The Story of a Soldier Who Saved His Team in Ramadi | Dan Pinion Interview

In this episode of Not Special, we sit down with a retired Command Sergeant Major to unpack one of the most powerful and overlooked stories from the war in Ramadi.

What begins as a conversation about leadership quickly becomes something much deeper.

You’ll hear firsthand what it was like leading soldiers during one of the most dangerous periods of the Iraq War—where attacks were constant, casualties were mounting, and survival was never guaranteed.

At the center of this story is Sergeant Marquise Quick, a soldier who made a split-second decision that saved the lives of his teammates.

This episode explores:

•  The reality of combat leadership under extreme pressure 
•  The emotional and psychological toll of sustained warfare 
•  The moments that define courage and sacrifice 
•  How extraordinary acts of heroism can be overlooked in the chaos of war 
•  The ongoing effort to ensure those actions are properly recognized 

This is not just a story about war, it’s about responsibility, reflection, and what it means to lead when everything is on the line.

More info about SGT Quick and the drive to get him the Medal of Honor: https://www.drivenperspectives.com/medal-of-honor

Connect with Liberty Speaks: 

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👉 Don’t forget to give us a rating and share if you found this conversation valuable. Your support helps us bring more stories of resilience, leadership, and freedom to light.

Transcript

I’m Not Special But This Story Is

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Dan, why are you special?

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Well, let's let's clear that up. There, Dan is not special at all. In fact, I think uh somebody had a shirt that said, look, like world's okayest NCO. I actually like, why am I here today? Like, that's what's special. And I think it's actually not trying to fix mistakes or well, I am trying to fix mistakes and failures. So I think now I am working hard. Now that I've understood leadership, I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly. Now it's trying to improve quality of life for not only myself, but also for all the soldiers I serve with, their family. So I think that's like my purpose right now and moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Uh I I love to hear. I mean, to me, Corey's not here. She's recovering from procedure, but we we talked, and you I mean, you're special, right? You're retired command server major, uh, combat veteran, author of um Chop That Shit Up, which I love the title of. Uh, thank you for just giving me that. But also, you know, fighting to get your soldier recognized for the Medal of Honor that he should deserve. So um, I'm I'm just grateful for here and look forward to getting the story, man. So I appreciate it. I'm Herb Thompson, a green brain resolutionist.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

And I'm Corey Thompson, Herb's Les Harry Half and Branding Expert.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Our guests come from various backgrounds, but one thing is true. They are special. I want to take it back though, because obviously you were in the army. What led you to being in the army? I want I want to go back that far and like how how'd you get in the army?

SPEAKER_02 1:37

It's part of the story, but it it's really actually pretty easy. I used to say that I came up in like an average household, but I now believe I was very lucky because I had two parents. I have a stepfather who raised me, he's my dad. I had cousins, I had community, hunting, fishing. I mean, I had it all growing up, and I was very good at baseball, but I was lazy. I was a lazy student, I was lazy discipline, even though my dad had it. Uh, he is such a hard worker, even to this day, he doesn't sit down. It came, I had no idea what I was gonna do after high school. And there was college offers or discussions. All my friends were going to college, and I had no idea. And then one day my dad and I were going to cut firewood. In fact, where Friday the 13th was originally filmed. Uh Crystal Lake was Camp

Desert Storm Changed Everything

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Novi Bosco in New Jersey. My dad's friend was the caretaker there, and we were going there to cut wood. He's like, Hey, why don't you talk to my buddy Ollie, who is a state trooper and a caretaker and new stuff was in the National Guard or knew people in the National Guard? And he's like, Talk to Ollie about your future. And that conversation, two days later, I was in the New Jersey National Guard. Really? Two days after cutting wood on a Sunday, by Tuesday or Wednesday, I was in the National Guard. I took the test, and they're like, I mean, no drugs, no criminal record. Like, I was an athlete. Uh I I had like my GT score came out. Was it like 122 or something like that? Like, I was top tier getting like, hey, how can we get you in? And yeah, I was in that week. Uh so you went in the guard and then transferred over to active duty. So I went to basic training after uh graduating high school, and this is 1990. So all smart people go to basic training at the end of the summer, not in the beginning of the summer. Enjoy your summer, kids.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Same way I went to August.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Yeah, end August. Enjoy your summer, uh is what I tell everybody. And when they go to college, you go to basic training. I went in September. Well, that was the build-up for Desert Storm. So, like, we people are like, oh, MREs. I didn't need an MRE. I had one MRE in basic training because all the MREs should go overseas. So I had hot meals, baby. Uh, three square three meals a day. I tell everybody basic training transformed me. I was tired, uh, I was sore. I was gaining, I think I gained my mom. It was like, couldn't believe when I graduated. It was like 40 pounds of muscle. I was skinny and I came out with shoulders. It gave me discipline and standards. Not that I didn't have it, but it's what I needed. So I graduated and then I went right back to normal life. Like I was National Guard, and our unit wasn't getting activated yet. And then I remember I went to a high school basketball game, uh, so I could be cool, you know, go back to my little high

The Moment He Chose War

SPEAKER_02 4:30

school. And they played the national anthem, and I was standing at attention, and everybody was talking. Uh, not totally disrespectful, but I was burning up inside. And I remember like that moment, I started the Army values. Like I started to understand Army values by getting mad at the national anthem being played and people being disrespectful, in my opinion. And I walked out after the national anthem, and I remember going back home. I'm like, I have to join the war and I need to go active duty. And it took almost a month, that was the end of December, maybe early January. And it took almost a month for me to gather the National Guard because you, yeah, well, all right. I did lie. I basically had to say my parents are kicking me out of the house and I have no job because you have to stay six months after basic training or something back then. And a general had to sign off for me to go active duty. But with Desert Storm, I couldn't see him saying no. No, yeah. So I did. I got approved to go active duty, stayed as a cavalry scout, and they're like, where do you want to go? I was like, California. Thankfully, they said Fort Ord, California, and not Fort Irwin, Fort Irwin of the desert. If they said Fort Irwin and said California, I'd be like, I'm in. But thankfully they said Monterey, California, Fort Ord, 7th Infantry Division.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

That's two very different places.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Oh, yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

That is.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Yeah. One's and Clint Eastwood was the mayor of Carmel, right next door at the time. So it was perfect.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Monterey may be one of the most beautiful places there is, and Fort Irwin may be one of the not beautiful places, unless you love extreme heat and desert and nothing around it. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Uh oh man. So I got lucky, but that's how like I got in the army, and then I immediately showed up at Fort Ord, and they were like locking my clothes away. And then we didn't get activated. So we went to training instead. Uh, and that's a true story. And I was like, hey, can I call my parents? Uh at least let them know I'm here. And we went to training right away, and that started my career right there. And

I am a Calvary Soldier

SPEAKER_02 6:35

then I mean you stayed Calvary Scout, right? Reconnaissance. Yeah. So yeah, basically, um, reconnaissance. I hate saying it. People say, you know, it's armor branch. I am not a freaking tanker. Let's let's clear that up. Let's clear that up. I have never even touched or got on a tank, but we are in the same branch, but I will wear my cavalry brass and I and Stetson and Spurs.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

I was gonna say you got the Stetson and your Spurs. I am a cavalry soldier through and through. Oh, I love it. And about you know, at 15, 16 years later, 2006 time frame, you're a first sergeant now, leading a reconnaissance troop. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Back up just a little bit. So I was a drill sergeant like you. Nice. Uh I came off the trail in 2002, and they gave, and my wife is German. Uh, in fact, we're getting ready to celebrate here in a few months, our 33rd anniversary. Thank you. She had gone back to Germany after our first son. Germans give you like three years off, and then she can start her work again. So she had just gone to Germany after I was coming off the trail. So Branch at the time is like, all right, what do you want? You can go Pathfinder or you can go ranger school. And I was an E7. And I was like, hey, obviously I want to go to Ranger School.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Um I was gonna say, please tell me you chose Pathfinder?

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Yeah. Well, I'm about to. Uh and he's like, he's like, all right, what duty station? I said, Oh, I have to go to Germany. I said, I really want to be with my family. And he's like, Look, I can't get you Germany and Ranger School. I can get you Germany and Pathfinder. So that made that, and again, I'm not trying to make excuse so I didn't go ranger, but I went to Pathfinder School because it gave me Germany. And he got a cool badge for your uniform. And it gets that's why I went. You talk about like stupid crap you say. I'm sorry, I might swear every once in a while. I try not to, but uh a sergeant major one time asked me, he saw uh my Pathfinder, and he's like, Oh, where'd you get that Pathfinder? And I was like, closing sales, like where is where you get the patch. People sometimes ask me, like, how many times did you go through? I'm like, What do you mean how many times? I went through once, man. One time. Now we lost 75% of our class. Uh, in fact, one guy lost on the the jump into the field, uh, broke his leg, hadn't jumped in 19 years, and they make you jump.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

And yeah, that school is like academically, I will tell you, I probably wasn't in a best part of my life when I went. So I would just go to school and then they'd be like, study, and I would just go drink beers of buddies or go shoot at the range with some buddies. And then I thought it was easy. And then next thing you know, like people are just going left and right, and next thing you know, no one's left. And it's like, well, okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Like they're like, oh, memorize the carp dart charts and all this, and um, and again, next thing I know, I'm like, man, am I the last man standing in the squad? Or where's everybody going?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

You're doing calculations of where you know, drop people out of aircraft or land in helicopters, and it's heavy math, heavy memory, like truthfully. And yeah, it was but you get a cool

First Combat Tour & Getting Wounded

SPEAKER_01 9:18

batch.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah, for me, it was a little demanding, but I will tell you, as soon as I got to Germany, and that's where I'm going, I I went to the brigade reconnaissance troop. Okay. Uh, roughly 57 personnel to be Ford reconnaissance for the brigades. I think they had been around like two years by the time I was coming in. And as soon as I got there, I was doing Pathfinder operations. Like I was sling loading center. I was doing it in Hohenzfelds, Germany. Nice. Uh my first uh Ranger Tab Pathfinder. Uh, we were setting them all up and sling loading our Humvees into combat or into training. Training. So it's pretty cool. But I was brigade reconnaissance troop and I had done a year, the first tour in Iraq from 03 to 04. I think we did 15 months or 16 months. We got extended.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

You did you did that thing where like you Well, Sardar City kicked off.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Yeah. In fact, I called my wife on a Thursday. I never called. We used to call satellite phone every two weeks on a Sunday. And I called her on a Thursday and she goes, We already heard. Because Saddam City had just kicked off. We were out of ammo. All we had was basic load left because we were going home and we had put all our ammo in connexes to get shipped. We had to break the seals on the connexes and then two CRs in a fight of their lives going on.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

The armored cavalry regiment.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yeah, the armor, yeah, second armored cavalry regiment right across the street or you know, highway from us. And we asked, you know, we were trying to get in the fight, and they're like, no, just run them ammo. So we were running our connex ammo and meeting them at collection points, casually collection points. They're jump dumping casualties. We're given ammo as the fight is going. And 2CR, you know, they they weren't being bravado or anything. They're like, hey, let us fight it. We we got what we need, we don't need extra people because that's more confusion,

Back to War Again

SPEAKER_02 11:00

especially not your unit. Go by the way, now you're extended. Go to Najaf and Karbala.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

I know some of them units in Germany, uh, it might have been later on, but like some of the soldiers went back, right? And then had to go back to war because like the extension.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Yeah, our other brigade, I think it was 2nd Brigade out of bomb holder, maybe their field artillery unit was back and getting ready to go on leave, and then they brought them back, and then within a week of one of their units being back, IED or car bomb hit their front gate and killed some soldiers. So they had been home after a year of war, a year of combat, yeah, and then got called back and then uh were killed a week later. So I was part of that extension. Jeez, and then I was wounded by an IED on that one. Uh, and then we found out I had traumatic brain injury and I had torn my ACL and MCL. So when we got back on the first appointment, yeah. So I was in the hospital getting surgery within 30 days of being back, and the brigade sergeant major called me and he says, Hey, congratulations, you made E8. How's your leg? When can you walk? And I was like, Oh, they say I can run in like six months. He's like, That's not what I haven't said, pinion. When and he's calling me in the in the hospital. When can you walk? Yeah, he's like, when can you walk? I said, Oh, uh, it's like 30 days convalescent. He's like, All right, you made E8. I'm making you the first army, you're going back to the BRT, uh, because they had put me in brigade staff, different incident. We're going back to Iraq. And that was 30 days after we had just done 15, 16 months or whatever it was. How much was there a gap? Yeah, luckily, uh, we had almost a year training. So I got went back to the brigade reconnaissance troop. This is now end of you know, beginning 2005 is when I took over the troop responsibility. And by early 2006, we were going back to Iraq. And I was the I was now the first sergeant. Well, you went to Ramadi with in that area, right? Not initially. Uh initially life was good. Really? Life was good, my friend. We were we were up by Sinjar Mountains. Oh, yeah. Up northern um Tucker Beal and some of the other Kurdish area. Yeah, so we were just south of that. We're in the Sinjar Mountains, and I was in a place called Biaj. In fact, our commander at the time was Mike. Now they call him main gun bioma because he went to the tank company after, and he he brought destruction with him in Ramadi. But with us, it was just Captain Biama. Uh, his first op order was welcome back, Biage.

Welcome to Ramadi

SPEAKER_02 13:31

We're in Biaj, Iraq. But to me, it was like a training camp for terrorists, they would blow themselves up. We had an ODA team with us. Uh, it's when asymmetrical warfare group was embedded with us and helping us because we our mission was going to be snipers and small kill team operations, which we'll talk about. But up there, life was good. I mean, we were doing missions, we were finding bad guys, or they were killing themselves, like there was no attacks. And it was late May. Uh, we're there February. Late May, we got the order to go to Ramadi from up north.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

And it's not that urban up there, more rural up less in Jarmati. In fact, it was desert. Once you go into the cities, Ramadi, Mosul, wherever, now that gets correct crazy. Uh, for our listeners, hey, subscribe, hear another great story next week from another guest. But so you get moved to Ramadi May 2006 time frame, which I mean, I'll just be frank, that's like the shit. I mean, this is so none of us. Ramadi, Fallujah. Yeah, you're talking that time period of the rock Iraq war is probably the worst we've seen, at least during our generation.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

No, you're exactly correct. And in fact, like I said, I was in Fallujah in 03 twice. In fact, we were doing some air assault uh operations there as the Marines and fact second ACR aga or CR was uh attacking uh Fallujah. We were in support doing reconnaissance, and then to go from Baghdad through Fallujah to Ramadi was a wake-up call in itself. I mean, IED is going off non-stop. It was a wake-up call. I mean, we were I say it all the time, we were not in Kansas anymore. I promise you that. And you get into Ramadi and it's voted for the third or fourth straight year as the most deadliest city in the world. And you're like, Welcome. Yes, yes. And the unit we were replacing, God bless them. So we're replacing uh Bloody Bucket Brigade out of Pennsylvania National Guard. And I know General Grosky, he was a colonel at the time of the brigade. I met him later in Europe. Uh, they had a mission on themselves, but the unit we were replacing was a National Guard unit at a different state, and they wouldn't go out the gate. And I'm I'm not saying that to be mean. They were getting ready to go home, and they did not want to show, you know, left seat, right seat ride. They show us and then they ride with us to help us out. We went out the gate one time, five minutes, and it's the fastest I've ever seen a home V drive.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

And they're yeah, they're trying to limit cash D's right or wrong. So you didn't get anything, it was just welcome to the Wild West.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Yeah, now thankfully we had a great headquarters. So our executive officer, Jonathan Villasonor, we had a headquarters uh platoon sergeant Damon Walker, who lives in Maryland now too. In fact, I just met him a few weeks ago. They did a great job getting intel of Ramadi. And then because we had Jocko, Willig, and SEAL Team Three, they were ahead of us by Task Unit Bruiser. Task Unit Bruiser. So Task Unit Bruiser was a few months ahead of us. So they are already experts on the ground, and we were going to embed with them. And asymmetric warfare group was bringing special intel for us. So we were able to piece stuff together, but it it was a different welcome party. And then our mission, uh, you know, we call it TOA, transfer of authority. We basically got told at the transfer of authority between Bloody Bucket Brigade and our Ready First Brigade, we were attacking the city. And I don't think people realize, again, Ramadi's the worst in the world. Our direct verbal order was we're gonna change this. And then we had the east side, uh, Camp Corrigador, and then we had Camp Ramadi on the west side, and then we had Blue Diamond just west but up north, and we're gonna go like this. Just pressing. And no matter how long

The Mission: Kill Teams & Snipers

SPEAKER_02 17:30

it took and what it took, we were gonna change that outcome. We know after that we did, and I'll I'll tell you at the end uh how we measure success. But that was our mission going into Ramadi, and we were I think what did I say? It was an average or the Intel say it was average of 50 attacks a day. Yeah, that makes sense on US soldiers there, you know, just in just in that area, just in that and again, this is a dense city that was the hub of terrorism for all of Iraq, uh, in most ways, and we had to change that.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

That is that is crazy, just crazy. And at this time, is Sar uh quicker driver, or is he no, no?

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Thankfully, I had fired him because most people will talk about Marquise. Sar Quick was the worst driver. He didn't get fired because he's a bad driver. He got fired, he got moved because he made sergeant, and that's the type of person he is. Before we had deployed, we made a decision he needs to go to the promotion board and he made sergeant, so he needed to go lead soldiers. We need to go lead soldiers to be in your driver instead, yeah, instead of mucking around with the first arm.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

But you're I mean, you're in Ramadi, there you're sending out kill teams during this small unit tactics in an urban area, correct?

SPEAKER_02 18:54

And you start seeing the difference between unconventional forces or a group and SEALs and Marines. So our mission before we got to Ramadi, and we're back in Germany, was that we're gonna send everybody as many people as we can to sniper school, do all these specialties, and we're become a small kill team unit. Uh 57 people, but we had two platoons of 18 to 20 because we'd put medics and other attachments. And each platoon would sort of be a small kill team or two small kill teams, two teams of nine basically. So again, asymmetric warfare group

This Wasn’t Normal Warfare

SPEAKER_02 19:30

came in to help train us, and then we'd done stuff with unconventional forces. So our job was to go in as as snipers and other stuff were, or IED emplacers were becoming rampant and attacking us. Our job was to find them and kill them, whether it was through ambushes, whether it's to direct sniper or direct direct action operations. So that was our specialty. So the tanks, the infantry, the engineer units, they could go house house and we could help protect them uh and take out the the deep threats. And then our brigade commander, I think, said it best. Uh, he was like, Hey, I left the BRT, sort of my reserve forces, but I ended up flexing them to every deadly

ZeroEyes Saves Time, Saves Lives

SPEAKER_02 20:13

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SPEAKER_00 20:13

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SPEAKER_01 20:21

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SPEAKER_00 20:30

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SPEAKER_01 20:49

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SPEAKER_02 21:01

He didn't realize how much stuff we were doing. And we were always in the in the combat.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah, we were in like legit combat.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Again, I I don't want to compare myself to any other unit because there's units who are living in combat outposts and in it every day. We got to go back to Camp Ramadi every once in a while. We could relax a little bit, but we had some pretty high-intense missions all the time.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

And then go forward to August 2006. And you're still out doing these missions? Correct.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

So June is it was the transfer authority. I don't have the exact date, so don't somebody fact check me on that. But June ish. And then July, we're running missions, so we're doing everything from observation posts to snap checkpoints. I mean, we're we're we're finding all these weapons, uh, cachets, and people trying to smuggle stuff in. We're doing missions with SEAL team, uh small kill team operations and killing snipers and IED emplacements. We were doing high value target raids. Man, you guys were doing like special ops missions. I mean, I don't mean that director. Like you were. I hate saying that because I'm like, I'm like, I'm gonna walk in a bar one day, and everybody's like, hey, it's a good one. But that's what you were doing. Regular army guys, but but we absolutely were.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

That is usually you see reserved for SEALs, Rangers, Marsark, Greenberries, whoever, like is not traditionally done by the conventional infantrier army.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

100% correct. And then next thing, and the good thing is like SEAL team three, Task Unit Bruiser, Jocko Willig, Leaf, uh Leif Badman, and his guys, you know, they brought us right in and they talked like you and I are talking right now, like, hey, what can we do for each other? How can we support each other? And next thing you know, my my guys are coming back high five. I remember uh Jesus Gonzalez, Gonzo is the man. Uh he's one of the best combat leaders I have ever seen uh when it comes as a staff sergeant at the time. And I remember him coming back from a mission, he's like, Man, you should have seen those seals, they're high five me. I put a 203 round right through the window, killed that guy. Uh so if he could just he goes Jesse now, but if Jesse's family has never heard that story, just cut that part out. But I mean, they're high five, and and I mean, that was the missions we were doing, and it was hard. And we had only two platoons of 18 to 20 people running simultaneous missions. One person's one half of platoons on a snap checkpoint, the other half's on observation point, helping the snap checkpoint. The other two were doing small kill team missions, and that changes

Casualties Start Mounting

SPEAKER_02 23:39

daily. Daily, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Uh I really think people need to understand like how brutal of combat this was and what you all were going through leading up to this day.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

We had started taking casualties really mid-July in the form of IEDs at first. And again, I started with 57 soldiers, and within from end of July, say July 20th to August 19th, that 30-day window, we almost took 57 50 casualties in our in our in our 57-man unit. And our soldiers were seeing the true nature of death in combat. And you could see 18-year-old, 19-year-old kids looking now 30 years old.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

They're aged in two months.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Yeah, and we people say it sounds like I don't know what it sounds crazy, but I watched it firsthand. So leading up, we have done memorial services now. Soldiers are beginning to hug each other when they come back from missions that they made it. People are now overeating in the chow hall if they're allowed, because they think it's their last meals. And I don't think you ever as a leader can prepare. And what I've realized now is that's when I started my downward spiral. I became colder, but inside I was starting to break seeing this and trying to losing your men or almost daily. And I was trying to, I was being harder on them, which was not effective in certain ways, but I was trying to keep them alive uh by being harder and colder. And now I realize I could have taken so many different approaches. And I think this is why you say, Why are you so special? I'm trying to make up for that now. But so August 19th, Ramadi Iraq, uh, we were getting ready to put another combat outpost. We were supporting a tank battalion, but directly for an infantry company who was attached to the tank battalion. And they were gonna install a new combat outpost. We had uh there's several snipers in the area, IED emplacements, and we were there to help uh protect them. Uh

August 19, 2006

SPEAKER_02 25:57

so 2nd Platoon was going out on a small kill team mission, and then 1st platoon was gonna replace them or help them. But on August 19th, Sergeant First Class Olianek was leading that half of the platoon that had uh Marquise Quick, Sergeant Barr, and some other ones we'll talk about. And they had to do a small kill team mission south of Combat Outpost Grant in the heart of Ramadi, the bad sector, like P P8 sector, P10 sector, I think was in the movie Warfare is just a few blocks over.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

And like how for people that have never been to Ramadi or some of these places, like that's like going in downtown Chicago. Or so I mean, you're setting up in a city if there was war going on, comment.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

And again, remember, these are houses butted up against each other, flat roofs with walls around them, no space anywhere. Million a couple million people, I think, are in Ramadi, and it's only a couple, maybe 20 kilometers long or something. Yeah, it's not big at all, it's just dense, crammed, yes, and streets, dirt streets, and sometimes paved streets, and going in there, and we can't really initially identify who's enemy and who's friendly. You know, that uh they're not coming out and say, hey, fight me. Our mission was to go in, and we knew there was avenues of approach where IEDs are typically in place, and we had put all our math together and wizardry to figure out where we think the best places are. Sergeant Olynex uh went into a house, uh, I think it was like one o'clock in the morning. Wake up the family while they're sleeping, like tap tap. Hey, Americans here. Uh Transar is like, you know, shut your mouth. Hey, we're here to help. We need to borrow your house and the rooftops. Uh which was a normal SOP thing. Correct. So normally you go in, you break into a house. Uh so if anybody needs breaking and entering, call Dan. We know how. Uh, waking people up while they're sleeping, and then you move the family to the most protected place in the house. Uh and I think that's important to talk about. It's not like we're kidnapping people. You move the family to protect them, and then through the interpreter and stuff, you're having conversations, and then you start setting up the house. So we zip tie doors uh so people can't just come into the house. Yeah, or we would know the SEALs would use claymores uh on certain avenues of approach. Marines would just manpower the crap out of them, put a marine 50 people in a house. Uh we put a marine. Yeah, we have nine. Sergeant Olyanek, interpreter, the medic, and Sergeant Olionek's driver uh have the family in the lower uh first floor secure. Up on the rooftop, you have Sergeant David Wall, who's acting as our sniper for that mission in a sniper position. Uh, we have Sergeant Reagan Barr, who used to be my driver and one of Quick's close friends, uh, is guarding the rear security of the rooftop. You had Sergeant Hector Rodriguez de Jesus, uh, who is a replacement soldier. I had gotten two weeks earlier, didn't even really know Hector yet on the avenue of approach or rest cycle again ready. And then you had Sergeant Marquise Quick was setting up looking at the main avenue of approach with the machine gun. So there's four people on the rooftop on August 19th, and their mission was to identify IED and placement teams or snipers or anybody attacking the combat outpost being built and then kill them or report it uh so we can look. The other half of second platoon was set up in a different house, and we

The Ambush Begins

SPEAKER_02 29:30

we had correlating fires or crossfire uh sectors of fire. Uh boy, you can tell I'm retired now. However, uh around 100 hours, the enemy had tacked from the backside between again the space between houses are this.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

It's uh yeah, it's hard to imagine how close these like walkways and some.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

I'm not fitting between these houses anymore. But we're not talking alleys or streets that come between houses that you had to turn sideways to go through into a spot, and then they set up a coordinated attack uh to attack our soldiers. You can't just go in a house and expect not to be found out uh or compromise, as we called it. So we would typically call soft compromise if like, why isn't the kids coming outside? Yes, or the vice versa. You know, you knew an attack was coming as American when you seen the kids go inside. Go inside, yeah. You're like, all right, this is gonna be a fun road.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Normal indicators change. Actually, it's like here at home, if you go outside and all the animals go away, you're like, wait, something's going on. Maybe a storm's coming something, but like something's happening.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Yeah, and then and then the hairs on your neck stick up, and you're like, all right, let's go, let's do this. You take over a family, and if their family's not doing their daily business, people notice. Uh, we call that like soft compromise, and we would make a decision: do we stay? Do we extract? Uh, a lot of times we would try and make it to the next night and then exfil from there.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Because it's safer, gonna be safer at night than to do it midday.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Yeah, we own the night. Uh, we still had the night vision uh where the enemy didn't quite have it. Uh, we own the night. We could do more at night, and then hard compromises when you know attacks at a minute or you get a report from the sky saying, hey man, we see some stuff coming your direction. And then you have to make the decision. Do you pull a team to support? Do you extract them right there? Do you, you know, more firepower in? We weren't quite there yet because we couldn't see that backside fully uh of of how the you know a couple enemy

GRENADE!

SPEAKER_02 31:33

was moving, and they just got in a position uh that was not covered fully uh and launched uh attack with grenades followed by machine. Like drone grenades. Correct. So I think it's the official report is like 1015 hours on 19 August, uh, enemy hurled four grenades over the backside of the house, uh, landing between uh Sergeant Marquise Quick, Hector, and Sergeant Barr, and one grenade coming a little bit more to the right towards Sergeant Wall's position because Sergeant Barr, uh Reagan had the backside of the house, uh again, one man trying to cover our backside, and they're just looking through loopholes. Yeah, they're not uh they're not up there on a guard tower.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Looking there, it's almost like look through a straw or someone just to get in.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Yeah, and you're trying to pick what is the most dangerous place that they attack you from, and that's where you're trying to cover. And then how can you cover dead space? Sergeant Marquise quick. Uh, after

SGT Quick Made the Choice

SPEAKER_02 32:35

hearing Sergeant Barr yell, grenade, grenade, grenade, uh, Sergeant Barr sees Marquise almost turn completely around and jump towards the grenades and on the grenades. Now, three of the grenades. Marquise had a stairwell.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Because there's a stairwell for him that could have saved himself.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Yeah, Marquis has a stairwell three to five feet to his front right, but yet he turned around that direction to jump on grenades. Sergeant Barr grabbed Hector Rodriguez because he had just laid down, and Hector was awake. Uh we we now know, and they rolled over, and then Sergeant Wall, sniper position over on the south side of the building, uh, flipped his table, flipped his table, and then hit the ground for that single ground. But if you look at the official report, if you look, you know, a typical grenade kill zones five meters. That's what they've always told us. Five meters casualty radius is 25 meters. Yep. We've always been told that. And they tell you as soon as grenades hit, get as flat as you can.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Uh and they're on a small rooftop that isn't much bigger than where we're sitting right now.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

I mean it's no, you are exactly right. Yeah, in fact, I would say from that front end, if if you're a marquise, Sergeant Barr is probably right over here, and I'm probably Hector, and that's the distance. The kill zone when we put the red circle around covered the entire rooftop by those four grenades.

The Aftermath

SPEAKER_02 34:03

And all four of them should have died. But Marquise jumped on the grenades and shielded the blast and his comrades by using his body selflessly uh so they could live.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

He took the brun the blast, they were wounded all, right? Correct. But everyone's gonna get messed up in that situation, but correct. I mean, that's heroism.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Like, you know, and you try and explain it sometimes to civilians who might be watching and you see movies like, oh, grenade, and people jump on it. That's not what you're actually trained. You're trained to hit the ground away from it, face away your vital organs away from it. Put your feet to it, let's go. Yes. You and I could never have been in the same unit. If we get on a mission together, we are prepared to protect our battle budget to our right and left. It's uh it's just known.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Yeah, there's no, I got goose. I mean, there's nothing like it. How quickly that can happen too in a matter of, like I said, could be from different units. We're together for 10 minutes. We're brothers or brothers and sisters. We're we're gonna help each other.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

And Marquise could have gone down those stairs. He would have been the only one not wounded in those seconds. And again, remember grenades, you have like two to four seconds, depending on when they release the spoon and how they hit or what type of grenade it is. He could have been in those stairs safe and he turned around and went that way to protect his brothers. Uh, and he saved their lives by sacrificing his own. It's absolute heroism.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Yeah, and no doubt about it, like he saved their lives by his actions.

SPEAKER_02 35:33

Correct. And then you, you know, I hate say after, but there's so much heroism in that mission because it gets the mission gets harder because Sergeant Walls now putting on his own tourniquet and then picking up security. Sergeant Barr is treating wounds and picking up security and returning fire to stop the attack.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Yeah, by the way, it wasn't just that. There's correct. There's more of them coming.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

You got the guys inside, platoons aren't like platoon sergeant's calling

Fighting Their Way Out

SPEAKER_02 36:00

contact reports, medic and the driver are running up to start treating wounded. They now realize uh Sergeant Quick has died. We're getting all the reports, and then we have an extraction going on, and then when the the Bradleys come, they can put they put Sergeant Quick into it, and they put the driver for Sergeant Olianek, he gets in it because he was carrying all the wounded down and got exhausted, but they had no more room for any of our other soldiers. They now had to do a dismounted extraction under the protection of Bradleys back to the combat outpost, which is almost a kilometer away.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

It's almost their version of the Mogadishu mile, not the correct.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

And when they get back to the combat outposts, now they have to come back to Camp Ramadi to get treated. You know, they had the field medics there, and as they're coming back to Camp Ramadi, they get attacked with RPGs and three IEDs. On the way back, their six home Vs get attacked with RPGs and IEDs, and miraculously, no one is additionally hurt. It was pressure plated IEDs. Uh, and again, this is on the main road that goes to the combat outpost. This tells you how good the enemy is. They had this whole thing ready, uh, and RPGs flying over. IEDs, I mean, the soldiers are telling me the heat that they felt. So I, you know, I obviously we're gonna talk about Marquise quick, but there's so much heroism just in that 30 minutes of action, it's unreal.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Check us out LibertySpeaks.com, bringing you this episode.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Jared Rogers, our combo sergeant, had come in, and Jared Rogers ended up taking his life years if a couple years ago. I mean, we're gonna talk about PTSD and suicide, and Jared Rogers had come bar barging in this brigade meeting that the sergeant major wanted me in. And I remember seeing his face as soon as the door opened. Uh he's like, first armor, and I just jumped up and we

Identifying the Fallen

SPEAKER_02 37:57

jumped in and we went straight to Charlie Med, the battalion or brigade, you know, combat hospital. As they were coming in, Sergeant Quick came first with the Bradleys. Uh I helped unload them, we get him into the eight station where they pronounced them dead. They then go the mortuary fairs or the morgue is right next to the the state medical center. And then they bring them over there, uh, and that's where I identified the bodies. And that's a normal process and more like official identification. Right. We're gonna talk about what type of man he was, but I I kissed him on his forehead. Uh I said words that'll stay between us. I saw the injuries, uh, but then I had casualties coming in soon. So I left. Now I got dudes who are alive, but on the verge of possibly dying. Correct. And then as they were coming in getting treated, because we had been there so many times, I we knew all the medics, we knew the doctors. I was I would be right there with them. Barring surgery, I was in everywhere the doctors were, the medics were with my soldiers. And like Reagan Barr came in and we saw his he's limping, and we're like, hey, take off the boot, you're here. And then he had grenade fragments in his boot and his and his butt. Uh so he, yeah, he got the butt wound. Uh and then you hear Hector Rodriguez, he gets air evacued right away because he's they're saying he's paralyzed. Uh, and we'll get to that story. Uh, so they're coming in all wounded. Plus, you have the ones who just went through the RPGs and IEDs, and now we didn't understand what traumatic brain injury was.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

So, like, hey, they didn't have visible wounds, but they're correct. Got for lack of my words, their bell severely rung.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

But I remember Travis Meyer, like, hey, he has to get checked out because the one medic was like, hey, he doesn't look at one of our mechs like, hey, get him checked out. So he got checked out. So I'm now with the casualties. At the same time, I'm calling back to our troop, which is only

The Reality of War

SPEAKER_02 40:00

uh not too far away, and I'm telling them to start packing up start quick stuff. Uh, one of the things we found is the soldiers coming back seeing all their personal effects was not good mentally for them. So, what we try to do is get their personal effects collected so we can start the inventory. So, our headquarters platoon was very good, unfortunately, at doing that stuff. And then just to go back to tell you like mental state of people uh Chris Buckley was using his body a few weeks earlier to shield Mike Hayes while they were treating him after an IED that killed our two soldiers, uh, starting story and starting best. Chris Buckley comes back to his tent uh like uh after that mission or another mission, and he's the only soldier left from that tent. We're living in tents, and ten guys or casualties are died. Yeah, casualties are died, and uh Sergeant Bear sees him by himself, and the awe, the shock hits everybody. He's like, Grab your shit, you're moving into this tent. Like, we lost tenths of people. You know, the casualties coming in, we're collecting and starting quick stuff, and we're preparing for his angel flight. So the morgue is prepping the body, and then that night now, because we only flew at night because of how dangerous it was in the day. So you're unless it's a medical evacuation, all flights are at night. So now we're also getting prepared to honor Sergeant Quick as they take his body and begin the process.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Some version of a ceremony there for pay respects.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Everybody's lined up. The unit who lost a soldiers, so our brigade reconnaissance troop is lined up initially off the doors, and then the rest of the unit starts filling in. And then as the bodies come in, I mean it's complete silence, other than the helicopter rotors, and then everybody's saluting. Uh, I mean, it's just gut-wrenching uh to your soul uh to see that. And we have to I'm now starting to think about uh memorial service, and I know you're about to ask about who sergeant quick. I will tell you this I have never seen as a fest tent, a big fest tent. It was the most filled I've ever seen a fest tent for a memorial service uh for Sergeant Quick. Everybody touching each other. That's the type of person he was. This is a lot. But we had to prepare for all that and send first platoon out on a mission.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

I was gonna say, yeah, don't combat in stop.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Like the enemy does like, hey man, we respect you. We'll see this again tomorrow, eight o'clock. We're getting ready to send first platoon out. So that's everything happening in those couple hours.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

It kind of goes out. I do want to dive into something quick, but before I dive into that, I think anyone who hears that story of like this is no brainer, this guy should get the medal of honor. This is heroism at the highest order. But now you can see how it got lost in in the war, right? I mean, like you said, you start playing ceremony, you have other casualties, you have more missions going on, and you guys continue to stay there and go through it. Is that how the recognizing the heroism got lost?

SPEAKER_02 43:06

No, yes. Uh, and again, I will not make any excuses for our failures. We failed to recognize a hero, uh, and I own it. Uh, I absolutely own it. It's part of my statement, it's part of the metal honor packet. So anybody who dies, or if we kill anybody, you know, you do a 15-6 investigation. At that point, it became such a paper drill because of how many people we were killing and how many people our units were killed. We're able to default paperwork every day. It's paperwork, paperwork, science, cement, forget. And I'm not trying to be cold with that. Uh, it's what was reality. I focused on who's in front of me because there are systems in place for family members, there are systems in place for casualties. There's systems.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Um you got men in actual combat going out again tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

I needed to be with them, I needed to. Lead them and we needed to kill the enemy. That was our focus. And I need to make sure everything I could do to keep them alive. And that's part of me becoming harder and colder. And we're also going back on missions right away. I mean, I remember after Sergeant Quick died, Second Platoon was on mission that next morning. They just said goodbye to a great soldier. They are scared for their lives. I accepted death. And I'm going to talk about that. I accepted death. And I bet you 50% of our soldiers accepted they were going to die in Ramadi, Iraq. But at the same time, they are scared every time they go on a mission. And I seen it, and we are now in their platoons running missions with them, being first in the convoy instead of middle or last. And it was so hard. And we were at such a pivotal point with the enemy. I mean, we were in the heart of Ramadi and we were squeezing close. Uh, we were almost to the finish line, but it's when it gets the worst, and that's the fight we're in. It's not an excuse for not recognizing him, it's just what happened. So you guys stayed there for months, right? Correct. So we were there end of May or June until uh January or February of the next year.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

So yeah, about five, six more months, and then you come back. Does the unit stick together after that?

SPEAKER_02 45:25

No, I said it's even better. So, one, we were supposed to go home in December, November, and we got extended again. And again, you call your families, they're like, We already heard. Thankfully, the extension wasn't as long as the previous. I think this one was three months. I think we're there a total of 14 months that time, so two months extra. But we also got notified our union was deactivating, our entire brigade was going away. And again, we just had a 20-year, and again, I know I'm laughing, I'm trying not to cry, but our unit had a 20-year reunion in El Paso, Texas in January of this year. And I my one soldier is like, Do you remember when you made us go to uh PLDC primary leadership development course? Now it's called like the warrior leader course or something like that, or beginner or something. But we were deactivating, all soldiers had to go to their professional development school. I mean, you want to talk about kicking the nuts. I mean, they came back, we're like, hey man, hug your wife and now go to graph for 30 days. Yeah, because now it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Welcome back from war, see your family. No, see it for a month.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Yeah, and then when you graduate 30 days later, you are gone. If you had this many years and if you had two years in Germany already, you're going back to the States. If you're less than two years, you're going to Vielseck, Germany, most likely as a scout. PCS move, permanent change of station move. So you're just uprooting lives, and you had to reintegrate back with your lives. You didn't have time to reflect. We came back from 14 months of 24-7 with each other, guarding each other's backs, and then within 60 days of being back, everybody's gone.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Everyone this way. Yes. Unit doesn't exist. Some people here, some people there. Absolutely. All over the US Army. Let's talk about Sarn quick though. What I mean, you said how many people showed up for his memorial ceremony, and but like

Who Was SGT Marquees Quick

SPEAKER_01 47:17

what kind of guy was he? What kind of soldier was he?

SPEAKER_02 47:19

There's some people coming in your lives that you're just like, man, that's that's that's the guy. Like genuine guy. That's Marquise. So when I took over his first arm, he was my driver. And I will say, we laugh about it. We even his wife, uh Mrs. Quick, and I we still laugh about this. He had the biggest head I have ever seen in my life. And I waited till you're taking a drink. He had the biggest head. Uh, I don't know how they extra large covers. I don't know how they put a oh, it's bigger than that. Uh and he used to say it's because I'm smart, uh, and he was. Uh he but he that big head uh and he probably had the heart to match. As my driver, you are now the administrative assistant. I didn't have an admin specialist, it became a driver. And when I showed up, uh, that was Sergeant Quick or specialist quick at the time. And what I found is, and this is the reason he got moved, why he got promoted. Everybody, including all the non-commissioned officers, were coming to him for all the problems, every soldier problem for like advice, leadership, anything then, finance problems, uh, courses, whatever it was, they kept coming to him. And I saw it within the first month there. So in the first month, I went to the commander, it was like, hey, specialist quick's getting moved, he can't be my driver. And I remember the commander's like, man, he's awesome. I said, That's the reason. He's awesome. And the non-commissioned officers aren't learning how to take care of their own soldiers because certain specialist quick is doing it. And so I already put it in my head it was time for him to move. Plus, he was coming up on a year of being my driver, and you don't need people out of their skills. So we sat down with the leadership and we put him in second platoon and we're doing gunnery, and he shot top gun. And we looked right there, like, look, this guy needs to go to the promotion board. And he went to the promotion board and made sergeant like that. It also helped that Mrs. Quick was the finance rep for our brigade.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

So we had they had Sergeant Quick and then they had Mrs. Quick. We had no financial issues, our records were straight. It was great. Uh, but that's the that's the ultimate reason. He needed to go back and he needed to lead soldiers for his career, for his well-being. Correct. You know, Marquise was in the army and had gotten out, joined the National Guard when 9-11 happened, and immediately said, I want to go back active duty, but they kept him in the National Guard and then activated him for a mobile uh mobilization in Alabama. As soon as that was over, his platoon sergeant, who is now a senior enlisted advisor at the Pentagon and uh Command Sergeant Major John Raigns, him and I have had conversations. He was his Marquise's platoon sergeant at the time when he was activated, and said, Hey, I'll help you get active duty. And then he came to us uh because of 9-11.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

So he had a fight to get back on active duty. So that to get in the fight.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

That's like he went towards uh the sound of the guns, we would say all the time. So, in general, that's the type of person he was. Yeah, computer science background, he had his own business uh previously.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

Yeah, it wasn't like he didn't have anything going on. I mean, he he did this because he felt compelled to.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Absolutely, and then you could see uh he cared about soldiers, and one of my biggest regrets that therapy and I talk about routinely is before he had moved to the platoon, he was still my driver. We were driving, we were bringing morning chow out to the soldiers on gunnery, and then he asked me about combat and what it was like, and I told him about my first deployment, and then he asked about you know dying to the civilian may be an odd conversation, but to people who are getting ready to go into combat and been in combat, it's correct, it can be a normal. And I remember telling him, I was like, if you do your job, you'll be okay. And a year later, a month later, he did his job and saved his team. And he's okay, you know, he sacrificed his life. Uh that was obviously not the conversation we were trying to have months earlier, but it's amazing that either foresight or whatever, like stuff happens for a reason. Uh, there is a reason he was on that rooftop and protecting his men because he's been protecting his men his whole career.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

So you go after the war, you you write this book or start to write this book.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

On 29

When He Mentally Broke

SPEAKER_02 51:49

December 2006, I mentally broke in Ramadi Iraq. Twenty years ago, Ramadi Iraq outside the morgue. Outside the morgue when David Dietrich died, uh, who we called our Heisman. I mentally broke, and who the four or five people who were in that moment saw me. No one else saw it. And I broke and I was sobbing. Uh when he told me to identify David, I couldn't my body could not move. And I just remember saying, please,

Dr James Lynch SGB

SPEAKER_02 52:20

I can't.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

We want to give a very special thank you to Dr. James Lynch for sponsoring this episode.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

The work him and Jody, his wife do at their clinic, doing SGB, still like ganglion block. Yes, I said it. Providing relief to those who have suffered from anxiety and trauma and giving people hope to a better life. Uh check them out at their website, drjameslynch.com. Hit them up, let them know Herb and Corey sent you their way.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

And our brigade commander was there and he touched me on the shoulder and said, I got it. And I will can never repay what he did. Uh now I watched David take his last breath with me, but I mentally broke. Now the army kept saying, Great job. Yeah. The army on the outside is like, Dan's perfect. Now my wife and kids will tell you otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

Accomplished combat leader crushing it.

SPEAKER_02 53:12

Now remember, our unit deactivated when we got back. I went to University of Connecticut. Go Husky's in the final four right now. Not sure when this is gonna air. Hopefully, we have won the championship. I think we have won by then. But I went to University of Connecticut with no military installation nearby. Groton Naval Air Base was the closest, an hour and a half away. So I just came from that theater to teach college kids how to be army officers with no help.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Yeah, no support of you just came from war like intense combat, losing soldiers.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

So my family took the brunt of my anger and what I now know was PTSD, which was about to come out a year later. And the Army's like, hey, we're gonna promote you to sergeant major. Uh, you're doing great. And inside, I'm going, I'm going down. Now I needed to own it, and a year later, I ended up choking somebody, uh, another mass serent E8 out at Fort Lewis, Washington at Leader Development Assessment Camp or LDEC, I think they called it at the time, because he was just being a jerk to these cadets. And I was like, hey, what are you doing? And I called him brother. I call everybody. My wife gets mad, I call the waiter

Living With Untreated PTSD

SPEAKER_02 54:23

a brother after just meeting them. And he was being a jerk, and next thing I know, I was choking him. They pulled me off and they're like, You need to go to behavioral health. That decision saved my life. Behavioral health wanted to give me medicine right away without even seeing a doctor. I filled out a computer survey. Yeah, and they gave me the prescriptions. I was like, absolutely, and I started to lose it in behavioral health. And all of a sudden, uh, a psychiatrist came out and she's like, Hey, bring them back. After 10 minutes of talking to me, she picked up the phone and said, Cancel all my appointments today and tomorrow. And I spent 24 hours with this lady who saved my life. And we talked about it all. I learned about PTSD, and then she tried to put me in patient. And now remember, I'm from University of Connecticut out at Fort Louis Washington for summer camp. And I'm like, all right, look, Doc, we gotta make an agreement here. I just opened myself up to you. Uh, let's do outpatient. Uh, and she trusted me. I went and I started my behavioral health journey. It leads to the book because I used to tell stories. I used to host big conferences in Germany as a sergeant major. My general used to love General Hodge, Ben Hodges, be like, hey, sergeant major, tell that story. And I would get people laughing. Well, at the same time, I tell very truthful, sad stories, uh, so people understand. And I've never hidden about my journey behavioral health, PTSD. Uh, in fact, even as a command sergeant major before Germany, I used to tell my soldiers when I was going to behavioral health. And when I'd first go in there, there'd only be like two of my soldiers. Within three months, there's probably 30 of my soldiers.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

I can't tell you how that exemplifies leadership. How many leaders would be like, gonna hide it? I'm shamed, I'm whatever, wrongly. And you know, enforcing that stigma versus leadership of no, I'm going through this. Here's I'm going to get help and inspiring your men and women to do the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

But I made that decision back at Fort Lewis, Washington

Leadership and Mental Health

SPEAKER_02 56:23

that I would never hide this again to anybody and I would tell them the journey. And that led to command sergeant major. I remember getting my butt chewed first sergeant, like, you're too open about yourself. And I'm like, absolutely not. And then a uh sergeant command sergeant major above me was like, Hey, your behavioral health numbers are skyrocketing. And I was like, Great. And he looked at me like I like a stupid on my forehead. I wanted to say something else. He looked at me as stupid on my forehead, and I'm like, Sergeant Major, uh, my DUIs are almost non-existent, my domestic violence is almost non-existent, my discipline, everything, UCMJ, you name it, go down the list. It's all down. The only thing is up is behavioral health.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

People attending appointments with therapy.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

That is a win because they're seeking therapy. Yeah. And then even as drill sergeant, I had one of my female medics get denied drill sergeant because she had seen behavioral health after a year and a half deployment. And I had to call SMA Chandler and write why my soldier. I was like, You have to fix this. This soldier voluntarily seeking help. Who does not have marriage problems? Oh, by the way, how many of our senior lawyers got divorced too going you know above us and trying to tell us it's bad? And I'm like, You have to fix that. She needs to be a drill server. And they

How He Learned The Details of SGT Quick’s Heroic Actions

SPEAKER_02 57:34

did. A good friend of mine named George is like, you need to write this down. And as I started to write it down one weekend, I writ wrote the entire book. It's actually a book and a half. They cut it out with editing and other stuff, but a book and a half worth of stuff in one weekend. And my wife left me alone. And it's just stories, uh, some funny, some sad. And then I started asking the old unit to please because I wanted it had to be 100% truthful. So the three things I didn't want to do is I didn't want to tell any falsehoods or lies or extend the fish stories. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be that guy. I wanted to honor the soldiers we lost, and I didn't want in any way discredit the United States Army or the non-commissioned officer corps. So I had given them to review the stuff for accuracy, and then Sergeant uh first class Mike Olinick, uh, retired as a first sergeant, wrote me back and said, Dan, I have the original sworn statements from Ramadi for Sergeant Quick and found them on an old hard drive, sent them to me. And when I read the sworn statements, I was floored that I did not recognize this heroism right away. Now, again, we can go back and review the table of everything we were going through.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

But to be clear, he he did not get recognized for heroism at that time. Standard bronze star because he he died in combat, standard purple heart because he died in combat. That's it. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 59:00

Absolute disgrace of us. Uh we didn't recognize it. And when I read the sworn statements, I just again started bawling and in anger. And my wife saw the trigger and came in and helped me through this. And when I told her why, she's like, she's like, we gotta fix it. And that's and I've absolutely and as soon as so that started. So the book is chronological, and that was from the publishing. And I'm glad they did it that way because it was just supposed to be a bunch of stories. Yeah, you no chapter leads to the next, but they put it in chronological order, so it actually helps because you can see me go from a private is naive, stupid, having fun, such as the title of the book, and then you can see like a combat hardened platoon sergeant, and then I know now exactly where I broke mentally as a first sergeant. Yeah, correct. Yeah, I knew where I broke, and then the army's like sergeant major, but after the point of first sergeant, there's not too many stories about sergeant major, other than talking about suicide stuff, and that was a I wanted people to know, and then at the same time uh began the journey of fixing the wrongs, whether it's a soldier's uh discharge, real quick. Uh, my first deployment, another platoon soldier. I was there when he got blown up and was looking at his skull and then took him to the cache to get treated, and he refused to evacuate and stayed with his platoon skull you're looking at to stitch him up, go back to work. We didn't know about TBIs. We get back after that 15-month deployment, and then he PCS PCS's Fort Lewis, Washington, and starts self-medicating. We've all been around uh assholes, and I'm sure I've been called it plenty of times, and they court-martialed him for self-medicating because he refused to take the pills because it made his head foggy, but marijuana helped him still be a soldier. I'm not saying Huey was a great soldier, he served his country in combat, and I saw the wounds. I knew I promise you it's traumatic remaining injury that he still suffers with. Well, they court-martialed him and gave him other than honorable discharge for marijuana, which then is gonna hurt his benefits when he can get yeah. Because of the book, I found that out because I was I said, Hey Hugh, I I found reached out to him, so I want to put you in contact. He's like, and then I found out he had no benefits. Well, we're almost fixed that. It's trying to recognize Sergeant Quick now for the Medal of Honor, and then I have some others, you know, whether it's trying to get Reagan Barr, a Silver Star, or a Bronze Star of Valor. There's stuff we have to fix. Fix. And that's really the mission now. And it became because of the book. And the book is my therapy, writing those stories, and I encourage everybody, tell your story.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:44

So cathartic, therapeutic, whatever word you want to use. Yeah, it's the best thing I've found.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

I mean, in addition to therapy and other stuff is out there, but the only word I'll never use is surreal because I have no idea what it means, and everybody uses it. I'm like, I'm sure there's a better word. You gotta come a better word than surreal. Yeah, it is, but it is definitely therapy for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

But through that, you get so now you get the witness statements from start. It's only an eck. Yeah, you get the witness statements and you start to see, like, oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:14

And now I'm researching what happens to happen with the metal of honor.

The Fight for Recognition With The Medal of Honor

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

So I contacted Army Human Resources Command and they sent me the Medal of Honor SOP. And then you go through, well, here's the good news and the bad news. The good news is because we had effed up so bad, the process is actually easier for us. The bad news instead of getting an upgrade. Because you're not trying to justify an upgrade, you're trying to justify that why you failed. That's easy. I failed, and this is why. You have to get the statements, they have to be notarized, and because it's been more than a year, you have to get congressional support. So basically, congressional representative has to ask the secretary of the army to reopen the case and look at this award. You also have to get the original chain of command, so that's good and bad. The original chain of command has assigned the so originally I thought first armor division, and I would just submit to them and they would do everything. And they were working with me. It's because one of my old soldiers just happened to be the division command served major at the time. And the G1 soldier happened to be one of our soldiers. Uh, so it was working out, and then they're like, Yeah, no, original original. I had to get the CENTCOM general, I had to get the Multinational Forces Iraq general, commanding general, my brigade commander, who is now a three-star retired general. And like, we had to get all these original signatures. We put everything together. I get congressional from Alabama uh and Birmingham, where he's from. So, Representative Gary Palmer, thank you so much, sir. And there's two more congressional representatives who joined on.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

So they're supporting.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:45

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Anyone who looks at this, even remember, I just gave you two four-star generals and a three-star general on the original war forum. Said this is absolutely the four-star general gives it to the sergeant major of the army retired. I'll hold the name for now. And he says, absolutely, and gives it to the MFI command sergeant major at the time, who's retired, who should have been the SMA if the SMA didn't decide to stay in a seat seven years. Love you. And they both say absolutely deserving. You have to tighten up your report a little bit, which we did. And then you give this to Human Resource Command. Now remember, on the rooftop, there's four people. Uh Sergeant Reagan Barr. Sergeant Quick's dead. Yeah, Sergeant Quick's dead. So you're down to three. Sergeant Reagan Barr. I have his original sworn statement and in uh confirmation sworn statement. Sergeant David Wall, we had trouble finding and we found him. Man, that was such a nice phone call, too. When I finally got because I had texted, I was like, David, if this is this is First Arnold Big Dan, and and then I called later that night and he picked up the phone and he goes, Hello, First Art. And as soon as you hear that, you know, your heart just warms. Like, I found one, I found you. And two, it's so good to hear your voice, man. And then we get his sworn statement. So I have two of three. Hector, who was only in my unit for two weeks, wounded and evacuated out of country. No idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

Goes back to his old unit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:07

And then we're like, hey, where was he from? And for some reason, Chicago sticking in my head. Other people like Puerto Rico, some people are in New York. And then you know, you know how many Hector Rodriguez is in America? There's gotta be a lot. Yeah, and then I'm trying to pull some favors from friends, and then we found a dog tag that I had given our commander, I gave him everybody's dog tag since our unit was deactivating. He pulls the dog tag uh with information, so we start running that down. Human resources command. I love you guys. My buddy just retired as the command server major human resources. Atkinson, you're the man. But the Medal of Honor team is phenomenal. But then they told congressional reps, Yeah, I'm working with Dan, and then turned around to me and said, We're not gonna do anything until you find this third sworn statement. Because their version of working Reagan Barr. It doesn't say Sergeant Quig jumped on the grenades. He says he jumped towards the grenades. Sergeant Barr was taking cover and trying to protect Hector. Sergeant Wall took cover and then sees Marquise on the other side of the grenades as he's dying. So I can put you from here. I can put you turning, jumping towards the grenades, people living that shouldn't have. And then I can put you on the other side of the grenades after the expl explosion. And they're like, you have to find it. Now it sucks because I was like, all right, gatekeeper, you and I are gonna have a talk. But

Finding The Last Witness

SPEAKER_02 1:06:36

he's like, this is not a medal of honor unless you find this other sworn statement. And thankfully, right before he contacted me as we were getting together, we found Hector three weeks ago uh up in New York, and we're making plans to get this last sworn statement.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

I think by the time this airs, you'll have just talked with Hector.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:55

We'll have it. And it's important because I don't want Hector to know any of the true details so we can get his honest sworn statement. Now Hector's already told me on text, he's like, Yeah, I absolutely saw it. I said, Do you remember what happened? He's like, You mean when quick jumped on the grenades? He's like, Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:11

Which is so absurd to me. Like, this should be Susie already have two witnesses, jumped on four grenades. Like, this is what the metal of like to me, it doesn't get more clear, but it wouldn't be the army without bureaucracy and paperwork.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:25

And again, it's a blessing because now we have reunited with one of our old soldiers who was supposed to be we thought was paralyzed and miraculously was walking days later at Walter Reed when he's getting treatment. So we have now reunited him with our old soldiers. So we have that support group going, and we'll get all sworn statements that we need.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

Then everyone's back together. Now the fight will become the minute somebody tells me this is not worth it. So then, so you get to sworn statement. Well what what's next? Secretary of the Army has to approve it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:55

The Army will say, Yes, this warrants uh uh awards board, and then as it goes through the army awards board, it'll continue up through the system. It'll go to joint chiefs of staff, and then you'll get all and then you know you'll have secretary of the army signature, joint chiefs of staff, ultimately it'll go to the president uh for approval and then congressional. So you're talking probably six months a year, yeah. So the the SOP and human resource command said it could be six to ten months average. Now, my goal was to get it awarded or approved by August 19th. It's the 20-year anniversary. So, and that's still my goal. And as soon as I get the sworn statement, I submit it, I'm gonna be pushing. Yeah, it can happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

Like, there are ways to like it's clear. We just saw one awarded for actions about 40 days after it happened. Correct. Yeah, absolutely. Like record speed since probably Vietnam or World War II time frame, like it can be done if the system wants it to be done.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:52

Yeah, there's no need to sit on this. Like it's it's gonna be, it's clear.

How People Can Help Get SGT Quick Get The Medal of Honor

SPEAKER_02 1:08:57

How can people help? Yeah, so right now, so what we're we're having, and again, I have a website and it has a tab for metal of the colour. I'll put it up on there so people can see it. And what we're asking people to do is they can congrat contact our congressional leadership, but I'm also asking them to talk to them, talk to talk to your podcasters. It doesn't need to be me. There's people out there that know this story or on that rooftop.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:21

I'll tell you, there's power social media too. Um, absolutely start getting out there and just making posts about it. People please post about it. Yes, you go to the website, we have it there, your sample letters to send your uh congressional representatives, but like do post about it, get the noise, because then they have to pay attention.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:39

Yeah, and thankfully, people like yourself, you know, uh ability to have me on, and you know, our brotherhood, you know, you have Task Union Bruiser, Jocko had me on a podcast, and the minute he posts some, you know, it's viral and everybody's resharing. So you're exactly right. Social media is probably the number one way we're gonna get this done, backed up by public affairs or news channels and your traditional methods. But social media, without a doubt, is gonna be the number one primary source to help support.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:08

I think I know the answer to

Why This is Important to Dan

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

this, but why is this so important to you?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:12

One he's earned it, and I failed to recognize it at that time. Two, go back to what we're talking about, who Sarquick was, but he embodies the American soldier, he embodies our American flag and our values, like he is the person you want to represent our country, everything going on with Iran and everything else and around the world, like he embodies what we want in that fighting warrior spirit, and he gave his all for others to live. And it's time to recognize it. Uh, so it's not really about me, more it's fully about Marquise and what he did. And I'm just a tool because I was there and I was in charge, and I have to fix it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:05

Uh uh Amen. And not to be lost in history, like generations down the road, should know about Sarn Quick and what he did.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:15

No, you should basic trainees, a drill sergeant like we were, should be telling the story of Sarn Quick and the values before they do an obstacle course or leadership challenge course or reaction course or whatever, movement under fire, or the hand grenade range. A hand grenade range is a basic training facility, should be named after Sergeant Marquise Quick.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:33

So they can tell that story and people understand, you know, our heroes before us.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

We need those heroes, and he did the heroic action. It just needs to be. Let's let's get him a medal for his family. It's the word I can't say, but posthumously. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:50

Yeah, put yeah. Yeah, I can't say don't worry, I get them all. Uh I can't pronounce anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

I'm hoping it's done this year. I mean, we got some months before you know the 20th anniversary, but I'm hoping it gets done for right.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:01

And let's just back it up. It's our 250th year of America. Should be celebrating heroes like him. Absolutely, absolutely should be highlighting those heroes with this anniversary of our country.

What Dan Values Most in Life

SPEAKER_02 1:12:13

Uh, what do you value most? I mean, obviously, the easy answer is your family and and your brothers and sisters, uh, as you come out, your mom and dad. Family is the easiest. But I think I told you I accepted death. And my I say this, my mom hates me saying that, but it absolutely is the truth. Uh, I wrote uh the letters to the kids and my wife, and I went back to back to after doing the moral service in Germany for Marquise, I went back to Ramadi Iraq knowing I would not leave Ramadi Iraq alive. And I was okay. Like I gave my life to the army fully into our country, and I knew I was gonna die. Somehow I didn't. I didn't appreciate life enough though after I accepted death and I survived. Uh so now like what I value most now is trying to tell stories, trying to tell stories about what I went through mentally uh with PTSD. I I was not suicidal, but I didn't care if I died either.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:18

Because I viewed it as extra innings. I was a baseball guy. I viewed it as I'm in extra innings and I haven't made the most of it. Uh two years ago I started a golf therapy program uh to teach disabled veterans through a polytrauma therapist at the VA recommended it. And now I'm trying to teach golf to disabled veterans, families, and caregivers as a form of therapy. So, like, what do I value right now? I value the brotherhood that we had and sisterhood. I value trying to make more out of my life than I before. And I accepted the mistakes I've made. And I'm trying not to repeat them. So, like, you get kinder, gentler, Dan now. In fact, in our 20-year anniversary group chat now, oh worst mistake getting in that group chat, they just start ragging on me. Uh Dan. Will Crane, I'm coming for you, man. Uh, go see his barbecue joint in Texas, too. But he's like, hey, no one's made fun of Dan yet. Big Dan. And I was like, hey, drop and do push-ups. Well, that doesn't go around. I was like, drop and do push-ups. I was like, give me 50. That doesn't work anymore. But I'm trying to value those relationships more or appreciate them more. I'm trying to appreciate life of what it's how thankful I am. I am so grateful that I had the chance to serve our country for 28 years. And but I need to appreciate my life too, and everything, the people around that life. So that's what I value the most right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:47

We're we're so grateful for you trusting us to come here, share, start a quick story, share your story, and uh try to write this wrong. Is there anything else you would like to talk about?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:58

Yeah, the only thing I'll say is like I tell keep telling everybody, tell your story. Uh no matter what you did, whether you're in Iran right now, whether you served in Operation Just Cause in Panama or whatever it was, or in Bosnia, wherever you were deployed or served, or just for your four-year term at whatever is.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:17

Yeah, and I don't care if you're a ranger, you're a pilot, you were in the more hospital work and like tell your story.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:24

Yeah, or write it down. Journaling is so important, and write it down, and then please seek help some way. Veterans Affairs has great programs out there. I say the best therapy anyone could ever get is another veteran. That's why I play like the Veteran Golfers Association has 50,000 strong members playing golf on weekends. But for me, you know, my wife gets a little upset towards the end of the year, like you're going golfing again. But she sees me after four or six six hours if it's a slow day, uh, with my veteran buddies. Doesn't matter the service. And we it's a form of therapy. Yeah, we just talk. So seek the therapy, seek help.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:04

And there's plenty of forms of that. Like you said, there I know people that do through the outdoors or the hunting, or whether it's athletics or in golf or different projects, are there's so much out there, it doesn't have to be your traditional therapy of sitting in a room with a therapist, though. That probably is useful and you probably need that.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:22

Correct. Yeah, correct. And your veteran affairs counselors can help you with this. Like that's how they help me. And then if something happened, like the story is telling the soldiers' dishonorable discharge, there are ways to get that corrected. We can fix your service records. Uh, reach out to me if you have to, and I'll put you on the right path. Yeah, and thank you to everyone who served our country or supported uh those service members and those family members. 250 years our country has been alive and it wouldn't have lasted without you. So thank you. I thank everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:54

Subscribe, like, and comment, and don't forget to set those notifications. We'll see you next week with another special guest.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:02

Until then, on your journey.