From Boot to Battle - Daniel Ackles (part 1 of 2)

Dan Ackles brings us back to the moment he stepped off a van from SOI and into a deploying battalion bound for Ramadi. A rushed workup, 7 ton trucks with sandbags, April’s sudden violence, and the moral weight of changing ROE shape a raw, unvarnished account. This interview is blunt, darkly funny, and deeply humanizing via a lived record of how young Marines adapt fast. 

• boot drop straight into 2/4 without a full workup
• crash-course training at March Air Force Base and Kuwait
• arrival and life at Hurricane Point
• first convoys in highback HMMVs and early ambushes
• April 6 firefights, reinforcements, and medevacs
• rooftop clears with Sergeant Major Booker
• frustrations with armored support and pinned-down claims
• Xbox, dominoes, smoke pit building, and chow hall bullshit
• calls home, pricey phone cards, and care packages
• ROE shifts from tight control to permissive guns free
• ethical stress, restraint, and near-miss civilian encounters
• unit humor, bond, and learning under fire

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 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

Chapters

• 1:07 Dan Joins 2/4 As A Brand-New Boot
• 5:44 Scramble To Deploy And Minimal Training
• 9:45 Kuwait Layover And Gear, Then Into Ramadi
• 14:02 First Impressions Of Hurricane Point
• 18:53 Convoys, Highbacks, And Early Patrols
• 22:00 Expectations vs Reality Among Units
• 26:42 Hooch Life, Smoke Pit, And Small Comforts
• 31:35 Care Packages, Calls Home, And Morale
• 36:36 April Ignites: Ambushes And Reinforcements
• 41:52 Buzz Lightyear, Armor, And Suppressive Fire
• 46:22 Clearing Blocks, Medevacs, And Bradleys
• 51:44 Sergeant Major On Point And Rooftops

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:39

There we go. All right. Let's introduce everybody to who you are.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

All right. Um, well, I'm Dan Accles. I started off from Audi as a PFC, picked up Lance Corporal over there, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, uh 81s platoon, and uh I think we were known as the A-Team, but technically Rainmaker.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Fuck you?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, so awesome, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:10

So where do you want to start?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Um I think it's been kind of funny seeing all these guys that you know um went to Okinawa the deployment before, and you guys all kind of bonded over there. Um in Okinawa, you know, got the bench warmer seat speech and stuff. And my experience was so different from that. I got there in the middle of our March Air Force Base. Um like showed up on Super Bowl Sunday or something like that. Oh shit. We're halfway done with the training, almost done with the training type of thing. You're like, This is your new unit, and then what, two weeks later, we were on the parade deck or so.

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Yeah, one month.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah, I was gonna say I think it was right around Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Um and then uh yeah, so I was the Buddhist of the boots, and uh it was just uh kind of crazy um from that angle, you know. Like everyone knew each other. I didn't know anybody. Me and me and Akers and Osboss had gone through SOI together, but there's only the three of us that went to 2-4 in that very last boot drop type of thing. Um and it was like, what the fuck is going on here? You know, like and then we went to 81's platoon. Um, me and Akers stayed in first section, Osboss went over to second. Um, so like you guys have talked about on here a bunch, yeah, really different platoons at that point, you know, like we didn't ever see him again, you know, once in a while in the smoke pit type of thing, but um yeah, it was just uh weird being so new and trying to fit in and trying to learn stuff on the fly.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Um yeah, so I mean, as far as that went, you lit you were literally one of those people uh uh like they mentioned in Zoroya's book where you were issued your weapon and probably the first time you fired it was at somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Pretty close. I mean, you know, we probably BZO'd it type of thing, but um yeah, I I can't remember doing any of that in the States, you know. Maybe we did that in Kuwait or something, you know.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

I have a all of a sudden a half memory, Dan. Um did did Aponte have some sort of laser, like uh you could put it in the barrel. Borsite type of thing. Yeah, like a boresight type thing. Didn't he have I all of a sudden I had a ha all of a sudden I had a memory of that where we like zeroed in our like P Tac or something like that. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_04 3:49

We had one. There was uh there was a couple of them floating around just for that reason because weapons got damaged and you got new weapons, but you had no place to zero them, so we used that laser zero to get you pretty close.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

I remember one day we did some BZO-ing about halfway through the deployment over at Snake Pit. Yeah, everything double check all our guns, you know, just to make sure everything from machine guns to you know our M16s, and I don't think anyone had an M4 at that point. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

No, the newest rifle we had was some M16A4s. Uh some people even still had A2s.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yep, I remember uh Akers had an A2 and we all made fun of them for it.

SPEAKER_04 4:29

Yeah. Yeah, nobody had a shortened rifle at all.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Right.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

Cool man. So and so that had to been a whirlwind. You were literally out of SOI. Did you go home between SOI and getting dropped to us, or did you literally go off the bus SOI straight to 2-4, check in a battalion, and then come to March Air Force Base?

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Uh they sent a van over to SOI to pick us up.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Just the three of us type of thing. And I want to say it was uh Staff Sergeant Coleman that picked us up or something.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Yeah.

Scramble To Deploy And Minimal Training

SPEAKER_00 5:08

And you know, put us in barracks room for the night and went to SIF the next day. And you know, after we went to SIF, we went, I mean, we hadn't even gone through our gear. We were going to March Air Force Base to leave. That's always it. We get it in there and go, you know. And then, you know, immediately like, I mean, I remember March Air Force Base was some pretty good training, you know. Uh the three, four days I spent there type of thing. We did a lot of room clearing, you know, a lot of uh we learned about tape houses, you know, all sorts of stuff like that. You know, being a mortem going through SOI, we didn't do hardly any rifleman training. I mean, you know, three weeks or four weeks, and then you split up. But yeah, there's there's no uh no break between getting dropped to the unit. We had just got done with Christmas break, you know, a couple weeks before that from SOI. So um, yeah, no, there's no break.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Actually, that's a that's a really interesting point. I guess so you would have so you you got to break it during SOI during Christmas to go home, or was it just no training?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

We gotta break.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

We got we got leave. Okay, so that and so that was your pre-deployment leave.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah, yeah, that'd be that'd be it.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

That's that's intense.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

About to deploy or anything, right? Like I remember uh some of the staff NCOs at SOI being like, oh, you son of a bitch, you're going to 2-4, they're going out in like a month, you know, like they're going to Iraq. I was like, what the fuck is he talking to me, you know? So yeah, um it was it was so uh so fast-paced and wild, really, you know. And uh going on deployments after that, getting to see how a workup really happens, like you do, all those classes, power of attorneys, and all that stuff. I was like, I got here too late for all that my first deployment, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Like, yeah. Well, to be fair, we didn't have a whole lot. I mean, we did we did the we definitely had to fill out our wills and all that stuff, but we didn't the training was pretty haphazard, to be honest. Except for March Airs Force Base, as far as I've heard, I didn't get to go, but it was good.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

It was what was interesting, and I I think uh Dan you hit it almost perfectly, is is it was training you how to train. It was training you how to go through things. Um, really just to be like, okay, imagine you're gonna go out on this hop. Here's like some pre-training to think about what you're gonna do, and so you can go over it like a tape house or something, like he was saying. That it was really better than as far as when that went. It didn't really train you, but it was good. It was a good example of what to do.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

The Miles Gear stuff was interesting, you know. We got to shoot at each other with little laser guns and stuff like that. That was great.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

I don't remember doing any of that. I don't know if I just missed that or if they didn't trust me because I was so new and stupid. But um, yeah, I don't remember any of the miles gear. I remember sitting on uh Watchtower one night, you know, for guard simulated guard or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

And uh saw some of the op for or whatever, you know, the the guys they had there walking around. So I tried radio and it in and just being told maintain radio silence. Three guys, they look like they're up to no good. Um, you know, and I tried giving them where they were at, you know, by this house or whatever. Maintain radio silence. Like, all right, I guess I'll just shut up then, you know. So that's that's all I really remember for interacting with any of the hostels or anything like that.

Kuwait Layover And Gear, Then Into Ramadi

SPEAKER_04 9:03

Sure. So, and then we got to February and we headed out February 16th, flew over. Anything anything stick out on the way over or on the way or in Kuwait?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

I I mean that plane ride was terrible. I remember there's M16s in my back on those stupid cargo nets that we sat on for I don't know how many hours the flight was, but I remember we probably spent as long on runways as we did flying because the plane kept breaking down. Yep. And then on the way over there, being the boot, like I said, the bootest of the boots. I was on Gear Guard, Weapons Watch, every stop we made, type of thing. And uh in New Jersey hearing about how great the chow hall was while people were bringing me plates because they weren't letting me off Gear Guard, you know. I did go once, I did go once, but yeah, it was it was uh well stay here, make sure no one fucks with our stuff. And then you don't know who is in your platoon, even really. Like we had what 60 guys in mortars?

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Like I remember calling a few people out and they're like, I'm in the fucking platoon, you idiot. You know, like oh uh yeah, of course you are. My bad lights, corporal, you know, like yeah, so sipping the fire hose, huh?

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Pretty much. So um, yeah, that was pretty wild. It was I mean, the most uncomfortable I've ever been was on that plane ride. Like I said, there's a pistol grip in my back, you know, like we were literally crammed in there to where you couldn't move, and somehow you'd fall asleep for a while, you'd wake up, every joint in your body would be hurting. Um, and then of course, you guys have talked about it on here a few times, the breakdowns. We went to New Jersey, stopped, you know. I remember the fuel coming out of the jet. Was that Germany?

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Get back on the bus, get back on the bus. I mean, like, now we have to go over the Mediterranean, you know, like with this fucking piece of shit that we've already repaired three times on the way here. Like, can't they find us a new plane? You know, like what is this? And uh, I mean that's a 2-4 experience in a nutshell, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:36

It really is. Yeah. But wife wonders why I'm like I how I am.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Exactly. Um Kuwait was, you know, pretty cool, pretty chill. We did a little bit of training there. Um we did a lot of uh, you know, speed reloads, tack reloads, stuff like that, you know, on the platoon level. We're doing that stuff over and over again. But you know, that was a couple hours a day, a little bit of PT here and there. Um I mean the chow wasn't good, but it wasn't terrible either, you know. I mean, you'd go to chow a couple three times a day, and they had that little uh MWR phone center, so you'd call people. I remember uh there might have been a tent with like some gaming systems or something, or maybe it was just a phone center, but you had to uh put down someone's name and last four to hold them a spot for it. And I remember towards the end of our week or two there that we were just putting 0341 and stuff like that to sign up all our buddies, and they called us out. They're like, How does everyone have the same last four? He's like, uh I don't know, man. It's just crazy, isn't it? You know, like so yeah, but no, Kuwait was pretty cool, you know. Um I you know, I didn't have a lot of responsibilities. I'm sure I did a bunch of fire watch while I was there, but I was used to it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Um and then at that point we were in pretty big tents, so it uh made it a little bit easier keeping the gear all together.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yep. Um, and then I wasn't a part of the convoy that went up. I was uh I feel like we flew to a base and then we got in seven tons for the one to two hour drive into Ramadi into Hurricane Point.

SPEAKER_04 13:32

Yeah, nice.

First Impressions Of Hurricane Point

SPEAKER_00 13:33

And they didn't have any armor at all. They had a bunch of sandbags on the seven ton. Like just I mean, not enough to get your shoulders behind them, you know, but you were in a crouched position, looking out this you know, pickup bed of a seven ton. Um and if you're smart, you put a sandbag under your knees because you were on your knees for two hours, you know, like type of thing. I remember just uh you know when we got into Ramadi, like, holy shit, this is a big city. Like, like there's a lot of people here, and looking at, you know, they weren't that tall of buildings, you know, it's not like a metropolis like we have here in America, but it's like there's a lot of fucking windows. How are we gonna watch all these fucking windows? You know, like we're you know, like and just feeling completely overwhelmed when I got there. Um and then getting there and um getting to those hoochas that we lived in with the tarp tops. Yeah, like what what is this? Like like looking over at the little palace that headquarters is in, is like that looks nice. What the fuck is this? Like they sewed together a bunch of shelter halves. What is this? You know, like yeah, no, it was just it was uh looking at the Porta Johns, and we had the shitters inside that you couldn't use the water that was somehow ice cold for the showers inside, no matter how hot it was outside. Yeah, it I remember a lot of uh working parties to fortify the smoke pit because it was just a plywood structure at first, and then we just kept stacking sandbags and stacking sandbags.

SPEAKER_04 15:21

I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly, it was not there, and you guys put up the plywood.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

That's very possible. I didn't really smoked on that deployment, but I was mostly uh chew user like Copenhagen and stuff. So I mean I think like I started smoking over there because it was something to do, you know.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

What I remember of the smokehouse was uh um, and I don't remember who who it was exactly, but was uh ripped ripped our asses for letting guys smoke outside because of the cherry, quote unquote, during uh at night. And like it was snipe, you know, you're gonna get shot by a sniper. And I can't remember who lit us up, and uh, but then it was like, well, fuck it, then we'll we'll build something for it. And uh that was the beginning. That was the beginning because I remember getting my ass reamed for letting the guy smoke outside at night. So I was like, okay, fine, we'll build something.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

We'll smoke inside. No, you can't do that either. Right. Yeah. No, I I don't remember building that smoke pit, but I remember doing the sandbags on it. Seemed like for days.

SPEAKER_04 16:41

Well, there was no shortage of sand, at least.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

That's true, and it was nice soft sand, you didn't have to really chisel it up or anything, you know. So that was nice, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 16:53

So now I I don't remember when so we crossed the line of departure on March 6th. Do you happen to remember when you flew in? Was it the same day? Was it around March 6th, 7th, around there? Any idea?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

I'm just curious because I know I remember getting there, and Hodges was already bragging about the firefight they had already been in um since you know, before we even got there, type of thing, and um kind of talking shit to us. Like, oh you guys are a bunch of fucking pogs, really, you know, and um I did this, that, and the other thing, and just being a typical Hodges, you know, um love that guy to death.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

But he was Yeah, it's interesting because Hodges came up in my convoy. I only remember specifically because when we left the line of departure, I was like, okay, who do I know and can count on in this convoy? And I was like, okay, I've got Hodges, I got Musser in mine as well. I had him in my convoy as well, about six vehicles back. And I was like, okay, I know these fucking people. I know, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen with these seven tons because these dudes have to jump 20 feet down to get in the fight. Like, I don't know what the hell they're just gonna shoot from the top, I guess. Just trying to like think strategically like what's gonna happen if we get contact. Fortunately, nothing happened on the way up. So I did not realize, probably because of planning that, that anybody had flown in. So I don't even know when you flew in.

Convoys, Highbacks, And Early Patrols

SPEAKER_00 18:20

But if he's saying there was contact, it might have been during some left seat, right seat stuff.

SPEAKER_04 18:25

I was gonna say, you must have come a week afterwards, then, because the first time there was any contact at all was about a week later.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Okay. My memory is that it was a while. Like I I I'm remembering that it was a while before we had the rest of our element come up. Because and I think it was different for you, Nylon, because you know, it was only the 81s that really needed that because we didn't have the seven tons to bring everybody up like the like the line companies did, and that's why a lot of them drove up. But I think it was really just maybe some HS and 81s that needed to get flown in.

SPEAKER_04 19:04

Yeah, it must have been. Yeah, part of uh our headquarters people were already there, they'd come as the uh the forward element uh a week or so prior, and so they were already there, and then map two was the the convoy security for the first convoy, and so we all came up together as far as that goes. Yeah, that's weird. All right, well, so you got there, and then do you remember whose truck you're in?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah, I was uh in the lead vehicle, Lieutenant Dobb was my vehicle commander uh pretty much the whole time. Um, in the back was me, uh Fernandez, Mater, and Luna, and I think we started off with Hurley as our machine gunner, Holm was our driver, and then we hit that first IED. Um, you guys have talked about on here before. Um, they got Metavact and then uh Regal and Savage for a while. And then honestly, I can't tell you who replaced them as uh machine gunner after that, uh, or driver when they got Metavac.

SPEAKER_04 20:15

But so you were in the back you were in the back of a high back initially.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah, I I don't remember ever going to an up farmer to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

You did eventually, but it was a long time.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Type of thing. Like we went to Al Assad. I remember it was really hard to stay awake because you were so cramped in there. And I'm like a high back, it felt pretty comfortable. Like, look at all this armor around me. Nothing's gonna happen. And uh it was pretty hard to stay awake in the high back armor or in the up armors because they actually had some air conditioning and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

And you start starting to creature comforts, you start to get kick your feet up.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah, and not sitting on a wooden bench looking outboard outboard, you know, like so. Um yeah, no, I we're I mostly remember the highbacks and just all you know stopping, jumping out of those, patrolling a lot, you know, doing raids and stuff like that, um, right out of the high back.

Expectations vs Reality Among Units

SPEAKER_03 21:23

You started off talking a little bit about being up at uh March Air Force Base and getting some of that initial training and kind of how, as Nylan was saying, it was getting trained how to train. Um, what do you remember of the tactical shifts and whatnot as coming into Ramadi in that early part, you know, leading up to April when obviously everything shifted. And we but we I mean, obviously we continue to change our tactics, but what do you remember of any of that?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

I remember when we first got there, we really thought it was just gonna be uh handing out Hershey's bars, soccer balls, you know, stuff like that, and um interacting with some kids and stuff, and them trying to trade us dinar for uh dollars type of thing. And uh really trying to engage with them and be polite and stuff, and I made a few of those trades for some of that money or whatever, just to have souvenirs and make some kids' day. Um and uh yeah, I remember it was it was pretty chill, you know, like you you'd hear reports. I remember we went out on um casualties and stuff like that, but they all kind of felt like flukes, you know, type of thing. It's like, you know, it's been a week, nothing really happened. Okay, something happened, but I mean the odds are still in our favor, type of feeling. And then uh and then April hit, and that you know, that all changed kind of overnight.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Um well that first IED was before April, right? Or was no wait, Holmes was after that. He was at the end. That's right. That was later. I think that was later.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

It was Holm and Hurley. I I can't remember if they were there for April or not.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Um Holmes and Hurley, didn't they get hit end of end of April? It would have been like I think so. I think I think it was like because it was it was like a week before Savage, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, it was like a week or two apart. And uh yeah, I remember feeling a bit cursed in that lead vehicle type of thing. And like the next day we went a big convoy to a real big base, maybe it was Al-Issad or something.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

Probably Takatam Air Base would be my guess. That very well could be because we made quite a few runs right around that time to Takata to pick up different gear. That's where we picked up the warlocks, uh, the cobra sites. If you remember those, there was a few different shipments of new types of gear that we sent weapons company units out to go get.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Okay, but yeah, I remember Xbox while I was there at the PX.

SPEAKER_04 24:09

Good, yeah, that's a more important piece of gear.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

There the and uh Hodges is like not saving any money. I was like, I don't fucking need to save money, I'm gonna have fun until the fucking next one, you know. Like fuck it, I don't care, you know. Like I'm gonna play video games because I mean I did all the normal stuff, you know, smoked a lot of cigarettes, bullshit in the smoke pit. Uh we played dominoes. I remember playing a lot of dominoes in the hooch, um, buying a DVD player type of thing, and watching those Hodge movies with all their flaws, if you will. Um yeah. But but yeah, I was like, uh fuck it. I got 300 extra dollars. I'm buying this Xbox.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

What game did you get for the Xbox? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 24:57

I feel like I got some Tetris combo game. Um, when they had other games on it, but I played a lot of Tetris because I always liked Tetris going back to high school calculators. Um yeah, so and then I think I got Grand Theft Auto for it or something, but nice.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Um looking that was for training purposes, right? You know.

Hooch Life, Smoke Pit, And Small Comforts

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Um so yeah, I didn't really play it that much. Um, but that was mostly because they have the different voltage plugs. So I had to send it to uh our base Haji there a couple times to get repaired. Because I could plug it directly in and it'd be the 240 or whatever and fry the thing. But um it did get repaired. He didn't send a bomb back in it or anything, which is nice. So yeah. Nope, I remember buying that Xbox after uh Savage died like the next day. And uh being they were so close together, I only had the two pairs of desert digis or whatever. But um my first set got ripped like down the whole seam, jumping a fence or something like that one day. And it was like I I can't fucking sew these back together, so kind of tucked those away, and I was using my other set, and they got covered in Savage's blood, um, type of thing. So I had to borrow someone's set of bottoms, and I ended up getting Sefuentes, which he was eight inches shorter than me, type of thing. Uh and some fucking guy the airbase there called me out and uh you don't look much like a Sefuentes, whose fucking trousers are you wearing? And I just fucking lost it on him. I was like, oh god, mine's they're covered in fucking blood. What the fuck's wrong with you? You know, like yeah, I had to burn them because they're all fucking covered in blood.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

Yeah, that happened a lot. I I mean we've we've I mean, as you know, we've had these other conversations about, you know, this you know, in a different way going into the chow halls, how a lot of you know, so early on in the war that a lot of people hadn't, you know, they have a they have a rear echelon, they have a you know, peacetime mind frame. And this was the first time real war was really kicking off. And the number of times that we got snatched up, quote unquote, you know, for being out of rags, not having covers. Like, no, motherfucker, I actually did some shit.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah, it's like, do you want me to wear my Kevlar? Like, we weren't planning to come here, we didn't put our covers in the trucks because we don't have anywhere for our covers. We're driving around fucking highbacks, you know, like we're over here, we're gonna fucking get some fuel and we're gonna get some chow. Why are you giving us a hard time? You know, and uh I remember hearing that story about Sergeant Major calling up their Sergeant Major and everything else. That made me feel good over there, you know, like at least it's got our back. I you know, because being new, you almost expected to get an ass join from your sergeant major for not having your cover, you know, because that is you know, but the opposite happened, and that was nice.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

Yeah, it's crazy the different experiences, even you know, I mean, you're talking about hundreds of feet, right? From where we were sitting at Hurricane Point to Camp Blue Diamond, and that they they had a they had a person making them hot coffee and serving them lobster and and steak. Yeah, you know, like it was it literally lobster and steak. We went over there one time and they were like, you guys can't have this. And we're like, you can have this chow. You can't have this. We made this special, and I'm like, oh, okay. I'll I'll take my my ghetto shit bags and we'll go sit over here and eat the the spaghetti you made for us. Thank you. Yeah, it very unusual to have the siloed experiences, just you know, where you could see each other, but you're having a totally different war.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Oh, yeah. Do you remember that holiday that we got? Steaks might have been July.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

It was 4th of July, yeah. The the truck company guys and well, some of the headquarters guys all grilled them up on those crazy grills they made.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah. All I remember about my steak is it tasted like straight mosquito repellent. I took two bites and threw the rest away. I was so excited walking over to sit down, like had apples in one hand in my tray with the big they were big, great looking steaks.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

One like big bite. And I was like, this isn't right. This tastes like DEET, you know. And uh all right, go to the other side, try over here. Nope, this is DEET again. Did they fucking spray this down with off? You know, like what the fuck is this? And I tried offering it to other people, and they're like, nah, man, I'm I don't want it. I don't know if I just had the bad luck that day. Dude was getting hit by flies, so he sprayed it right over my steak or what, but I was so disappointed. So disappointed.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Uh so uh well, talking uh staying on the topic of uh Hurricane Point, what uh what uh you said you brought up uh definitely playing video games and watching DVDs and dominoes and stuff like that. Is uh any other hooch life slash you know camp life that uh sticks out to you?

Care Packages, Calls Home, And Morale

SPEAKER_00 30:38

I remember I was uh running quite a bit. I would do laps around the base there. I think it was about three-quarters of a mile for the lap I was doing type of thing. And uh last couple months that I'd put my headphones on and I had a CD player, you know, with some CDs from home, and I'd just try and run, do some pull-ups, you know, stay in shape, you know, get a little bit of anxiety out by running hard. And uh I remember towards the end I blew past must have been the CEO, I guess, but the next day it came out that you couldn't wear headphones anymore while you ran because someone didn't fucking you know stop for the CEO or the sergeant major. I didn't run a single time after that. It was like, yes, I'm done, you know. Like this was this was my me time where I could drown everyone else out and you know, do something I thought was good for myself, but I'm not fucking doing this no more, you know, like this fucking bullshit. You know, like they were trying to say, well, what if a mortar came in or something? I was like, you can hear stuff, it's just I was running and I didn't want to stop, you know, like it was dark out or half dark. I don't know. But I ran a little bit. Um, I'd go to the weight room occasionally, not like some of the guys over there that got real big suspiciously, um, or anything. But um I did hit the weights every once in a while. I did like the smoke pit. Um I would hang out with Leilong quite a bit. He got a hookah while we were over there, and all those flavored tobaccos and stuff and that I don't know. We spent a few nights out there acting like it was a bong and coughing our lungs out of tobacco, you know, and just bullshitting, making fun of each other and stuff. Um Yeah, I mean that was that was most of it.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

Did you get a chance to contact home much? Or did you call home much at all?

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Uh I did. Uh I mean a few times a week, probably. Um my girlfriend then is my wife now, so we're still together.

SPEAKER_04 32:57

Um nice, congrats. And what's funny is you know, a 20-year marriage is something that uh is a rarity, but the more we interview people, it seems like I'm I'm hearing it more from our guys. I don't know what that means. Maybe we're all I don't know, we find the one who will stick with our craziness and stick with them.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Pretty much. She puts up with me, yeah. Trauma bonded.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

I'd call her and I'd call you know a few family members here and there, um, but mostly her. Um the time change was what 10, 12 hours difference.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

So something like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

So we were always calling it weird, weird hours for people. Um she was one that really didn't seem to mind. So she would answer pretty consistently. So yeah, no, I'd I'd call home from that stupid trailer.

SPEAKER_04 33:53

You know, you know, it's interesting, and uh not to shit on a company specifically, but ATT made a lot of fucking money charging us for that goddamn trailer.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

What was it? 30 to 50 cents a minute?

SPEAKER_04 34:05

I a fucking lot, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Like you'd get the phone cards and it'd say a hundred minutes, but it lasted for like 15.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

But like, and you'd spend$20 on one of those phone cards. I mean, I'm sure they had some kind of increased cost because they're going. They made so much fucking money. Them and the biggest winners of that war.

unknown 34:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:27

Yeah. Anybody send anybody send you any care packages or anything?

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Uh yeah. My I remember uh getting some venison jerky from uh my uncle while I was over there. Um some like summer sausage and stuff. That was pretty great. My now mother-in-law sent me one with a bunch of peanut butter fudge, some homemade jam and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

These are very Michigan care packages. I like this a lot.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Yeah, they're there. I mean, they were fantastic. I remember one night I got into that peanut butter fudge, and I just ate probably a pound and a half of it. So sitting in my rack, one piece after the other, laughing at movies.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Fucking the next morning, it was like, You're fat fucking ass. What the fuck's wrong with you? You were sitting there giggling with your headphones on all fucking night. I couldn't sleep, blah blah blah. They fucking just chewing my ass. I was like, All right. Yeah. Uh but yeah, I was like two racks away from Hersher and Hodges, and uh that made the whole deployment a lot more interesting.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

You know, you're now the I don't know, third or fourth person dimension uh that Hersher and Hodges made deployments more interesting. That's uh that's good. I hope they come on here sometime soon.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

They were some of the funniest motherfuckers I've ever met in my entire life. And uh yeah, no, I appreciate them guys a lot.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

So that's good, dude.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Yeah. Nope. Uh wild time.

April Ignites: Ambushes And Reinforcements

SPEAKER_03 36:07

Well, if you don't mind, how about we dial it back to uh the uh we kind of skipped over some of the stuff we stopped right before we got to uh April battles and stuff like that. If you don't mind, what do you what do you think about what do you remember of uh of that all kicking off? Because you're Rainmaker, so you would have been what second second out?

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, I remember spending all days up all all day out there um really just going from one spot to another, trying to you know, line companies would get into some shit, and we go and we'd back them up. Um I feel like we might have had one 240 mounted, and that was on the second truck with Savage. But then we had those really I think they were made in Kuwait mounts for our saws on the trucks. Yep. And uh I mean they worked, they were still overwhelming firepower. Generally it felt like by the time we got there Hajis would leave, you know, the Alibaba would be gone. Um Yeah, I remember tearing it up, holding holding security down a lot of alleyways, um, doing a few medevacs of injured people. Um just being out there must have been 18 hours at a time, you know, like uh April 6th. It was I don't think it was first thing in the morning, but once it hit, we were just out there running from one place to another all day. You know, like we'd we'd dismount. I think we might have stopped in a combat outpost real quick, you know, refilled our water, refilled our trucks with fuel or something, and right back out there.

SPEAKER_04 38:03

The things that I have written down for especially April 6th, so first ones out, golf was ambushed in the south of the city off of Easy Street, and map three was the first one out, but you guys were not shortly thereafter. I mean, maybe 30 minutes hour at the most, uh shortly out the gate. And then you guys also went to uh reinforced golf as well, but you got ambushed before you got there and then reinforced uh map three and that. Do you remember anything specifically about the south of the city near Easy Street on that?

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Yeah, is that the one uh I think uh Lieutenant Dobb told the story about Buzz Lightyear getting his foot shot off?

SPEAKER_04 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Um Regal would have been our driver that day because he had a Buzz Lightyear he hung from the the rear view mirror in the center type of thing that his son had gave him. And uh God, that was a we go to turn a corner and this RP RPK starts lighting us up type of thing, and it literally sounded like it was in the truck with us. It was it was so loud and so close. And uh Regal slammed on the brakes, and I remember Luna and Maider were on the other side of the truck and they fell forward, and it might have been Savage that was machine gunner that day, but they were kind of in a pile on the in the front, you know, just by the back window to the entry, you know, to the high back. And uh I remember popping up and getting to the standing pretty quick and looking over that side and just raining down bullets. I don't remember seeing the guy, but I remember you know feeling like I had to suppress, do some suppressive fire or something. And then Fernie pulls me down and I don't stop shooting. And I shot through our armor like a dozen times, type of thing. I remember him telling me, Not like that, you idiot, like this. Like put the gun over your head and just shoot over the armor type of thing. And by that time, my magazine was already gone, you know, and the truck behind us had used their machine gun effectively and killed the guy and stuff like that. But I caught a lot of shit for shooting up that armor the rest of the deployment.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Uh I I remember that now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

And it was it was actually a bit better how well my rounds went through that armor. You know, because uh I'm glad they didn't, but I'd almost have rather they ricocheted backwards, you know, like because they just they went right through it. They left a bunch of holes in the armor, you know, and it's like fuck, that's not very good armor, you know. So yeah, and then uh like you said, we we killed that guy. We might have spent five minutes looking around for any of his buddies or whatever, but we left him there and we just kept driving to do our original mission.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

Was that the first time that you were uh that you returned fire that you remember?

Buzz Lightyear, Armor, And Suppressive Fire

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Yeah, I think so. I think so. The next couple days, there's uh a lot of opportunities for it. Um I think that was the first time.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

So, right right after that, you guys linked up with map three. Um by that point, Condi had already been wounded. The army had showed up and done some evacs with their uh 113s. If I remember correctly, uh you guys helped evac some of the golf casualties, though mostly it was uh the uh army 113s and a little bit of map three. It's high back who was dragging guys out from golf company and taking them back to Junction City. But I think you guys may have done at least one evac. You would have known because you were in the high back. So I'm I'm kind of asking at the same time as I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

I feel like we were almost all in highbacks. There's only one non-high back in our platoon at that point, if I remember correctly. Um I can't say I remember them going in our high back, but they very well could have. Um, like it was it was such a blur that day. Um for a lot of the days, really.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

Well, I mean, especially April 6th, it was the first day of the most heavy combat that I think any of us had had ever even imagined. And so it's a flurry, right? Like you remember, I'm sure you remember a lot of bright high points, but it's hard to remember details. The next thing I know for sure for your platoon is because you came and joined my platoon. And so wherever you guys went after that, you came and reinforced uh up through Nova and you ended up in the Sophia district where we had been surrounded for quite some time, and you guys helped us kick down doors and clear a few houses. Uh, you guys had a few. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Was there an army there too with their Bradleys or whatever?

SPEAKER_04 43:11

So eventually, when you guys initially showed up, there was not. You initially showed up, and we had several houses that we knew there were guys in that we had you guys help us take down. You had already had two enemy combatants that were in the back of a high back, and I am fairly certain it was yours, only because I remember Fernandez jumping out of the back of it. Uh, and then they were tied up in the back laying on the floor. I think one may have even been dead. I don't know if he was alive or not, but and then I and then after that, we a couple more run and gun gun fights, kicked down some houses, threw some grenades, and then we moved further north, and that's when we found the uh remnants of the Echo Company QRF and the snipers, and we cleared a couple fields. Uh specifically, your high back was involved in that, I know, because I remember you, I remember you, I remember Regalsberger driving far forward of uh many of the rest of us and helping to take care of that. And we we put those Echo Company QRF guys and I think some of the snipers, whoever was most wounded, we put threw them in the back of your high back, and I threw you out. And we stole your high back and drove like hell to Junction City. We shot our way through the whole north of the city to Junction City, but that was when the Bradleys were there. What do you what do you remember?

Clearing Blocks, Medevacs, And Bradleys

SPEAKER_00 44:39

I remember those Bradleys um being really impressive vehicles, but they were full of cowards. Um I remember we were walking, you know, we were dismounted, and they had 50 cals on top. Like I said, we had a saws and two one 240 for our platoon on our trucks. So we're all here with M16s, you know, a couple guys with 203s, and they were complaining that they were pinned down, and they need us to go up here and do this and that. And it's like, you're fucking pinned down, you got armor, like go fuck yourself, man. You fucking light it up with your 50 cal and keep driving. What the fuck is wrong with you? But we didn't say that, we just went and cleared the buildings, you know. Um, yeah, I mean, that's what I mostly remember about those days. Um I was with uh the Sergeant Major detachment that one day that he took over my fire team. It was me, him, Mater, and uh I think Fernie was there for the last bit of it, but I remember him bitching at us because Sergeant Major asked for volunteers, and the three of us went with him, and he might not have heard yet. So um, we were on rooftops with the Sergeant Major. We get back to him, he's like, Where the fuck were you guys? We told him, he's like, You gotta fucking tell me too. And uh, yeah, my bad. You know, whatever. It was that was cool, it was fun. I remember Sergeant Major Booker wouldn't let any of us go into any rooms first. Him with a sniper rifle, and he would hold it, muzzle up. And I was like, I'm new, and I know that's not how you're supposed to enter a room, but he would kick the door in and go in first on every single room, every single house. Like, I got this. He's like, No, get the fuck back there, and uh dozen, two dozen rooftops we made it to that way, him looking for bad guys and stuff like that. Um, you know, that audible whiz and pop bullets going right near you over and over again. Probably just people, you know, jumping out from around corners, spraying a mag and jumping back in type of thing.

SPEAKER_04 47:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Um we got quite a few of them, you know, when they did that, but you never get all of them.

SPEAKER_04 47:08

So they had better camouflage than you did.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Yeah, yeah, and that that was infuriating because you know, they could just put the AK under their mandress and all of a sudden they're just another civilian, you know. And uh I remember might have been the seventh or the tenth. Um it coming down. It's like if they're out today, they're a bad guy. It's like I I don't think that's how the ROE was really taught to us, uh, you know, in Kuwait on the way here. I'm not gonna do that. Like if I see a weapon on them, you know, type of thing. Yeah, but I remember we shot a lot of people that day.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

That's a really good point, Dan. I uh we haven't really talked much about that, but you know back in Kuwait when our mission was still Sasso and our ROEs were pretty tight. Real tight. Real, real, real tight.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

That's only like if they had a gun but they weren't pointing it at you.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

Yep. Yep. And then and and then as you know, as you know, I think I think part of what created the April 6th and you know, and on uh was that our ROEs were as they were, and they didn't and we had to adapt to that. And I remember I can't remember the number of times that our ROEs changed. I mean, I swear to god it was every two weeks. Um, got told something a little bit different. Um, and then also, I mean, to to continue on to when we did we actually did our left seat, right seat with uh our follow-on people that that's why we were called uh cowboys, is that we had a uh our interpretation of the ROEs were a little bit different than what they were being told, what their ROEs should be. And uh got some people killed, unfortunately. But uh that was a we were we were responding to a very different I mean we went in our intel brief was like, you know, everything's fine, you know, this is gonna be you know, soccer balls, candy bars, and generators. And our roEs reflected that up until April when it was like, nope, nope, we need to, you know, we need to go weapons-free here.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Well, when the temperature started getting higher in May and June, and the we had a different, we had a change in the fighters. I feel like April was an actual insurgency. It was mostly locals, right? There was probably some foreigners in there, but fuck, I don't know. I don't know the difference, but it looked like more locals, people dressed like everybody else. And after that, May-June started being like the black pajamas, the AQI, the Al-Qaeda and Iraq guys, those kind of people. And the attacks had a different level of lethality. We started seeing sniper attacks and the different kinds of IEDs with fireballs and explosive form penetrators and all that other shit. And with that, we changed our rules of engagement, our ROEs, to uh some more similar to Fallujah, where it was military-age male. If you were 14 to 90 and you were out in our cordon, shoot till they stopped moving.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:22

And that that to me, that's when I remember. That's when that changed. And I remember having the same feeling that you did, Dan, where I was like, I I see a 14-year-old kid, I'm not just gonna fucking smoke him. Like if he's just crossing the street, like I don't know that that's okay.

Sergeant Major On Point And Rooftops

SPEAKER_00 50:37

But I remember I was, you know, razor close to uh, you know, on those really high-intensity moments, covering an alleyway or something, and uh finger on the trigger, ready to light someone up because you see movement 100 yards down or whatever, and you think it's gonna be a bad guy popping around the corner because that's happened to you twice that day already. And then there's a whole family that's sneaking across the road. Yep. And I mean, I'm I'm honest to God thankful I never lit those families up because I was I was very close, you know. If I had a machine gun instead of an M16, I could definitely see myself mowing down an entire family, you know. Um But thankfully I didn't, you know, like not to throw shade on anyone that did, you know, because no, those ambiguous moments you have no idea. Happen, right? Um I don't know anyone personally that did, you know, they've never confided that in me, but I can definitely see how it would happen.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.