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Constant Combat
This veteran-led podcast highlights the experiences of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, starting with their harrowing 2004 deployment to Ramadi; a 9 month combat tour which resulted in the highest casualties in a single deployment - a deployment that most Americans have never heard about. Through candid conversations surrounding these events, the series also explores earlier experiences that shaped the Marines, emphasizing their grit, humor, and humanity while aiming to honor their stories authentically.
Constant Combat
When the Smoke Cleared - Felix Garcia (part 1 of 2)
We start out with Felix Garcia’s path from Ramadi to the drill field and reckon with the quiet cost of leadership, fear, and healing. Then, we start with the Lioness teams, ad hoc tactics, and the moment a book helped name what years of silence could not. This is a story about leadership in combat that refuses easy answers and finds dignity in honesty, mentorship, and accountability.
• combat to drill instructor transition with no debrief
• coping with PTSD and isolation with alcohol
• integrating Lioness teams and mission-first culture
• redefining human response to fear
• small-unit leadership under fire and accountability
• training adaption with British advisors and drills
• mentoring a Marine who chose to speak up
• faith as anchor and the weight of command
• graveyard ambush and QRF actions
If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story
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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088
If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ RamadiPodcast@gmail.com, or via the podcast website above.
All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM
Can you say your name and what platoon you're in?
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, so Felix Garcia, uh sergeant at the time, uh Rainmaker platoon, uh part of the 81 Mike Mike for Weapons Company, second time fourth rains. First one. Drinking like four beers before this podcast started. Um like you had mentioned earlier, it's it doesn't feel right to to to talk through it like this. Um but reading, you know, the uh the unremitting um I got that word right, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, unremitting. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Unremitting. So I picked it up and uh man, I swallowed it. I I didn't read it, I uh listened to the audiobook during drive. Yeah, yeah, me too. Um and you know, just just all the pieces, right? So like the you know, the naval piece, the you know, the army piece, the uh the the political piece, uh the bigger thinking kind of put all these things together for me, um, where I didn't feel embarrassed because I felt embarrassed for like a very long time. And uh I think part of it, so after listening to the book, uh, I really tried to internalize how how or why I felt the way that I felt. And I think it's because once once we got back from Iraq, well, during during our deployment to Romani, um and I'm and I don't remember how it came out, but um my next duty station was coming up, and I was concerned that I was gonna be tagged for a B billet. And you know, as you guys know, I'm I'm not a huge talker, you know, I'm a huge doer. Yeah, um, and I can think of processes okay, and I can you know speak to the processes, but like big crowds and conversations and hanging out was never really my thing. So I did not want to be recruited. And I felt that if I was a recruiter, you know, I'd get uh you know bad fitness report, and you know, then my career would be over. So I chose to to join the drill field. So um once we got back from Iraq, I went straight on leave and never came back to 2-4. So so there was no there was no uh debriefing for me, you know, yeah. And I went from a high stressful environment to another high stressful environment. Uh, where the drill instructor school at at that time uh was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. And I thought, you know, being a Ramadi was bad.
SPEAKER_05:What date did you report to drill instructor school? That is a crazy transition.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so um we got back in September, right? Yes, yep. Yep, and I was yeah, I was I was in Paris Holland in October. Oh, wow. Yes, it was 30 days of leave, and then I reported straight to be a drill instructor at Paris Holland. And um I killed it, you know, I did a great job there. Uh, but I find myself I found myself on more than one occasion, uh you know, leaving the recruits, going to the bar, taking myself to oblivion, passing out in a car, and this I've never said this out loud. Uh passing out in a car, you know, and I'd switching back into cameras and I would get back on a boys. And I, you know, thinking through that, I think it was, you know, PTSD, depression, you know. Um, you know, it's not like there's a huge amount of you know, friends, you know, you're uh on on the boys 16 hours a day, you know, three months at a time. You know, so this this book really opened it up for me a little bit on you know why I felt the way that I felt. So when you guys had asked, and I was like, yeah, I'm ready. Um I attended my first reunion uh this last year. Yeah. And I bought a shirt, I bought swag, I've never worn it until after after uh digging into this book, you know, and it's not something to be ashamed of, and it's it's worth talking about. Um, you know, especially when they talked about the suicide rates and how the lionesses couldn't get you know uh you know treatment or weren't recognized for you know being combat, so on and so forth. I just knew that I was alone.
SPEAKER_04:Um speaking of the lionesses, what do you what what is what's uh do you do you remember any of the lionesses that went out with you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't know them personally, but I do remember uh you know having having a group with us and I had read somewhere how uh uh you know one of the female Marines got you know got left behind and stuff like that, and that kind of hurt a little bit because that's not how we operate and we should operate. Um but that's it and that's the extent of it. I I didn't do a lot of you know face-to-face interactions.
SPEAKER_04:Sure, sure. I remember going over and in the first part of like trying to find a couple of the females that were interested in helping out, and you know, some of them came out and decided that wasn't for them, but we ended up with one that was really solid. She was a staff sergeant. Um and then I was telling Nyland earlier that I I found a book that came out in like 2009, 10 or something like that. That's um it was it's called Women on the Front Line. And she was an army officer that got out and then came back in and was doing kind of an analysis of like, you know, can women be on the front line? And one of the parts that I kind of took some pride in is that there's a chapter actually about us because we were her frontline experience. And I actually kind of vaguely remember remember her, but nevertheless, what she wrote in there was that the safest that she ever felt as far as like being like her body being safe inside of the military was when she was with 2nd Battalion 4th Marines. Because we were so focused on our mission that as long as you know, she I think her I should find the exact quotation, but it's something to the effect of it's like we didn't care as long as you're shooting in the right direction, like like we don't care who you are. And and so um no, the the the larger lioness uh part is something that I've always I'm glad that that's being talked about more, I guess, because I was really, really proud of what we were able to help out with and and they then more specifically were helping us with when we were dealing with the women.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, and that program started because I remember those issues with you know the whole cultural uh piece of you know men being the same with women, and you know, uh that's kind of how how that kind of you know transformed and morphed into, and then inadvertently ended up then being in combat when you know things got you know hairy.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, there's a couple times that's that's one of the reasons why a couple of them decided not to, is we got ambushed and not that they didn't do what they needed to do by any means, but definitely afterwards we're like, you know what, I'll stay, I'll stay in Junction City.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_05:My only big memory of them, because I had never had similar to you, Felix. I I never had a any significant interaction with them in the field. But when they came out with us, we would bring them over to Hurricane Point hours, sometimes 12 hours prior to the mission, because we didn't want to telegraph the mission or whatever. I don't know. I don't know what they were thinking, but there was no place for them to hang out, which made it weird, right? You don't want to bring them into our living area because that's was kind of inappropriate. They're from a different unit, they're also a different gender, and so there was a lot of like thought like, don't bring them in there. So, where they always stuck them was where we had those two nasty couches and that TV in the headquarters shed. Do you remember our weird little MWR eight-foot by eight-foot room? And they would be in there. And I remember walking in that staff sergeant that you mentioned. This is the reason why this memory even popped up. Uh, she was in there and she was pretty tall and pretty funny. Uh just her demeanor. She was always telling jokes, and she was like, Hey, we're about to put on full metal jacket. Do you want to watch it? And I was like, I'm a Marine. I don't, I don't think I'm allowed to say no to that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And so they started watching Full Metal Jacket. And I think I watched seven minutes before I had to go do something else. But they were all super awesome. It was great that they were, you know, so able to integrate into our goofy ass platoons because all of us all of us had our own personality quirks, and they integrated right on in and just jumped in in a seat and never heard anything bad, never saw anything bad. I just never had them in my truck.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, I hope so.
SPEAKER_05:So you were kind of mentioning that you felt embarrassed, and that's not a word that I hear out of very many Marines' mouths, but I'm curious if you're willing to expand on that. And then I also I have my own personal comment just on the same side of that. I've never felt embarrassed. What I have felt for 20 years is that I can't talk to anybody really about it. And it's not so much embarrassment, I just don't think anybody else would understand. And so I've kept it inside mostly.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes. And uh I I think the the uh the choice of words comes from you know, because there's a there's there's different uh aspects of combat, right? Like you have um you know the you know the the fighting spirit, right? You have when when it's a contact right, you're you're pushing towards fire. You know, when you know when you come to a crossing, everybody has their you know their their processes and you know they're checking and adjusting, and you know, ID goes off, you're you know, pushing through the kill zone and then dismounting them. You know, there's a lot of heroic, you know, automatic responses to things that happen, and that's that's that's something to be very pride, prideful about.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I mean that shows your training.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And uh but you also, you know, I was a section leader, first section leader, so I also saw um a lot of Marines in very you know stripped situations where they were you know in the in the thick of it and you know couldn't get their stuff together, and other Marines had to come in and you know slap them or push them or tuck them or yank them or pull them, and you know, hey, get your head back on. You know, we're we're and we're in it. You know, let's you know, so a lot of that, right? So, and that's where the embarrassing piece I think comes from that when somebody thinks of combat, oh you want to combat? Oh, you want to combat, let's talk about. You know, there's also that aspect of, yeah, but you know, it wasn't all all rah, rah, rah the time, you know, especially towards towards the end of the deployment where you know you go into combat with this gung-ho attitude where you know, I'm gonna kill, kill, kill, you know, let somebody you know pipe up, you know, I'm to the head type scenario. Yeah, and then as the as the deployment progressed, you saw a lot of self-preservation um out of people. Hey, we got one one month left, and you know, we've had a high, you know, kia and you know, we're in an action type. So, so so Marines weren't, you know, 100% of the times 100% in it. Um, and I saw a lot of that too. So, so from my sense of of the embarrassment was was that uh it's not a very postful situation, you know. And then there's I've I've I've heard of other platoons um in the company not doing what they're supposed to be doing. I I never saw that, you know, but um I remember having a conversation somebody called me over, and I think it was an officer or something that those kid in I I don't remember his name, but he's he he's from a different platoon and he wouldn't go out with this passion.
SPEAKER_05:I I do remember who you're talking about, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and uh young kid too. I I I think he's you know uh a very young Marine, maybe at a week cap or something. I didn't know him from Adam, um, and somebody had said, Hey, I need to go talk to him. He you do really good, you know, influencing people. Uh, so go talk to him. And uh so we chatted for a while, you know, and he's crying, um, really in his feels about not going back out uh because he wasn't really interested in doing uh but what uh he thought should be done. Um you know, so and it hasn't been to this last year, year and a half, two years where I found my faith. Um but I I I've always believed in a higher power. You know, I've always, you know, I'm you know, there's something bigger than me. Like there's life, you know, there's something bigger than all of us. And I brought that into the conversation and I was like, you know, I don't believe that you know that God put us here, you know, uh just to put us here. You know, there's there's there's there's a direction in life that you can choose to go off the path, whether it's left or right, and there's there's choices where you can stay on the path. And as long as as you feel like you need to be on the path, God is gonna direct you on that path, you know, as difficult as it wrapped me. And as I was talking talking about God, and I'm gonna goosebumps talking about it, this huge wind from out of nowhere comes and just blows this door open, like the back hooch door just blows it open. And I'm like, see, you know, that's that's that's and that's a sign, right? You know, you don't have to do anything that you don't want to do, right? You have a choice, right? So just make the right choice. But in the thick of it, you're gonna have your brother to the left or right that might need you at that particular time, right? So for no other reason, you at least at the minimum you need to go out there and stand toe-to-toe with your brothers in arms when stuff you know chase.
SPEAKER_05:Um I cannot remember that Marine's name. He was from Mobile Assault Platoon 3, and I can see his face in my head, and I cannot, I could not tell you his name, but beautiful, beautiful young guy. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04:And I actually go ahead. I'm sorry. What I was gonna say uh was uh Lex is uh that that was one of the that's actually one of my notes of that one of the things that I was gonna bring up was I actually remember uh you being asked to talk to that guy. And I also remember you talking to more than than than that individual Marine. And it's one of the things that I had I like when I think about you, it's one of the things that I think about is how good you were with the Marines, with the junior Marines, and giving and being that uh uh there is a there was a there was a sense you had you had a strong sense of of what needs to be done and you were open to hearing and and communicating. And that was uh Nylan and I have joked about this. Uh well he has said it a couple of times, but just that the 81s uh are cult the 81 culture is a little bit different inside of uh the larger weapons company due to uh for a variety of different reasons. We tend to yell a little bit more and tend to be a little bit more very structured. Yeah. And I always had a hard time because that's not I'm not a yeller. I was never a yeller. And and so I was constantly pushed to do that. And uh and when we were in, Nylan would often uh say something to me and be like, don't let them get to you. You know, this isn't that's not your leadership style. Don't don't do it.
SPEAKER_05:Well, dude.
SPEAKER_04:Um go ahead. Well, I was just my my end of it is that is that uh uh flex, you were you were you when you came on board though. So this is after I had picked up corporal, that when you came on board, I was finally being able to say, like, there, see? I can be like, I can be like I don't have to yell. I I can be I can be a a space for these marines. And I ended up being that for uh Sledgehammer, where I ended up getting pushed some of the Marines that maybe needed uh you know, did not respond as well to getting yelled at. And so I would I would could work with them more. But you were but but my biggest memory of you, especially over there, is you talking to that Marine and a couple others of just getting their heads screwed on straight. Right. And uh and allowing them to uh function as best as they could over there. Because I mean, if you would have refused to, you know, go further, I mean that would have escalated. And so you you know you you saved a lot of heartache by being the person you are. So yeah, that young man, uh again, I I think I remember who it is, but I'm I'm I'm refraining from saying their name just because it's you know I don't want to embarrass somebody if they listen.
SPEAKER_05:So yeah, I I I can't remember his name, but I was also asked to talk to him as well. And uh so I remembered that. But he he only remained with headquarters for maybe three, four weeks. And I think he went to talk to you again or something, he talked to someone else again, and then he went back to map three and and finished the rest of the deployment and never had any other issues. And he contacted me probably 10 years ago, years later, through social media, and he apologized to me, weirdly, and I wasn't even in a Splatoon about everything. And he said he was gonna go through and apologize to everybody. I was like, You have literally nothing to apologize for, you did nothing wrong. It was uh a surreal moment. I hope he is doing well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, same here. And that's what I was gonna say. If he ever listens or comes across this podcast, I have nothing but respect for this young man to to you know to grab hold and own it. No, that's a big deal, you know, especially in this type of environment. You know, when you're trying to self-preserve yourself, you know, to go against that, that's huge.
SPEAKER_05:Well, he could have done worse too. He could have gone outside the wire and in his head he wasn't gonna fight instead of saying it out loud and letting everybody know that, hey, I can't do this. He could have gone outside the wire and then just crumpled up in a ball out out there in the field somewhere, and then he would have been a liability. And so this was a better choice, realistically, and a very mature choice, though at the time I doubt he thought it was that way. And then he probably many people didn't treat him that way. That was a very smart choice.
SPEAKER_04:Something that Nylan and I noticed when we were reading the book, and that kind of like struck, at least I let me just speak for myself, that struck one of the biggest things that struck me reading unremitting was being reminded how young all of us were. And I was just having this kind I was I just visited a very close friend of mine just the weekend. We've been friends since kindergarten. So he was he's been with me this entire weird journey. And um this topic of the podcast and in the book and everything came up, and uh something that he brought up also in that that that made me go, oh wow, is you know, like I'll just use myself for example. I I barely graduated from high school. I'm from Northwest Illinois. The number of people of different cultures that I had talked to prior to joining the Marine Corps was you know, could count on one hand.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And we're being asked to do a job that for millennia hasn't been able to be figured out by the top people that have devoted their entire life to this. And uh I think going back to your comment about being, you know, embarrassed, which I, you know, I appreciate that maybe you're you're reprocessing that word. Um, you know, we were being asked to do something very unfair. Like the like the the the amount of responsibility that I think that we especially as Marines, we take on a lot of responsibility. And so uh but we do have to give ourselves a break. You know, when I, you know, now that I'm in my 40s, I think about, you know, 22, like I look at a 22-year-old and it's like, man, I like like we were trusting you to do these really like we didn't like when we got sent over there, we didn't have we we we gotta make up our, I mean, uh another one of my big memories is is running is running some of those uh uh drills that we were drunk. I mean, uh you would run, I I I love you for it, because uh we would run those drills in uh camp uh victory before we left to the LOD, just like we didn't know what we were doing, but at least you were you were pushing the training, giving, giving Marines the confidence that, yeah, we might not know what's next, but we're gonna train what we do know, so we'll be ready. And because I know people were starting to get a little worried that it was like we don't know, you know, what drills to expect.
SPEAKER_05:I know what we did, but what drills did you guys run?
SPEAKER_00:So I remember um towards the end of our training before going to um Iraq, there was a huge push against, or not against, but towards um occupying towns, and uh it's uh a tactic that we use used in Vietnam, um, where the the locals would befriend um not the locals, the the occupying force, I guess, would would befriend the locals and kind of help in that sense. So and it was weird because we didn't there was no talk of that until like a month before deploying. Right. And uh in my mind, I was like, well, you know, what's what are we really planning to get involved in? Um so I did some research, you know, I I read some books, you know, try to you know spin up on what the the holistic thought thought process was behind that. And then we got to Camp Victory and we got some training from the British Special Forces, I believe. Yes, around satellite training or satellite patrol. Yes. Um so that's what I worked on.
SPEAKER_05:So so interestingly, it was the Scottish Dragoons very specifically, and uh the and the British SAS, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, SAS, yep. And um, so I I put two and two together. I was like, okay, so you know, the and the command is kind of giving us some insight that hey, we might be left alone or very limited resources to execute whatever mission that we that we had. And then we had this new style of patrolling that was not linear. Um, so I I relied heavily on you know the very efficient and uh self-sustained work groups within within that piece, and that's why I kept I kept pushing that, expecting that at some point we were gonna be in a thick of it with no resources, uh, and we you know need to be prepared as you know, as play as many scenarios as we can um to be as successful as we can.
SPEAKER_05:Do you remember what you read? I'm and that actually just you saying that is I'm very curious because I I read a couple of books too. I was very much uh cerebral as far as that went, preparing for war and and hoping that I could disseminate knowledge. That was the goal.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:What did you read?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't remember.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I uh you uh it was uh um small oh shoot it uh because uh you gave it to me. Um and I got a copy of it. It was like small small unit warfare. Um it was a great it was a great book with a red line on the back.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it was a very short read, right? Yeah, yeah, it wasn't like you know, it wasn't a huge, you know, yeah, but anything.
SPEAKER_05:Just I mean, just the fact that as a sergeant uh and you said you were a section leader, to take that on yourself to do something that essentially is really an officer's job and disseminate that to Marines is unique and impressive on a in and of itself. And I mean I was just that was interesting to me that you ran drills yourself because that was the kind of crap I also tried to do for the same thing. Right, because I didn't think anybody was preparing us for anything, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was a it was a shot in the dark for sure. Um I think I read a question here, so uh uh off that podcast sheet that I want to talk about. There was there was this point where uh an ID went off or something, or somebody got shot, or it was our first you know interaction, and it wasn't weapons platoon, it was you know, you know, combat outposts, you know, like out there. And uh I really internalized it, I was like, man, it was IDs, it had to be IDs. But uh I remember journaling, so you know, because as a section leader, you can't really articulate how you feel, right? You know, you gotta be the strongest you can for everyone around you. So um I would journal sometimes, and then I would also call uh my girlfriends, plural, um, you know, to kind of you know walk through some of the emotions I was going through.
SPEAKER_05:We'll come back to that uh here in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00:And uh and when I I remember a a turning point in my thought process, and I think I gotta drill run house somewhere, but it was it was something along the lines that if an IED goes off, I either made it or didn't make it. Right? So I shouldn't be afraid when when something you know huge happens. If anything, I need to act. And I and I carried and I carried that and trained you know and the team to that thought process. And uh I was like ready to die, like at any point, even even on our last day of uh of Iraq. Um one time specifically we were you know it was towards the end of the deployment and we were doing patrols throughout the city, and we ended up at this intersection. Uh and you know, there's a lot of fear going on, right? Because you know, the the the April sind eggs and uh and the cash and mass casualties and stuff. So we're we're we're hopping across an intersection and one of my marines wouldn't post up and protect down the alleyway or whatever it was or the streetway. And uh I kept I kept grabbing him. I'm like, hey, hey, we gotta go. You gotta post up, you gotta post up right here. Because if you don't post up, you know, it's the same shit, right? Like, hey, your your area of operation during this crossing is this corner, that this is what you need to be. And he wouldn't do it. He was he was scared shitless uh for obvious reasons. And uh I was like, all right, fuck it. So I stood in the middle of the intersection with my hands in my pocket, and I'm like, you're either gonna post up and take your post, or we're just gonna wait for someone to shoot me. But you're gonna do your fucking job. It's it's gonna happen. And after you know, some some you know heated words and conversations, you know, he finally took his post. Uh but but that was you know based on that initial thought process of you know, that's either gonna happen or not gonna happen. Um yeah, and that was that was hard. Keeping keeping everybody in line mentally was probably the hardest thing I uh I did while while I'm in Iraq.
SPEAKER_05:The burden of command and burden of leadership is very real. I I think that is also something that is underrepresented. I think I I don't know, you know, you and I are pretty close to the same age, and so you grew up with the the pinnacle of Vietnam movies and all that crap in the 80s and 90s and and all that. And so there was some movies that got down to that there where there was leaders who were really stressing their decisions, not what everything wasn't Rambo. Some of the movies actually did really good at that. And I don't think there is a modern version of that right now uh for the global war on terror, because now we're 20 years out from some of the biggest battles of the global war on terror. And people don't talk about that enough about how much that weighs on you, as a small unit leader, especially, that you are you're looking your friend in the eye and you might have been paying playing cards a minute ago, and now you're, as you just said, standing in an intersection where very frequently people were just popping around corners and firing weapons, and you were like, Look, I'll show you. I'm not scared, you can stand on that corner, and how hard that is on you specifically to be like, Well, that's fine, I'm gonna gamble my life so that way everybody else will do what they're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00:100%.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's and it that and you again you're thinking about this moment 20 years later, and I imagine it weighs on you now just the same as it did then, where you're like, damn, that was a dumb choice, yeah, personally, but it did the right thing at the time and it kept everybody going, it kept everybody alive.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it was you know, it's about holding people accountable. Um you know, you have one person not doing their job, and you think that your six is covered and it's not covered, and there goes, you know, a young 18 year old, you know, 21 year old, you know, with newborn. Kids that they've never seen because some some jackass in the back and doesn't want to do the job. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's that's that's not it's it's unsatisfactory.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Some of the in the other, especially when we were talking with Jordan and Nylon and I talked about this extensively, and we've kind of already touched on it a little bit here too, but it is absolutely wild to think about in the historical perspective that when we went over there, how how new everything was. I mean, we went over, we didn't have the armor. When we went over there, we didn't have tactics. When we went over there, we didn't even understand. I mean, I mean, I don't know if you remember the weird little slide deck presentation that we got on what IEDs are, and then saying that we needed to have like a 200-foot offset if like if a soda can was filled with you know gunpowder and it's like get, you know, and and none of it, I mean, it it was it was nice to have some of the information, but they really didn't give us anything. And we were inventing, we were, you know, needing to invent it on the fly. And so not only were we at the disadvantage of trying to figure this all out, um, but we were also trying to navigate exactly what you're talking about of like, you know, we're we're trying to invent this. We're also trying to navigate the, you know, your own Marines when you're in when you are in, when you do have, you know, leader when you're in leadership. And then you're also trying to manage your own shit. You know, you're you know, keeping yourself, you know, to that higher, to that higher echelon of of uh of proactiveness, higher echelon of uh reasonability, you know. I remember um something happened, I don't remember exactly, but Gunny Cook said something to me after a mission and it changed it fortunately said it it was early on. And he said, make sure that you remember you have the dogs of war on a leash and don't let out more leash than you can handle. Because if if if if they get away from you, you can't pull the leash back. And um, I mean, it was a critique because I had I I don't know exactly what had happened, but it doesn't really matter. Uh, but he I think he sensed that I was a little too lax with my, you know, letting the guys get a little too angry with what had happened. I think it was right after I think it was that no, I actually I do know what had to happen. It was after Worth got hit. And uh we were getting rocks thrown at us by a crowd.
SPEAKER_05:And uh I so that was March 20th when Worth got hit by that bike IED.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. That that took out his eye, right?
SPEAKER_05:I'm sorry, it took out his eye.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Where's he at nowadays? Last I heard he was in Ohio, question mark. I reached out to him several years ago. Um, I need to do it again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he he's not on socials, right? Because I've I've looked at him.
SPEAKER_05:I have not, yeah, I have not seen him, haven't been able to reach out with him or or keep in touch with them at all, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I still have one of his DVDs, and every time I see it, I feel bad that I never got it back to him. His name's actually on it, and I'm like, God, I need it. I owe you. I should have returned that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that was our first bad connection here. Who is that? Is it is that me?
SPEAKER_05:It's all right, go ahead. You you froze for a second, but it's okay. You can say it again. I can clip it.
SPEAKER_00:No, I was asking uh oh, I think Worth was our first weapons company uh, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_05:The first wounded?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:No, he was not the first wounded.
SPEAKER_00:Who was it?
SPEAKER_05:Um that's a good question. I don't know, but I was wounded before Worth was. I was wounded on the 18th, and Worth was wounded on the 20th. Uh I but I think someone got hit, and Staleman seemed to think it was uh minor, but I don't know that it was minor. But someone caught shrapnel on the way up from Kuwait from an IED.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I thought that was Worth.
SPEAKER_05:That was not Worth's on the 20th. We came up on from Kuwait on March 6th. I have the four I have the fortune of having looked up all these dates, so I I've got a timeline sort of scribbled down actually. It it uh it makes it easier for me to keep in sort of in were you a part of the convoy going up?
SPEAKER_04:Or were you did you come did you come with everybody else later?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we we yeah uh off C 130, I think it was.
SPEAKER_04:I was gonna ask, like, how did you guys get up? Because Nylon and I were part of the convoy that drove from Kuwait to Ramadi.
SPEAKER_00:So this thing was a shit show. Um should like a funny story, shit.
SPEAKER_04:Uh I'm actually really excited about this because I don't know any of this story. Like like once we left once we left uh Camp Victor, uh Camp Victory, and then when you guys showed up a few days later, I have no idea what happened in between then.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, same. I just remember the seven tons picking you up.
SPEAKER_00:The the core memory I have uh around that movement was we're we're NSP 130 and it's late at night, like two o'clock in the morning or something. Um and you know it's cold, right? And there's you know, there's there's no right so it's freaking freezing in the in the in the bins, and we're in full combat gear, and we're about to you know land to wherever it was, you know, sod or I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_05:Probably Al-Assad, I'd imagine that was the closest big airbase that would land a C-130.
SPEAKER_00:And this freaking bird starts to climb and climb, and I'm talking about a steep climb. And you know, nobody, nobody get, you know, get gave us a heads up that this is proper, you know, procedure, you know, when you're coming into a combat. Yeah, this thing is at like at a 45 degree angle, and we're picking up and we're picking up and we're picking up and we're coming, and it gets colder and colder and colder, and then this motherfucker drops.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, we did a combat dive in. Oh my gosh. Oh, everybody in there was like ah like a freaking roller coaster. Like everybody's like rabbing each other, like, what the hell's going on? We just got shot, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Um and then right before we land, this you know, he levels out, and you know, not too much longer, you know, where you you can feel it land. And I was like, This these fucking beef bags, you know, warn somebody. Uh but yeah, that was our experience flying in. So to the pilot, screw you.
SPEAKER_04:No, I remember, I don't remember who it was. It was somebody on ship when we were on the ASICs, uh, and we had been down in the belly for forever. And uh and I remember saying I can't remember who it was. It was one of the it was a staff NCO, and I was like, why are they doing this to us? And they said they torture Marines to make sure that you don't want to go back to ship in case there's a war, because they want to make sure that whatever, no matter how bad it is in war, no matter like you don't want to even think about what uh peace felt like. Uh now, were you a part of the uh stay behind uh key leadership at the end?
SPEAKER_00:I was not. Nope. No, okay.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, you were you were there for the left seat, right seats at the end.
SPEAKER_00:Was I? Oh, yeah, you're right, because that uh that that that was uh an ID that hurt hurt uh two five was two five and everything.
SPEAKER_04:That was my truck. Almost killed me.
SPEAKER_00:Was it worth it?
SPEAKER_05:He got hit by an RPG, Diaz got hit by a mortar.
SPEAKER_00:Um that was Captain Rapicolt.
SPEAKER_05:That was actually earlier than the left seat right seats. Uh, when did he get burned? I've actually got that written down too, just because of this particular conversation. That was July. July was when that guy got burned. But September 12th, uh, 11th and 12th were the left seat right seats for key leaders before when we sent all the platoons back. And the reason why I know you were there is because I remember specifically we almost all died on the 12th with the mass uprising and all of the ambushes on the truck center. Yeah, at the government center. And we drove back under fire. I don't know about you, but a lot of everybody that I was attached to was shooting out of the trucks essentially to keep people from overthrowing the trucks.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:We got back to Hurricane Point, and that was when they had the mass rush on the snake pit and the front gate of Hurricane Point. And right after all of that, I walked over and you were sitting in the smoke pit, and I sat right next to you. I think it was the only time I had ever seen you smoke a cigarette ever. I don't know if you smoked at that time, but you did that day. And you you were you had just pulled a cigarette out, and I grabbed my sweaty bullshit cigarette pack out of my gear and pulled out a cigarette, and I looked at you and I said, Garcia, I am so sorry for anything I have ever said about 81 Splatoon. You guys are amazing. And these guys are the biggest fucking bunch of idiots I've ever met in my life, and I hope we never go out again. And we didn't, we didn't major Harold call it, and they brought a seven-ton over and picked us up and took us over to Camp Ramadi. And you were laughing your ass off, and you're like, it's okay, man. You're like pat me on the back. I was like, I don't know what the fuck we just witnessed, but that was not none of that was organized.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it's uh and Ramadi at that many times with this show. Yeah, that's uh so in the book, um unremitting, it covers uh an ambush, it glosses over an ambush that uh specifically talks about Jeremiah Savage. So we were uh QRF, I don't remember what number, but it was it was heavy out there, and we drive out our out of Hurricane Point, we made a ride somewhere, and then uh you know, and we're trucking through the city, right? Because we're trying to get to whoever you know is locked up in in uh in combat in a firefight. And we make this left, and as we make this left, um we get two Hum D's. I'm in the second, Jeremiah, Lieutenant Dobin, and then Regal Sperker are on their first vehicle. I think Lewis Lane was in the in the vehicle behind me. Maybe Dahl was a fourth driver, I don't remember. But uh man, as soon as we take that left terminal, it contact left. So when we make a left turn, it was contact left, and all the vehicles stop, everybody's screaming contact left, everybody gets out the vehicle, and to the left, there's this grave, and the grave uh is is protected by eight-foot like gate fencing or another. Jeremiah opens up, you know, he you know, there's there's there's people in this grave, uh, you know, the enemy or whatever.
SPEAKER_05:And you guys were taking small arms fire, like AKs and RPK type fire, or AKs and uh medium machine guns, yeah, from a very close range, probably like 20 feet, uh very wild and very vicious.
SPEAKER_00:And uh we ended up scaling this fence. We jump over the fence, uh, we're running up on the enemy, we're we're dropping bodies, we uh we get to this wall um because it was it was fencing about 25-30 feet worth of graves, you know, about three or four uh and I don't want to say the incorrect term, but you know, bad guys. Um you know, there's machine guns and AKs on the ground, and I look at and I'm gonna say his name because we've we've spoken about this before. Uh we get to this wall, and I'm like, Hersher, scale the wall. He's like, I'm not fucking scaling the wall. Like, fuck it, I'll scale the wall, right? So fucking I scale the wall up, right? Because we're pushing through, you know, we're pushing through. We don't know how deep is, you know, we're pushing through contact left. We we engage the enemy, the enemy's dead. We're we're pushing through this wall. I'm gonna figure out what's up, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Make sure there's nothing on the other side 100.
SPEAKER_00:And uh, so I scale the wall by myself, right? I scale the wall when I land, I'm in this intersection as far as you can see, in the middle of an in an in an intersection, as far as you can see, and then there's street as far as you can see, as far as you can see. See, and I'm like, this was a fucking bonehead move. This was dumb. Like Percy was was right to say, I'm not scaling that wall. Uh but you know, luckily enough, there was you know there was no contact after the that wall, but there was a vehicle parked behind the wall, and uh the trunk was open and it was ammo for days, and we ended up uh you know shooting you know the engine block to make sure that vehicle couldn't be used again, and yeah, you know, did a quick quick look and then we got back on our trucks and and went out to what we were called to do for that day.
SPEAKER_05:How many enemy do you think were in the ambush?
SPEAKER_00:Uh four or five, I would say. Enough to fit in that vehicle.
SPEAKER_04:If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.