 24:38

Yeah. Yeah, good. And I do remember uh you remember Doc Cornwell?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

unknown 24:46

Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:47

So we had Cornwell in the front truck and we had Doc Gibbons in the back truck. And uh we stacked up in this alley that was like super. It was when that guy from uh I think it was golf got hit with that sniper rifle. You remember that one that ended up being stolen from the two snipers that went out?

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

So we're we're we had stacked up in an alley right there and we're kind of looking, anyways. A guy came um around around on a bicycle or a motorbike and shot an RPG, and it hit the door that Cornwell was standing behind, and it blew him out the other side of the home V upside down, and it stopped his heart because he was just, you know, open mouth, wide-eyed, like nothing there. And I ran up there and I pulled him down, and I was trying to get him. So we were screaming for Doc Gibbons, and he's like, Cornwell's up there, and we're like, Cornwell's the one that's hit. And then Doc Gibbons came up there and like just punched the ever living crap out of his chest, bam, like that. And when he did, he just, you know, started breathing again. I was like, Oh my god. Yeah, I remember that because that it blew him through the thing. The lieutenant wasn't at the truck at the time. I think a little bit of shrapnel got in Hess's shoulder and some got on list. It was a really good hit.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Dude, that's crazy. Especially with the precordial thump. That's uh that's good good work on the Corman's part of thinking to punch him in the chest.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

Hey, it was. That didn't cross my mind.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

I just not like there's a defibrillator out on the battlefield somewhere, you just like, you know, quickly charge up and do something. That's crazy, man. That's cool.

SPEAKER_06 26:40

Yep. I'm trying to think of any more.

SPEAKER_04 26:47

Like I say, most of them have to do with RPGs. I just feel like that we were always getting hit.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Well, here, let me uh I'll see if I can jog your memory any. When you guys uh came up, did you come up in the first convoy or the second one? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_02 27:02

I think the first.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

First convoy? Okay. I mean, both of the con I think there was only two. The man maybe there was three, but I think there was only two, and they were long as hell. They were, you know, 40, 40 whatever vehicles long of seven tons and Humvees. And then uh we came up about March 6th, was the first convoy, and golf company was a part of that. Do you remember any of the early missions before April? Anything in March, strike your memory? Or even your first time you went outside the wire, anything like that?

SPEAKER_04 27:32

I do. I don't I remember um we were with some people, and I'm not gonna say who the people were, but then we got shot at and they screamed back to the base. So we followed, obviously, and found out that I was kind of like the standard SOP at the time for getting shot at, and uh I remember that. I also remember um it was before we had when did we get lionesses? Do you remember? Because I remember it's like we didn't have them at first.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

We did not have and that I know of, we did not have any in March. I think the or maybe we did. It might have been March like 26th-ish, was like the first time we ever used them on a night raid, and then they were there for everything in April.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

Yeah. So it must have been so that's what I'm saying. I think it must have been real early. I think it was real early because we we grabbed two people we were supposed to, and the women were losing their minds, and we were trying to corral them without touching them and everything. It was actually very happy to have lionesses later when we started grabbing people because just keeping them away was terrible.

Hooch Life Movies Games And Mischief

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah. Did did you ride with the lioness as much? I I only got to work with them one time, really. Uh I didn't it wasn't something that was frequent for me.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

It was anytime it was like a snatch, but like they weren't really there, you know, if we were going with EOD or anything like that, but right. Um because that usually the way to me, the way it seemed, the way it was usually planned was it was, you know, um map three, then map two, then map one, like in a kind of like a bullseye formation when we were grabbing somebody. So for some reason, usually we were the ones going to grab the people.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

I was gonna say it did seem like you guys were on the inner part a lot more than we were. We just didn't we just didn't kick down doors as much as I mean, I know 81s did with Blake's Splatoon and Sledgehammer, and then Rainmaker, the other 81 Splatoon. And then you guys, and then yeah, we were out usually on the outer portion almost all the time.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

But um, yeah, I remember 81s. That was kind of uh I I always thought it was kind of crazy just how it ended up everybody became 0311s and 0331s, and it was like there was no more, no more tow gunners, no more 51s, no more 81s. It was just like yeah, crazy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

I mean, obviously, machine gun ruled the battlefield when it came to there, especially the Mart 19.

SPEAKER_04 30:23

Yeah. Oh, I do remember something. Uh it's pretty funny. You know how much you mess with each other in the hooch, you know. That's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

How we say I love you. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 30:36

You know, we used to get, I mean, do y'all remember a single night where somebody didn't lob a couple mortars out of the back of the truck at us? Very rarely. Yeah, yeah, it's like every night. And you know, you get to that point where you kind of hear the thump thump thump, and you're just like barely wake up. As soon as you hear the explosion not kill you, then you're just right back to sleep.

SPEAKER_05 30:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

But I heard one and it was, I mean, it was loud, loud. Like it hit up right outside the hoops. And I was like, oh, that was close, and then I went to sleep. So Silver came over to me and he was like, Hey, did that mortar hit the truck? And I was like, What? He's like, Yeah, you need to go change the flap. I said, Nah. Whatever, man. You know, and I really thought he was messing with me. And then uh Johnny came over and said the same thing to me. And I was like, Man, y'all leave me alone. Because it was when we were on a bridge, on the bridge. So, you know, I had already just did my 12 hours on, I had my time off. I was trying to sleep. And then Solice came over and like kicked the shit out of me. I was like, what? He's like, Your truck has a flat tire. I was like, no, seriously. So I went out there, and uh, the back left uh the back drivers had a tire had popped shrapnel. The front of the hooch and our truck were the only things that cut shratinal, and um so changing the tire in my sand, man, was awesome. Deep sand. And then I got the tire off, I got the spare off, and I put the spare on. I lowered the jack, and the second I did the stratinoid hit the spare, so it just went and went right back down. So I ended up having a jacket up to take it off and take both to the motor, uh roll both for the motor pool and get them fixed and then bring them back. That sucked.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

I was just saying, nothing like adding a couple of hours to something that should be minutes.

SPEAKER_04 32:36

Yeah, about the time I got done, it was time for me to go back on the bridge.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, that's about right.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

Uh I will tell an embarrassing story, you know, just for why not. We had just been told um keep your uh Kevlar's buttoned while you're on the bridge. You know, I don't think anybody ever actually did that, but you know, that was what you're supposed to do. And uh I we were on the bridge, we were sitting there, and uh I'm trying to remember golf company was walking down the road, and then an IED went off, and I jumped on the 240 like as fast as I could to you know cover, and when I did my cover wasn't uh buttons, so it ended up falling, and I dove to grab it, but then it ended up going in the Euphrates. Oh no, so someone's sergeant Santiago got there with uh I think it was List and John thing were replacing us. I was just standing there with no no helmet. He's like, Where's the Kevlar? Like, and I just kind of pointed at the river. So uh that night, um I remember I woke up and it was dark as hell and hooch, but somebody was sitting on the bed, the end of the bed, and I was trying to see who it was, and it was Benny Murray. And he was like, Heard we had an incident today, Harrison. It's like, yes, Jenny. He's like, You got a cigarette? And I was like, Yeah, you want a whole carton? Like, I got like I got cartons, man. And he's like, No, I I just want one. I was like, okay, and I handed it to him. He's like, You got a ladder? I was like, uh, yeah, sure. I reached over for a ladder and I turned it on, and he was gone.

SPEAKER_05 34:49

Scared the total shit out of me.

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Um he took me to the supply to get a new one. Uh he told me I had to wear it for like a week. I had a shower with that damn thing on. I hated that thing. But never dropped, never dropped the helmet again.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Uh there was a couple, you weren't the only one. There was a couple of helmets that ended up in the drink. Uh and a couple different people dropped different things off that post. Yeah, that a lot of board hours, a lot of bored Marines doing board shit.

SPEAKER_04 35:22

Yeah. Actually, the only time I ever got the fire off of there was a man, it was like three days before we left. I'm like, I remember me and Lisp. We ended up getting the fire. I think I went through two mags and he went through like a whole can on the 240.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

What happened with that?

SPEAKER_06 35:47

There was uh I forgot who it was. It was when it was it 25 that came in with us?

SPEAKER_04 35:56

Uh like to replace us.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah, 25 was our our relief.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

Yeah, they were out there, and I think there was a few ride-alongs with them right across the bridge, and they were they were taking fire from a window, and I think me and Liz just got to just spray and pray the whole second floor to give them cover. I don't know if we hit anybody, but whoever was in there was dead, but I can't say if it was them them going in or us spraying. So but it was nice to finally get to shoot off the bridge after all that time. Nice about everything I could think of, it's worth really mentioning.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Well, let me uh let me jog your memory on a couple things and we'll see. So you talked about uh being up on the bridge uh 6th, 7th, that kind of time frame. But from my memory and my notes, the morning of April 6th, you guys had gone out at night and you cordoned off and captured uh the Republican Guard guy, uh, what was it? Uh Farhan. And that kind of started the whole Battle of Ramadi, really, because that was the they that guy was some leader and coordinator of all the things that were supposed to be happening. Do you happen to remember anything about that morning?

SPEAKER_06 37:21

It was real smooth and it was real quiet. Like it wasn't uh it wasn't really. I mean, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_04 37:31

So I wasn't really talking about the the morning of Battle of Ramani, but it was before that y'all had all up until the Battle of Ramani, we hadn't seen any action. Okay, and y'all y'all had had a few little firefights here and there, but everybody had been through something except for us, and that's why they kept calling us.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Ah, okay. All right. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 37:52

It was infuriating.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Yeah. Yeah, I was curious because you said you're on the bridge, and I was like, man, I wonder where they were at, because to my recollection, it was Sledgehammer. It was one of the 81 Splatoons that were up on the bridge guard posts on the sixth. What where were you guys at on the sixth?

SPEAKER_06 38:08

I'm trying to remember. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Yeah, that's I mean that's okay if it doesn't stand out to you. Uh again, I know I know you guys did that raid, so I remember going to support somebody, and we never made it there.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

We started getting hit. Um stupid Mark 19 went down, and Celise was up top trying to get it going, and then me and uh Silver and Johnny, we were outside. I started taking fire from um a rooftop and a window on a third-story building. Um we were hunkered down behind a uh car trying to draw their fire away from Sully because he was up there trying to get the gun up.

SPEAKER_06 38:59

Yeah.

River Humvee And Arresting The Chief

SPEAKER_04 39:00

And then I realized that they weren't hitting a damn thing. Like every once in a while a bullet would hit the car, but it was like you could always I always tell people you could always tell who was shooting at you.

SPEAKER_06 39:12

It was like the just local uh idiots or like these like mafia kind of guys.

SPEAKER_04 39:22

And I was like, if if one's shooting at you, it was like just holding them over the head and spraying, but if another one was shooting at you, it was like calculate aims, you know.

SPEAKER_06 39:30

Yeah. But uh they weren't hitting anything.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

And so I stood up, and when I stood up, they still weren't hitting anything. So I I shot the guy on the roof, I shot at the guy in the third story window, and we decided we needed to clean the clear the building. And there was a ranger platoon stacked up along the um along the alleyway right there. And I told Silver to go tell him we needed support to clear the building out. Everybody was kind of like on a little block area right then. Nobody was even like kind of looking distance away from each other, every truck.

SPEAKER_05 40:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:14

So I asked him to go grab us some guys, and then we came back and said, No, they don't do that. And then uh so I told Johnny to go, and Johnny went over there and came back and said, Yeah, that's a no-go. So then I went over there and like it was the first firefight, adrenaline's all pumping, you know, and everything. So I was yelling at him, and um there was no rank visible, and apparently Johnny didn't tell me that he was a um I forgot it was it was a pretty decent high-ranking officer, but he didn't say anything about it, so I'm yelling at the guy and telling him he's a coward and that he needs to give me some people. And uh he's like, We're not doing that. Uh that's not our job. So I said, screw it, and all three of us went into the building, and we were like one person per room, and some of them were dark like part of the window list, so you'd like slide in on a leg and try and like see if anybody shot at you. Yeah, and there was a big guy on the roof and one on the third story. I'm not sure actually sure we got the one on the third story, but that's basically it. And we came down, and when we came down, they had uh the people that we had screamed at had got in on the ground floor and were like, we're secure the building for you. And I was like, Yeah, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Uh did you catch any contact inside of any buildings? Any of that CQB training payoff?

SPEAKER_04 41:53

Not really. I mean, I mean, it definitely pays off within the fact that you know confidence going in and everything, but no, we really didn't receive any fire while doing sweeps like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

No, it's a common story. There's uh, you know, a couple little one-shots, two shots, but no like bigger CQB engagements, which is interesting. It seemed like they mostly ran to the roof and then tried to jump down or jump off or jump to another building or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

And uh yeah, that happened a lot.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Yeah, yeah. Like little spider monkeys.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

Yeah. I think so. I I remember Soliskett that one guy, that that RPG I told you, um not Cornwell through the uh Humvee. I think Salis was my guardian angel and he went rooftop to rooftop. I think Soliste got him like mid-jump in between two buildings, if I remember right. I don't know. I remember he got him, but I don't remember how.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Well, let me jog your memory a little bit more. Uh obviously the sixth and the seventh kind of blends together for everybody, so if not much stands out to you, that's all right. But the the eighth wasn't much. That was when we kind of went out, did Operation County Fair, found a couple field hospitals, but it didn't seem like there was a lot of gun fights. Uh same thing with the ninth. Went out, searched a few specific places, no nothing really. But it sounded like from the intel that they had retreated to the Sophia district. And so on the 10th, that's when we did our first bug hunt. Do you happen to remember that? That was, I mean, everybody was out. Everybody was out on the 10th. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

I remember I remember bug hunts, but I can't say as if I remember. Which one was which?

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

They were up 90% of the time, you know, pretty damn boring, and then every once in a while something would pop off.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Sure. Sure. Well, and then uh let's see, going through like later April and May. In May, there was the uh couple of guys that drowned in the Euphrates, and we did a lot of searching for those guys. Were you guys part of the searches at all?

SPEAKER_04 44:13

I remember the searches, but I don't remember if we were I think we weren't. Well, uh no, you know, I think we were daytime taskable and or daytime QRF one or the other, and we were busy with EOD.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Okay. Well speaking of speaking of Taskable, do you remember going to any of the other camps like Tacotum or Al Asad or even Junction City? Anything that stands out of those missions? Anything weird?

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Was it Junction City that had the PX?

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yeah, Junction City definitely had a it wasn't great, but it was decent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:59

Yeah. That was great. You can use your uh use your debit card there. Yes. I'll never forget that because everybody had like what at that point, like six thousand dollars in their account. Like I want this and this and this. We were just like grabbing. I think I got like 17 seasons of shows to walk out. Nice. Yeah. Sopranos, I remember. We binge watch Sopranos.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yep. Yeah, every a lot of people watch Sopranos. Uh what was the other one? Firefly. I remember that. Shield, yeah. The wire. Both of those.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

I could never bring myself to buy something new. The hot uh the DVD Haji guy was uh always gave me two for one specials and stuff like that. And so I didn't mind the shaky hand camera while as they videotaped it in a some some some theater, some theater in in Europe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:59

I didn't mind that, but if you went if you were getting any kind of uh adult kind of thing from him, you never knew what was gonna be on after the phone.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

This is also true. Yeah. There was a couple that got handed around that were pretty uh one-time experiences.

SPEAKER_04 46:21

Yeah, there's a couple people that continuously watch those things from the beginning to end that you started having to worry about.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

This is also true.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Uh let's see, I'm looking through my notes here. I don't have too many other uh specific things. Trying to remember, there's a you guys definitely had one big uh gunfight that I can remember a video of, but I can't remember the date of when you guys were hemmed up out by the uh the reviewing stands, and you guys had Helos on station and all you had Oliver North with you.

SPEAKER_04 47:00

Oh yeah, oh man, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 47:04

Oliver North, I remember that. You know, really funny uh side note.

SPEAKER_04 47:11

First of all, I don't know who he actually was, really, just a reporter at first. Uh when we were uh when he was out there, you know, he was out there when we were at March Air Force Base, yes, yeah filming and doing a little bang rack. So he's behind a tree at March Air Force Base, and Liz nearly crushes him with a hungie going off road, they go right there and they couldn't see him. And everybody was like, you nearly killed Oliver North. And I'm like, I was like, what's the big deal? It's just a reporter, like so. When my step stepdad found out about that, he's like, You don't know who that is? No. So he gave me like all the history, all the books, everything about him. And then when I when we met him after that, it was like, oh hey, I know who you are now. Like, actually. But yeah, he was stone cold during that. I remember that the cameraman at first would not get out of the Humvee. We started taking fire to the Humvee. I forgot whose Humvee he was in. I can't remember. But he was straight out of the Humvee, like reporting right away. And the guy would not get out of the um the Humvee with the camera. I don't, I can't remember if he read me. He's like, no, get out, just start filming. He's like, they're shooting at us. He's like, ah, it's okay. This is good stuff, you know. But yeah, we were we started taking fire. I remember from it was like an alley, and we pulled in there, and then it was from a building across the street, and then it was from another building, and it just started kind of coming all different directions, and then we kind of spread out all over the place. I don't think we were I don't think anybody fired any marks. I remember some people who were firing 50s, some 240s, but I don't think anybody fired any Mark 19s. But it was a nice little skirmish, but it I don't I don't remember it lasted very long.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Yeah, I all I remember is the footage specifically. That's the reason why it sticks out in my mind. I remember uh he Oliver North came back and showed us the video, and uh we were like, oh that's pretty great, man. That's good that's good camera footage. You got the helicopters flying over, and he's like got a good action shot of it, and everything looked cool.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

Yeah. Yeah, that guy got out. The cameraman did get out. Like I wasn't saying he was being coward cowardly or nothing. He was just kind of like no, he just took one of these shot. Yeah, that's that was that's a good one. Kind of funny until you start talking about it, I kind of forget a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

Dude, it's easy. And it all what's funny is uh, you know, we've noticed after talking to a few people about these things, it's how easy it all starts to blend together. Like you I can remember getting in, you know, getting in things, but I don't necessarily remember all the dates because it's it just all went one firefight to the next, and uh somebody was in contact essentially every day, so it wasn't wasn't like it was a new thing.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Well, I guess uh if you can't remember too many other details, you remember getting ready to pack up and get out?

SPEAKER_04 50:17

I do remember that my most um what was the camp called that we ended up going to and stationing at before we rolled out?

SPEAKER_00 50:26

So in the very the very first place was Camp Ramadi, or we called it Junction City, and then the airport or the place where the plane was was Alasad Air Base.

SPEAKER_04 50:37

Right, yeah. But when we were in Junction City, I do remember that they had a room there with um a crap load of Xboxes. Yeah, if you could sign in there, and we played Halo for like 12 hours straight until they kicked us off.

SPEAKER_05 50:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

I remember that. But then I remember that drive to the next base because I remember me and Pete sitting there and I was just kind of like chilling, hanging my head up against it, and Pete was not not like he was scared or nervous or anything, but he was like extremely vigilant, and I was like, Are you okay? And he was like, I just feel like this is the time where we're gonna get shot, right? When we're on our way home, and I was like, but I like sat up and I was like, Well, now you got me paranoid, so then we were just like super paranoid on the way through. I think they were going down Route Michigan, and then I was like, Why aren't we down Michigan? Why would we ever go down Michigan? But I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Yeah, yeah, and then we uh we jumped on that. It was uh I think that was a C-130, is what we jumped on there, and then they took us to Kuwait. Any memories of Kuwait, either coming or going?

Bridge Duty Mortars And Hard Lessons

SPEAKER_04 51:53

I remember Kuwait as uh I think well, we'd been there less than 24 hours and started saying I'll go had us put uh flag jackets and gas masks on and go for a run, and we all nearly died about three-quarters of a mile into it, him too. I don't think that was like the best idea that he ever had because we all just like ended up walking back to the thing. And I remember if we played football out there too. I don't know if you remember that map one was like the we always we played football like every day back in California, ever like all the time. Yeah, full con full contact, and we kept getting hurt, but we kept, you know, we were running or training when we were hurt.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Well, you guys had a lot of athletic people. I mean, like Garcia ran like a 16, 17 minute, three mile, like you were always in great shape, Jax was always in great shape, like you guys had a lot of like superior athletes in that group as well.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

Yeah, um, you know, Gutty. I think Gutty, yeah, Gutty ran a 1545 when we were in Oki.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

I I didn't remember that, but I'm not surprised. You guys, you guys had a lot of even Anthony smoked a pack a day and would still run like about an 18-minute three mile.

SPEAKER_04 53:14

So yeah. Uh I miss him. I had a lot of fun with him. He, when we were there, man, he never I think he binge watched every single show the entire time. He had that little portable DVD player in his rack. He would just watch, watch, watch, watch. I just come over to him and get updates, I didn't even have to watch it.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

That's funny.

SPEAKER_04 53:45

Yeah, I don't I don't really remember any more really good stories, so funny ones.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

Well, uh to put a bow on it, do you remember what it felt like coming home after all that?

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Yeah, it felt great.

SPEAKER_04 54:05

Um the one thing I say, like, as far as for me, and I know I've talked to some of the guys I still talk to are like that, you know, you're more mystify than you didn't really bring home PTSD from adrenaline or anything like that. You brought home it more for wanting to be back. And I will say that driving afterwards, because I was a driver for that truck, and like not squishing people or scrunching their cars when they got in the way was like a really hard thing to overcome in traffic. Remember that? People would pull out on you in traffic out there, and you're just like, crunch, there you go, and just keep driving. Hard to get over that when you get home.

SPEAKER_00 54:53

Yeah, you can't do that in California traffic, even if you want to.

unknown 54:57

No.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Yeah, no, coming home was coming home was great.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

And you still had a little bit of time left, so did you do the the second Oakie pump? Were you there long enough for that?

SPEAKER_04 55:12

Yeah. Okay, yeah, that was when we did the machine the uh machine gun competition then.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Were you around when we did the whole machine gun competition that time? Nope, not for that one, man. Uh when when we got home in 2004, I was out in December 2004.

SPEAKER_04 55:28

Were you? Yeah, that one was brutal because the um we did the company one at Mount Fuji, and it was like freaking 48 degrees and raining, and all there was to sleep on was volcanic rock.

SPEAKER_05 55:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:50

I'm trying to remember who the CO was. I can't remember if it was Captain Bronzi or Captain Watt. I think it was Captain Bronzey. He's like, oh no, they're fine, they don't need tents to sleep in bags. We man, we all had immersion foot the next day, or everything is sunk up and look like brains on our feet. And we were trying to do the damn machine gun competition. It's terrible. Uh well did you that was uh that was probably oh sorry you're good, man.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

I interrupted you. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 56:19

Uh that was probably the hardest one, honestly, because after that we went battalion. And that's it, no. I'll have to look at that. We got an award for it. We won it all, but uh company one was the hardest one because it was map one, map two, map three, all against each other.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Oh nice. And then as far as your military career, did you just end up doing the four years or did you stay longer?

SPEAKER_06 56:48

Nope, just the four. Cool. All right, man.

SPEAKER_04 56:53

Well, planned on when one assigned up plan on doing it for life, but you know how that works out as soon as we get down to the end of the four.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

I think that's true for a lot of us. I know that was true for me and definitely true for Blake.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

Yeah. I intended to be a careerist, but I didn't check out.

SPEAKER_04 57:14

Yeah, something about a lot of the people. I'm not saying anything about somebody re-enlisting at all. But like it seems to be a lot of the people that re-enlist shouldn't be the ones that re-enlist, and they end up being the ones telling you what to do, which pisses you off, so you don't want to re-enlist. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

You hear uh Silver retired last year. That's what I heard. And he went Marsak, right?

SPEAKER_04 57:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:44

Nice. Yeah, he went, and then another person I was checking, um Pierce. Pierce went um, got out and went to Army and then Ranger, and if I'm not um too sure, but I think he went Ranger to Beret, but I can't be positive.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Oh nice. Dude, there's a lot of people who went the distance from 2-4 weapons company. It is surprising the number of people who made Sergeant Major or uh Master Guns and and went the whole distance. It it's a lot.

SPEAKER_04 58:24

Yeah. Well, that's what I teach out here as um tactical fitness. So running, shooting, clearing, you know, cross fit, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Nice. Yeah, I remember you were into that. Uh any lessons from Ramadi? Anything that you incorporate in any of that stuff?

SPEAKER_06 58:44

Yeah, well, I mean, most of the CQB, you know. A lot of uh a lot of people don't know how big an impact Sergeant Condi had on a lot of us. I mean he was constantly out there training, like I say. When he went down, I think that probably hit everybody more than anybody else out. Yeah, it was a big deal. Yeah. We were all pissed after that point. But um Yeah, a lot of the CTB stuff is very interesting because you know you get to uh apply it in real life.

SPEAKER_04 59:26

But I mean, no matter if there was somebody shooting at us, we did knock down a bunch of doors that go through and you know implement the things we learned, regardless if somebody was shooting at us. Yeah, so it's interesting to be able to say, um, you know, this is it doesn't actually work in real life.

SPEAKER_06 59:42

You know, you're taking a principle that right there doesn't work, trust me, that will not work. We have a church security group from my church out here that uh I'm a part of, and twice a year they have we have drills with uh rubber bullets and everything else where people do church shootings and all sorts of stuff, and uh that gets implemented. That was actually kind of funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

I meant not to drag it on or anything.

Coming Home Fitness Work And Closing

SPEAKER_06 1:00:12

There was a guy and I didn't know how serious to take it at first, and I was a front row guy and he uh kicked open the side door and started walking up towards the children's building, so I followed him and then he uh he took out a gun and was screaming, Where's my kid? And I grabbed a hold of him and we wrestled, and then he um he had blanks in the gun, he shot me twice in the stomach with the gun. He said, What'd you do wrong? And I was like, I didn't do anything wrong. I grabbed you and you were pulling the gun out. He's like, Yeah, but I killed you. I was like, Well, yeah, but I mean it's not real.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:52

I don't know exactly what you want me to do. The floor is concrete. I mean, did you want me to choke you out and put you off the floor? He's like, You gotta pretend it's real. I was like, okay, so we ran it again, and as he was going, I ran it behind him and I hammer fisted him in the back of the head. And he hit the ground and he said, What the hell are you doing? I was like, I just shoved the knife to the top of your head.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:16

But I was like, Yeah, you're dead. That's all good. I got the gun. It's like it's not really what I was expecting. I was like, I don't know what you want.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

Yeah, yeah, either it's real or it's not, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

Well, that's good. I'm glad those Ramadi lessons are paying dividends. Absolutely. That's cool, dude. Well, it's uh it's been good to catch up, bro. Thanks for agreeing to do this. And uh, dude, you you told some fucking good singers, man. That was uh that's a it every bit of this paints a little bit of the canvas, and you filled in some holes that uh man, that a couple people I hadn't thought about in a long time, and a couple people I definitely missed, including yourself. So I'm I'm glad to see it. I'm glad you're doing so well.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:05

Awesome. That's good to see all too. I hadn't uh I hadn't really kept track of too many people, just a couple.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

If you like what you heard, make sure you subscribe for future episodes on your favorite podcast service.