Semper Familia - Jonathan Wade (part 1 of 2)

We catch up with Jon Wade from the 81mm mortars platoon. He details some sharp turns from the workup and flight over.... to the long, slow convoy into Iraq, where a medevac on the highway snaps everyone into a new reality. A reality that shaped how we fought and how he led in the future. 

• joining 81s in Oki
• Super Bowl bet, broken jet, snow PT in Jersey
• acclimatizing in Kuwait
• the long convoy, first medevac seen, stress and luck
• living under daily mortars and calm under fire
• Seabees welding, improvised armor, morale and protection
• evolving IED threat, bad briefings, learning from craters
• Warth’s evacuation
• static crews, MAP tactics, and machine gunners’ impact
• curfew stop with foreign nationals and command discipline
• first sustained gunfight, rooftop shooter, controlled clearing

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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Transcript

Introductions And Roles In Mortar Platoon

SPEAKER_00 0:37

All right, John. Why don't you go ahead and uh introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Uh I am Jonathan Wade. I was a Lance Corporal, got promoted to corporal during the deployment to Ramadi. Uh, and I was a member of the 81mm mortar platoon, and I was in the sledgehammer section.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

And then uh uh of note, you were my a driver going up from uh Kuwait. Absolutely have a lot of and I don't think we had anybody in our truck, right? It was just gear, as my is my my memory.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

And you and a whole lot of high explosive mortar rounds in the bed of our basically a pickup trip. Yeah, yeah. Driving yeah, all the way from Kuwait to Ramadi.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, that was uh I was glad to have you as my passenger.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

A little uh a little crazy of a trip.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

That was that right one of my uh more specific memories was uh having to figure out how to piss in a Gatorade bottle with those sappy plates in while driving and trying to keep up with everybody. So that was uh I'm not gonna say that I was successful every time, but um I got the job done.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

That's why they don't put carpet on these, man.

unknown 2:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Good.

Okinawa Workups And Language School Detour

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Uh so let's start uh let's start maybe a little bit more from the beginning. Um you came to us while we were on our Oki deployment. Um and uh you were the grandpa of the unit since you did a little bit of you did college. Did you you graduated from college or did you stop?

unknown 2:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

So I couldn't figure out what to do with me. Like I showed up for Fifth Marines and then and I went to 2-5 initially, and then uh while I'm you know working up with them and training with them, they were like, Oh, yeah, by the way, your orders got modified, you're going to two four. I was like, Oh, cool, where's two four at? Like, I don't know what four is. And they're like, Oh, they're they started laughing, and I'm like, Um, why are you laughing? Oh, they're in Okinawa, Japan. I was like, um, okay, like permanently, or are they just like deployed there? Or what so then when I showed up, you guys had already done uh the workup and you had begun the first half of what would end up being a double UDP, uh-huh. And we just started traveling all around the Asia and shooting mortars, and I joined uh FTC with you and Saunders. I started off on Chips' gun and um then you know graduated to FDC and started uh I guess plot plotting board was my main detail.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

It was, it was. I have a couple pictures of you uh on uh on the board.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

So working the wheel.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yep, yep. And so then uh we get back from our Oki deployment and uh and I don't remember. I got I got sent on in a bunch of uh schools and stuff like that. Did you go to any schools in between the deployments?

SPEAKER_02 3:45

I did, I did spun up. Yeah, they they uh they sent me to uh what did I go to? Uh we you and I went to uh the language immersion class.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Yeah, we went to uh Arabic uh to try to learn to speak that and then uh they taught us uh Egyptian Arabic instead of uh Iraqi Arabic, but whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Uh every once in a while we'd say something, they'd be like, What? Yeah, so I I kind of like gave up on that thing because I mean we they did a good job of providing us terps, so later on they did, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I didn't realize that you went to the interpreter's course. I did, yeah. Did you speak Arabic with a Georgia accent? No.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Boston one.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah, that's right, that's right. You were from you were from the north. I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Yep, uh, I'm from I enlisted from Boston.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

And how old were you? You were just mentioning you had done some college before you came in. How old were you when you enlisted? 25. Okay. You weren't like I was like, you weren't like 35. Like it's you know, all right. I mean, in Marine Corps years, 25 is a grandfather, but oh yeah, but they love me because I can go to the PX and buy beer.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

So yeah. Not that I bought beer for any underage kids. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Not that I consumed any.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

All these ghost beers that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Exactly. So uh yeah, when I when I first showed up, like I was kind of the grand old man, but you know, that worked out later.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah. So you would have gone so we then if you were at the Arabic school, then uh you didn't go to March either, then. Um we both missed the March Air Force um spin-up. Yep. Yeah.

Super Bowl Bet, Broken Plane, And Snow In Jersey

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah, yeah, because we we got left behind for that school.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yep. Okay. And so then we uh we're coming into our flight out. What do you remember of uh our uh the middle of February?

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Oh, it's crazy because we uh we flew out and I had made a bet with the company commander on the Super Bowl. I told him that the Patriots are gonna win the Super Bowl, and he had to pay up. So when we got on the C-141 to fly out, and we're all cramped up on there, he had to pay up. Now he bought me uh a six-pack of uh of Guinness beer, and we got to drink the beer. Remember that? Yeah, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

That's too awesome. I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

That's yeah, but I was sitting right next to uh Squiv, uh Escabel on the bird, and remember when they were passing the the bottle the whiskey bottle, yeah. Yeah, the bottle around, and uh we all had a sip, and then uh what the plane broke down and we ended up in uh New Jersey for like a week. Uh you know, we're out there PTing in the snow, and I remember Roach is saying that's the first time he ever saw snow.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yep. There's a couple guys. Um oh man, what was the other guy? Uh not Trujillo, what was um the other guy that was from Miami? Oh, I can see his face. Oh man. Miami. Younger dude. Um, anyways, he also hadn't seen snow.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

So well, guys like Vecchia didn't ever see snow. He was, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah.

unknown 7:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Too funny.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

A lot of guys just, yeah, we went out there and had that snowball fight after uh after a PT run.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

That's what I remember. I remember that big ass snowball fight. That was awesome. And uh we were calling cadence, and I I remember Staff Sergeant Cook being like, You guys gotta tone it down. Like, this is an Air Force base. We can't like you can call cadence, but it's gotta be like, you gotta whisper cadence today.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

It's nine o'clock in the morning, you're gonna wake the Air Force up.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

That's right. Well, and if I remembering back on any of the cadences that I knew, I don't think any of them would probably have been appropriate and uh outside of uh um an infantry unit.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Yeah, not like running around Camp Hanson and uh Okinawa or you know Camp Pendleton where you were not gonna hurt anybody's feelings with your words.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Every once in a while I'll try and call cadence for uh the kids when we go for runs and stuff like that, and I'll start, I'll I'll launch into it and I'll get halfway into it and be like, oh wait, I don't know if I'll do that verse.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

I don't think the kids want to hear about the little birdie.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah. So yeah, so we get uh we try and we attempt to take out of uh take off from New Jersey, and um that's only mildly successful.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Yeah, started spilling fuel or something like that, and then we had to turn back, and then uh we eventually made it. Yeah, yeah, and then we landed in Kuwait and had to do uh we had to get used to the desert after you know having snowball fights. So uh that acclimatization period was a little rough.

Kuwait Arrival And Desert Acclimatization

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah. Yeah, it was weird to go from zero to it was a hundred and whatever it was, like a hundred and two in Kuwait at the time when we got there.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Yeah, yeah. We'd go out and do little PT runs in Kuwait, and then it was like, oh my god, this is how so uh say I'll say that to say this. Like uh when I went to 107, um, our acclimatization was nothing. Like literally, we'd leave 29 Palms and we'd be able to get uh over there, and it was no different. So it was like uh 29 Palms being high desert, and uh so you didn't have to worry about elevation or you didn't have to worry about the heat at all. So it was very similar. So there's a difference.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

What do you remember of uh Camp Victory in Kuwait? Any specific memories?

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yeah, I remember it was very like barren and uh there's not a not a lot to do. And then when we came back, I mean they had an e-club, they had uh uh uh 31 flavors, they had ice cream, they had uh hamburger joints, all kinds of crap.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah, yeah, I think we actually came back through a different we didn't come back through Camp Victory on the when we came back, right? We went through like Camp Rifjon or one of the other camps. Yeah. So it it did have a whole lot more shit.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Yeah, I don't know if it was that way when we pushed in, but it was uh it was definitely that way when we came back, and it was uh very clear that we had different missions than uh than other individuals that were and uh they they definitely built it up, and it was like Little America when we came back. It was actually pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

I remember I think was it Burger King that they had there and I feel like there was a pizza joint too that they were able to uh get some pizza while we were some some crap.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yeah. It was like a uh like a mall uh food court going on over there.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yep, yeah. Yeah, and I remember they they the the PX wasn't too bad there too. And I remember I grabbed a that's where I I bought a really nice knife over there um that I carried. Ended up getting stolen out of my car ten years ago.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

The little pogs, the little uh the piece a-piece pogs.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Yeah, thank you. I actually found some of those in a box in my garage when I was like cleaning some crap out the other day. I found I found I was like, I can't believe I still have this crap.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And then uh let's see here. So like I said earlier, we we ended up driving up together. Yep. And uh what do you remember of uh I mean we we got uh we got an information at zero dark. I mean, I was like three in the morning or something like that, because if we crossed the LOD, I think at daybreak or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Just before.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah, it was it was still dark when we crossed.

Crossing The LOD And The Long Convoy North

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Yep. And then it was uh it was one stop we made where they uh I guess it was um some sort of security force that was doing route clearance. It was like on on that highway that was trying to clear all the highway. They got hit with an ID and uh a bunch of you know, and that's like kind of when the reality hit it, and it was like, oh my god, we're in we're in Indian country now. That's this this is uh this is starting to get real.

unknown 12:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

You know what I mean? Remember that that uh they had the vehicle with the door that would come off on the side, and the gunner could fire from the uh from the A driver's seat. And it was uh one dude got hit pretty bad on that, and um they came in and did a medevac right there at our at one of our spots, and it was that was that was that was eye-opening for me. I was like, Oh, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

This isn't a trip to Okinawa.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

This is uh this is something yeah, it's strange with that uh, you know, we had such a big convoy. You guys were in the exact same convoy I was in when we because we went on the first convoy that crossed the LOD from our uh battalion, and I don't know how many trucks we had in that convoy. I've looked at pictures and tried to count it up, but it's it's a lot, it's you know, however many 37 tons and a whole pile of Humvees, and we're driving 30 miles an hour. I mean, we didn't weren't driving fast, we were driving 30, 40 miles an hour the whole way up because the seven tons just really couldn't go much faster, according to them. They couldn't go much faster without overheating or whatever. I don't know, I don't know what the fuck they said, didn't matter to me. Uh and it felt like it took fucking forever to drive up and extremely stressful. And I'm amazed that we didn't get hit. That was my whole point was we we we didn't get hit at all. There was supposedly somebody reported pop shots in the back of the convoy, yeah. But but there was no impact, like nobody got hit with anything.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah, yeah. I don't I don't remember uh yeah, I remember what you're talking about, and uh it was one of those things where you you're trying to figure out where it's coming from, and and you know you're you you're new at this, so it's like oh yeah, absolutely. This is wide open desert on either side of us, and we're kind of like watching and trying to make sure that you know we can get our brothers up there to Ramadi safely. And it's like, come on, man, this is this is odd, man. This is odd. But yeah. But then when we uh we uh we arrived, it was crazy because we got thrown in it like immediately. Like those uh those airborne guys were were legit, man. The ones we did, uh I remember Muster and I went out on uh a couple of like right seat, left seat things, and you know, kind of like get to know the city and and stuff like that. I don't even know if anybody really knew we were doing that or or even wanted us to do that, but uh we'd ride out with those guys and it was like, ooh, man, this is gonna be different.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

We just got some clarification from someone on that too, that uh that I hadn't for I had forgotten the the complete part of that is that the guys that were helping us do that, um, left seat, right seat, weren't the technically the ones that were there from before. And so that's part of the reason why they were just screaming down Rount Michigan and not really showing us everything.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Well, I did not so from that note, I didn't realize that there were two units there that we were doing relief in place. So there was still some of the National Guard unit because we rode my when I did left seat, right seats, we rode with the National Guard guys. But apparently other people, and maybe you guys did too, uh rode with some of the some of the 82nd Airborne. And that's John, that's what you were mentioning. Is is the 82nd Airborne was probably who you did that. And I did not remember that at all.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

I I had forgotten that until he had uh given me that note.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

And so yeah, the 82nd Airborne guy, the one guy that was running the uh the patrols. Remember that guy had no voice. Like he was like screaming.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Remember how raspy his voice was because it was so like they they were they were really focused on making sure that uh supply lines stayed open and and stuff like that. They weren't doing like uh uh you know, locate, close with, and destroy like like we were gonna do um later in the deployment. They were more like uh we got guys that are separated all across the city, and we need to make sure that they can continuously stay uh resupplied and stuff like that. And they really drove fast and and like you know, didn't didn't like once they once they took contact, oh wait, wait, there's there's the bad guy we got to deal with, you know, hey, jump out and deal with that. They were like, hey, push through it and and get to get to where we're going and stuff. So very different, but at the same time, I I had a lot of respect for those guys.

First Casualties Seen And Reality Setting In

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah, it sounds like again, from the person who sent us this note, it was uh they had mentioned that they were uh not even a whole company, it was like just a few squads plus basically that were left behind. So they like they didn't even have their full capacity to do anything anyway.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Yeah, that makes sense. That explains a lot, like because like those guys, those I mean, it they weren't. I'm not trying to make them sound like if they were cowards or anything like that, because they certainly were not. No, they were um but they were out doing the job, and it seemed like they were very, very short. And yeah, yeah, it was pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Well, and I think you yeah, you make a good point too. I mean, they their uh their mission was different, you know. We're we were asked to hold the city and to well, when we first got over those sasso operations, so we were trying to win hearts and minds, but they were focused on making sure that uh Junction City and Blue Diamond and those out outposts were able to stay uh connected through the through that MSR of Michigan, and they didn't have any other well, both because they didn't have enough personnel, but also their the point was to keep the MSR open.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Correct so yeah, which uh later on we find out that wasn't as easy to said as done, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah, that's a seemingly small ask, but uh a very tall order.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Yeah, and it's crazy how fast you like uh and and I know I'm pushing ahead a little bit, but um uh it's amazing how fast you get used to craziness because by the time everybody else showed up and they started landing on helicopters and we started getting reinforced over there at uh hurricane point and stuff like that, we had already been mortared, I don't know how many times, mortared rockets, stuff like that, and we were used to it. And like they were still running for the hooch and stuff like that. We'd be like, hey guys, this this happens every day. Like you you need to you need to get used to it, man. Like uh and and they were like, Holy shit, how are you guys used to this already? And it was like, like, we're not tough guys at all. I just it's dude, I'm telling you, it just happens if you get used to it, and it's amazing what you can get used to.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

So I uh you saying that I uh have a vivid memory. It was you and I don't remember. There was two other guys, and it was early on, and we were walking over to the uh the phone booths, um, and uh and we got we got mortared. And I remember you and I kind of did like we were half stride and we kind of crouched down a little bit and and and just but just stood there and the other guys like tried to run and we're like don't run. They're they're we don't know where the like you're gonna run into it as likely as you just just just just stay here for a second because they're knocking the fins off of the goddamn mortars anyways, and so they're a they're erratic. Just yeah, just wait until it's done and then move on.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yeah, some of them are landing in the sand and not going off, guy. Like they're like water timers and like angle iron and shit, man. Like they're they're not yeah, they're tubes, bro. Like yeah, yeah. Yeah, we learned that early on. That was crazy.

Left-Seat Right-Seat With 82nd And Guard

SPEAKER_00 19:57

So let's see here. Uh we get as you said, they we started getting their guys in, and uh we I mean we hit the ground running. We were doing we were pushing out. Uh like you said, we were sledgehammer, and I was uh lead truck driver with uh Gunny Cook. And uh I remember those first couple days trying to I mean that was the reason why he had me as the drivers, he knew I wouldn't get lost. And that's what I know that he said that several times. He's like, whatever you do, do not. We cannot get lost out here.

unknown 20:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

And so what's truck now? Uh who were you with mostly? I mean, we kind of jumped around a lot, but who was uh who did you tend to run with?

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Until we started getting um until we started getting uh different reinforcements and moving guys around and stuff like that, I was the a driver or vehicle commander for uh Venticia's vehicle. And I was like one or two vehicles right behind you. That's right. And and believe me, when the way you learned the city, it was very, very good because like following you around um was was beneficial because Venicea great dude, great dude, but uh sometimes he scared me as a driver. I gotta be honest. Yeah, because we didn't have a whole lot of experience with V with uh night vision at that point, you know?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

No, who used to well and those and those were and uh I don't know which one he had because I know I had a binocular, but uh those binocular ones were something awful.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

So we were we were still running we were running previous generation stuff to the time that we were even there. Uh multiple people had seven bravos, which were like late 90s gear. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and if weighed like 10 pounds, yeah, and a few people had seven deltas, and we're like, and those are a little more clear, like as far as the technology went, but even that's multiple generations behind. Like, we would meet up with army units and be like, Wow, look at those fucking NVGs, they're so small, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Hey, did you guys get your night vision from the Smithsonian or what? Why are you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

But we and we had a couple 50 cows that were still running starlight scopes. I mean, that's a Vietnam era technology, like and that was they fucking clear as a bell in the middle of the night, but just I mean, ancient tech as far as when you're talking a 2004 deployment.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Yeah, well, even that, even with all that shit equipment, like those guys, I'm telling you right now, the machine gunners were the heroes of that deployment.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

By by a lot. Like, once we started like mixing it up, like because uh towards the end of the deployment, like I ended up with a uh with uh I I'm ashamed of not remembering the kid's name, but uh he was a tow gunner. And he Alderady? Yeah, aldered. That's right, that's right. Nice. Uh and that dude, man, he was on time with that machine gun, my guy. Like he knew exactly what he was doing. So he kept us alive. Like dismounts, we yeah, we did a bunch of stuff, and and you know, God bless him, but like the machine gunners, that those guys are the ones that kept us alive for real.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

So you had so you started out, you had you were the vehicle commander, you had Venicea. Who did you have in your up in your gun initially? And were you running a 240 or were you running a 50, or what'd you have?

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Yeah, I had like a pinle mount like what we like mounted in the back of a high back because I had the high back. Okay we were in the we were in the brown one. Remember, everybody else had a green one, and I had the brown one, and it kept getting hit with IEDs. Yeah, different, different was dead over there, boy. Yeah, yeah, they like to hit the the brown one. I think we I think my vehicle got hit with like six during that deployment. Yeah. I think our what what was the final numbers on the uh total number of IEDs we hit as a as a section, as a unit.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

I I have a count of 26.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Yeah, I was gonna say it's somewhere in a ballpark of 30.

Living Under Mortars And Adapting Fast

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah, I have a count of like 26 and stuff like that. And I know, and then my truck was hit with I was in a truck that got hit five times. Oh yeah, yeah. And then that and then and then plus the RPG that wasn't with us technically, it was with the other unit.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

But right.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

It was good times. That's scary at all. Yeah, that's uh and that that's that's also without any armor on a lot of those trim most of the times that went when we got hit was even that was pre-armor too.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

So oh yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we had some armor. I mean, remember when we went over to uh Junction City and we had the uh CBs teach us how to weld, and we're over there with stick welders burning holes in steel and like strapping this stuff to the side of these iPads.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

I have a picture of you looking very judgmental watching a CB burn a hole through uh through an armored door. Like it's the funniest fucking picture. I was in preparation for this podcast, I was looking through some old pictures and I was like, oh my god, that and you you have like your hands on your hips and you're like giving this guy the weirdest look, and it's fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

What the fuck are we doing? We even cut all the steel to shape with the stick welders, like we were blowing holes to put bolts through these holes. Yeah, it's such terrible. And when I jumped on the welder to help the uh CBs out, I was wearing two pairs of sunglasses. And of course, I'm in boots and youths over there, uh, and my arms were so sunburned from the welder.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Oh man, it was terrible. I come back, and you know, Gunny Cook at Seth Cook at the time was like, dude, what's wrong with your skin? I was like, Man, I was rocking a welder, and uh, I didn't have a welding jacket. I it's I'm terrible at this. I apologize in advance for how bad the welds are. It was well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Uh that's awesome.

unknown 26:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

It's funny, even as bad as all those booger welds are and that and all that shit was, it probably saved some dudes at least from some eye trauma. It may not have saved you from like some of the bigger shit, because some of the bigger shit cut right through that armor. But you know, kicking up glass and dirt and sand and pieces of shitter pipe and everything else, it stuff that would have been blown into your face, you know, got blocked.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Right. Yeah, there was a lot to be said about the morale of it. I mean, just feeling like you had some control, like you had anything, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was definitely, yeah, man. Before that, I had done a little bit of welding, but like uh nothing like that. I just I'm not very good at it. And my uh my father-in-law actually is a pipe fitter, he's like a professional welder. And when I told him what I was doing over there, he's like, What are you crazy? You could have been blinded.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Yeah, you gotta do what you gotta do, man. Couldn't find a welding helmet over there.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

No, I uh when I did it, I would just uh try and line it up and just like close my eyes and turn my head away and just do like like four-inch runs and then look again and be like, eh, good enough.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

That'll stay. Yeah, yeah, that'll hang out. It's not it's not structural, it's just oh yeah. We just want to keep this metal in place to, you know, like like Shane said, I should block all that debris that's that's flying towards us. But I do you do you ever remember getting briefed on anything about IEDs before we went like not to the extent?

Early Missions, Sledgehammer, And City Navigation

SPEAKER_00 28:05

I don't know. I don't know if everybody went to it, but I definitely went to a it was a PowerPoint presentation back in uh San Mateo and it was you know 30 30-ish slides. Um and they just really ran by it really fast. But the thing is is that the the information was not I don't know how to say I don't want to knock anybody too much, but it was just it it was in such infancy of of understanding that the information they were giving, like for example, I remember they said um an IED could be in a Coke can, it would be filled with gunpowder, and if you and and if you come across that, you need to have a 200-foot offset. And it's like and what you know, the reality of that over there is like A, that's not how they're doing it, but B, like you can't offset that much, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

So yeah, what was our do you remember our battalion gunner? Was his name? His name was Abbott, correct? Gunner Abbott?

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Gunner Abbott, yeah. Uh yeah, Gunner Abbott. Yeah, we had another uh our warrant officer that we took over was like Reed.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yes, yeah, that's right. Uh Gunner Abbott was, I think, the one that that led up that particular PowerPoint training because I was there as well. And the pictures that they had were improvised devices from Northern Ireland, primarily, because that was the that was the most recent conflict where they anybody had had IEDs. And a lot of that stuff was British, um, like sort of some information from the Brits, but they were on like a police mission. It's just a very different, right? Vastly different uh scenario, and also that vastly different arsenal. Uh clearly Northern Ireland doesn't have 155 howitzer rounds to stick fuses in. And so there's no, you know, there wasn't much comparison as far as that went. The only other time, and since both of you went to that language class that we talked about IEDs was at March Air Force Base, and we did a few IED drills uh and like talked about what we would do. Like, oh, you found an explosive, this is how you're gonna set a cordon, this is how you're gonna call for EOD, and like, you know, what what do you need to do now? And it not any kind of preparation, but it's the same thing. There were some Brits there, and so they kind of brought up like their experience, uh, their experience with Ireland, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Yeah, I think it was in its infancy with them using uh that as a as a weapon against the Americans that were over there. And I think that they and govern Gunnar Abbott was smart enough to to to realize that that's gonna be something that's gonna like evolve and be a big weapon against us because I mean, be let's be honest, like I wouldn't want to fight us on a fair fight either.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

No, I don't want to go toe to toe with the Marine Corps. That's that's that's just that don't even make any sense. So why not try to one, you know, break their morale and then one strike fear in them like to even ride around uh because there's gonna be these big explosions. So and of course they got bigger as the as the deployment went on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

I was just gonna say that we got lucky because, you know, as they it to your point, that they were trying to figure it out when we didn't have armor, and we got lucky because you know, the number of times that they either positioned it the wrong direction for the explosion or too deep um really saved our asses a couple times. Um, I don't know if you remember, it was later on in the deployment when they had that a daisy chained one, it was like three 155s in a row. Yep. And thank God they had it buried as deep as they did. And also thank God that when it popped, it was in between the trucks enough. But my God, that rooster tail. I think that thing went up 20 feet in the air.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Yeah, and you know, I mean, us being mower guys, um, you know, everybody expected us to be able to look at the crater and be like, hey, do a little on it and figure out how big these things are getting. And it's like, man, dude, like this is all brand new stuff, you know. We're like, yeah, we're I can tell you what I think it is, but right.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

I'm not forensics, man. I just drop rounds, I don't go investigate.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

So do you remember the first time you guys got hit?

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Uh yeah, I think the first like uh IED strike that um I I think it's the first memorable one at least is the one that Lorth got hit, that bike bomb.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Uh hit about him. And uh yeah, that one that one is the first time uh you know I say that you know that the riding with 82nd Airborne and stuff like that was uh a wake-up call, or even the the even the individuals that got injured while we were convoying up was like, hey, you know, you're you're in the shit now. Like you need to you need to throw the switch and and you know become a different dude. But like uh I think the the first one was when Warwick got hit. It's like that's when it that's when it hit home. One of our brothers got hit and we had to send him uh send him out of country. And um yeah, that was that's the one that was like, oh, oh yeah, this this shit is dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Were you were you part of the uh because I think we sp, if I remember correctly, we split up where some stayed because we needed to uh gather intel and all that good other good jazz, and then a group went to combat outpost. Um I remember I was holding a I I remember I was holding a sp a uh a corner for that until they got other people from the battalion out there. But and did were were you a part of the uh evac or were you did you stay behind?

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that uh we we grabbed doc and we grabbed Warth and we and we um were part of the ones that went to Charlie Med to bring him over there because um I remember you guys telling the stories about finding the pieces of the bike and stuff like actually figuring out that that's because once we rode by it, we were like, oh shit, there it is, and then it was too late.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Yeah, no, that that does uh that I I don't want to call it regret, but that does it it does sometimes bother me that I I remember very vividly seeing that goddamn bike as we're coming up to it and being like, uh and then it yeah as soon as I got I I didn't I didn't say anything, I just I didn't get it out and then it popped right behind me. Yep, and so it was a blue bike, a blue bike with a basket on the front of it.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

I think I was uh I think I was Vic three. I think I was Vic three on that. I think Warth was Vic two, yeah. Yep, yep.

Learning IEDs The Hard Way

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Um yeah, yeah, and then you were Vic one, obviously, and then um yeah, I think I if I remember correctly, I think it would have been your truck and then last truck that took Warth to Charlie and Matt, and then it was Gunny Cook, my truck, and then the rest of the team from um truck two. Yep. Um and actually the big thing that came from that was afterwards Gunny Cook gave me one of the best leadership pieces of advice ever. Um he he pulled me aside and he said, Hey, good job out there. Uh however, I saw you getting pretty emotional out there, like kind of getting angry and stuff like that. And he's like, You were not how did he say it? He said, Make you you are a leader of Marines, which means that you are a leader of dogs of war. Only let out the amount of leash that you can handle. And uh and that was a an amazingly well put thing because I was thinking back, I was like, I don't because they were throwing rocks at us. Yeah. And I remember just being like, please hit me in the face with a rock, please hit me in the face with a rock. And uh that that mentality I knew would have escalated if I didn't, you know, get my head screwed on straight, and him pulling me aside kept my kept my uh emotions more in check the rest of the deployment.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Tell you there's a lot of that, and and later on in my career when I became a platoon sergeant, I did a lot of things that I uh emulated from that guy because that guy he's he's one of the best Marines I ever served with by a lot. And I had the benefit of uh leaving 2-4 going to SOI and becoming an instructor, and he was there. Oh, really? Yeah, he was uh he was an infantry unit leader instructor for a while, and like he was at the schoolhouse with me. And I actually got the benefit of actually you know talking to him on on other situations and and you know, picking his brain and and becoming a better Marine because I knew that dude. I'm I'm telling you, that that that guy, yeah. I I where is he at? Have you have you spoken to him?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

He's senior enlisted um for uh Pacific. Wow. The last I saw. And that was like last two years ago year and a half ago, I think I looked it up. So I don't know where he's at right now. But he's still whoop, he's still whooping it on. I would love to have a conversation with him.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah, he's uh oh Eric Cook, he is uh yeah, yeah, he's uh he's he's top of the list of the guys that have been influential in my life, and yeah, great dude.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

And so how and this is very divergent from Ramadi, but how many years did you end up doing in the Marine Corps?

SPEAKER_02 37:34

I did 12 years uh active. Yeah, I went to SOI, but uh was an instructor for a contract, and then I went on to one seven and deployed with those guys several times too. So as a platoon sergeant as a uh as a section leader for the 81s, uh did a little time as the um with the with the sniper platoon and stuff like that, and you know, it a lot of weapons company stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Nice. I I always think it's interesting because I've you know we've had a few different people on here and having these conversations. I uh people that have taken things away from senior leadership and then gone on and you're passing it on. Like it you never realize what you do that ends up passing forward so much more. And I imagine I imagine I don't know, he's probably a master sergeant or sergeant major, but he's a sergeant major, right? When you look at major yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's a sergeant major now, and so he's probably, you know, uh not that he's forgotten the deployment, but it's probably hard for him to understand his impact.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

Yeah, he had a he had a slew of experience before he even showed up, you know what I mean. Um yeah, yeah. He uh he did well, he did that uh Mew with Liberia, like that whole Liberia thing, I think.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

That's correct. Yeah. No, he was a quiet leader. I I really respected his intellect. And uh he had a he was a he was an amazing platoon sergeant for us for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and platoon and section commander. I mean he wasn't the only he wasn't the only one that was a that that that was the case, but um, but I know what with the other section, so yeah, he was literally, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Well he ended, yeah, he ended up being the the lieutenant essentially, right? Like yeah, it's it's really unusual to me that command structure that we had where we're all of a sudden we split up our largest platoon into two platoons, and then we're like, oh wait, we don't have enough commanders for it. But I mean we didn't have enough commanders for map three either, right? We had a gunnery sergeant in the platoon commander billet over there as well. Yeah, that it it was just a it was just a thing. We were short a lot of people. We had a lot of we had a lot of platoon sergeants who were actual sergeants instead of being a gunnery sergeant, which is what it should be, and you know, a lot of stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah. We had a lot of great leaders as far as NCOs are concerned, too, though.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Like 100%.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

Like that's where I learned how to be an NTO. Like we had sergeants that were top notch, man.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Who'd you have? So we had uh Escabel with us.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Yeah, you know, we always had uh you know, we had Flex Garcia back in the day, and you know, we had a lot of sergeants that were that were gangster, man. These guys were great.

The Blue Bike Bomb And Leadership Lessons

SPEAKER_00 40:16

We had Diaz too. He came later though. Yeah, um, but he was he was with us with uh Sledgehammer. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Um but we were light he was another quiet lady.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Like um specifically when we got remember when we rolled out of Hurricane Point and we got down by uh where Fox Company was at.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Snake Pit Snake Pit, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Yeah, we went we were rolling towards Snake Pit, and that IED was placed on the uh um the K rails, the jersey barriers that were uh out in front of there, and that popped on my vehicle and it it fucked my vehicle up, man. Like we barely limped that back to Hurricane Point. Well, it knocked me unconscious for a second. Like I was laying in the and Diaz come back and he pulled my door open and he slapped me in the face and he woke me up. Like kind of because I was dazed. I was like, I don't remember what happened. I just woke up and the and like the whole truck was full of smoke. Sky. I could actually see the sky from inside the Humvee because it was that fucked up. And we limped it back to Hurricane Point. And uh before that, he pulled everybody out to you know push security out and stuff like that. And he pushed me. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, I I I was useless, man. I gotta be honest with you. Like my head, my bell was rung so bad, and uh uh Eldretti got peppered in his face, and uh it was pretty legit. Um, but we come back through the gate and the gate guards are like, we heard the bomb going, like we were limping in there, like the front wheel was hanging on to the vehicle, and we were uh all on flat. We were all in it. I looked at the gate guards, I was like, woo! And they were like, oh thank we went back near the motor pool and parked at something. We had to VAS, and they're like, Oh, you need to wait, you know, we're gonna wake up the doc. We're gonna wake up the uh medical officer and stuff like that. And and we all decided that we were gonna go and um grab another vehicle from the motor pool and go meet up with our guys out in town. And never stuck around. And I tried to link up with you on the radio, and we're like, hey, where are you guys at? And they're like, wait, wait a minute, why why are you guys coming back out here? And I was like, Yeah, we we gotta get back out there. But yeah, that was a that that night was nuts.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

I remember I that I forgot about that one, but yeah, that was a that was nuts, man.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

They tore that vehicle up, man.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

I think that was the last time that one went out, isn't it? I don't think they ever fixed that one back up.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Oh yeah, it was it was done. It was finally done. Yeah, yeah, that was the brown one. It was it was finally done. Yeah, yeah. The pale horse. Yeah, yeah, that's what we called it. Was the pale horse, that's right. Remember, uh Snaidelman drove the pale horse for a while, I think, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Yeah, it got rotated around a little bit, but yeah, we yeah, I think I and I don't know if other it I've gotten the impression that we were a little unique and that I don't feel like we had hard set like who we would run with every single time. Like my felt like the back end of like I had a different driver often, um, and then the back end of my truck had different guys in it fairly frequently. I think kind of firmed up towards the end a little bit, but um but I think we switched out a lot more than a lot of other places because you guys kept it pretty static, right, Nylon?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

100%. So coming from a cat platoon structure and then moving to a mobile assault platoon wasn't that different for us, but it was a little different in that you know, more dismounts, a little more kicking down doors and doing you know stuff in a city. But uh the idea is that you have the exact it's just like having a gun team, I assume, although I've never been on a mortar gun team, is that you have the exact same person, so you do the exact same repetitions over and over and over again. And so your driver is always your driver, your commander's always your commander, the a gunner is always the a gunner, the gunner's always the gunner, and you really don't even rotate positions in the truck much. Everybody kind of does the same thing over and over again, and they and uh the only time you switch is either when you have to or somebody's wounded or something like that. But otherwise, it's it's meant to be very static for a reason.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Yep. Yeah, that was uh that was smart. Like you guys adapted really, really, really well. Like not having an armor threat, you know what I mean? Like right, yeah, you your combined anti-armor teams had to convert to that, you know, map concept. And uh I think you guys really like made that like a thing for the Marine Corps. Like you literally you know built it into something that it's very, very useful.

Static Crews, MAP Tactics, And Machine Gunners

SPEAKER_01 45:05

I would I would love to take credit. It definitely was not any of our ideas. I don't I would love to know who came up with the idea because it did, if you look at the command publications later that came after our deployment, it became the universal concept uh afterwards. I mean they put a little tweaks and tunes on it, but that was really like it worked so well here. This is what we're doing everywhere now.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Yeah, I'm sure it's like a gunner somewhere or something came up with the concept. Absolutely. But you guys proved the concept, right? Like it yeah, yeah, very good.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

So here, let's go back a little ways and go back to uh so after Worth.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

I mean, um to just to put a date on it, right? We we crossed the LOD March 6th. Worth got hit in the face March 20th, like that was very early. That was the first two weeks.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

Yep, yep, it was very early. Yep. It was one of those things where there's a lot of young kids that had to grow up and be men like right away, like instantly. Like we thought we were out there doing some stabilization stuff, we're gonna build some schools, we're gonna, you know, make sure these guys have fair elections and all this other stuff, and then you know, all of a sudden, whoa, there's a threat here. You know what I'm saying? And it yeah, those guys, it was legit.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Yeah, I remember those first couple missions. I mean, I I remembered going out and handing out soccer balls. I remember going to a couple schools, um and uh really inner, I remember interacting having more uh public relation effort based missions um on that early on the early stuff. And I think we might have taken fire prior to war. I have a half memory of that, but I don't think we did, I don't think there wasn't anything to do about it.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

No, I think they I think they were testing us, I think they shot a few rounds at us and took off. We did stop, we did get out, and we did look for them, and we did things that uh other individuals in that city didn't do prior to us. Um, obviously because our our mission hadn't changed, but uh um yeah, they would they were like, oh, let's see what these guys are about. I mean, they're wearing different uniforms, they they dress a little different, like let's see what they're about. They were and they were good about testing us too.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

So do you remember I don't know why this made me think of it, but do you remember when we captured those guys from either Kenya or Liberia or whatever?

SPEAKER_01 47:25

We were uh Sudan was my memory.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Sudan, there it maybe that's what it is. But uh we were it was a night, it was uh it was when there was curfews, and we were coming down, we were coming off of Nova up in that area, and we're coming down, and all of a sudden we saw a bunch of guys from like Sudan. There's like 14 of them. And we uh went to went to go try to talk to them. We got a couple of them.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

You mean the corner of Ramadi doesn't have 14 black guys standing in the corner in the middle of the night?

SPEAKER_00 47:56

It's well, there's two reasons why we wanted to stop. We're like, well, you guys don't quite to be part of the neighborhood profile here, and also it's curfew violation.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Um well, like I said before, you know, different is a problem in Ramada.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Yeah, you're like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Those poor guys, they had just gotten dropped off, too. They were supposed to go meet up at a uh at their safe house and they had just gotten dropped off. Yeah, we came around the corner and were like, nope.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

Yeah, Uber drops them off at their location, snatch them up like five seconds later. It was crazy.

unknown 48:41

Yep.

Snake Pit IED And The Pale Horse

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Yeah, and that's the one where uh that was actually, I think that might have been the last time I was a driver for uh Cook because uh when they took off running, uh I I took off after them, Cook, Escavel, and I think there was another person that we all ran after the guy that took off. And um one of one of us shot him. And uh I remember Cook then turning back with the other guy going back to the trucks, and it was Escavel and I were staying there with the guy. And um anyways, to make a long story short, afterwards uh we circled up and we're like, okay, we can't have the like the three top people in the unit leaving the convoy. We need to make sure that we distribute this this out a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Um and so all in the section runs off into the darkness. Yeah, yeah, we probably should preserve some sort of chain of command.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

So that's when I got my own truck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

John, do you remember uh just because we're kind of early in the deployment as far as storytelling goes? Uh, do you remember the first time you guys got to shoot back where you actually had a standing gun fight? Because pop pop shots seemed like it happened to everybody early, but it like you said, ghosts in the darkness. Do you remember the first time you got to actually see an enemy?

SPEAKER_02 50:11

Yeah, so like um we were running um so do you remember how we got broke up into like five sections? Like we had the taskable and then the QRF and then the ghost horse, and you know, night and day, obviously. And then um we were running um Muster, if you can help me out with this, like we were running uh security on a um resupply when when someone had opened up on us, and we we got out and we um saw a guy on the rooftop with a machine gun. Um and then we ended up securing that house and hitting the house.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

That was at the far end of the city, right? Right, yeah. It was like it was down. Yeah, it was yeah, yeah. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 50:54

Yeah, so we we had uh combat outpost, we had run uh this all the supplies from combat outpost uh back towards Hurricane Point, uh Blue Diamond, um, stuff like that. And we it shit, we had barely barely entered the city from Combat Outpost when we started getting engaged. And the seven tons had a bunch of tires blown out, and back then remember when the seven tons, if they got a flat tire, it would lock the brakes up on it like they had that problem. So that seven ton started dragging its ass down route Michigan trying to get out of the uh the the kill spot, but we moved in and then pushed them off of that vehicle. Um that was probably the first time we had a like a uh a somewhat of a sustained gunfight. It was the beginning of you know when we started trading fire with people.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

But that's that's right. I can't remember when that would have been, though.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Yeah, you and I were sitting there, we were on that corner, and you were firing over my shoulder.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Uh-huh. Right by my ear, and I'm like, you know, you you actually elbowed me in the gut on that. I'm like, you're like, stop shooting in my ear, motherfucker.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Yeah, the A just that was worth 10%, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

Yeah, you can use this uh take the snippet for your uh buddy statement.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Yeah, yeah, they're paying me 10% for that one.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

If if you recall any more details, can you do you mind uh elaborating a little?

SPEAKER_02 52:26

There was a guy, so we ended up the the uh the owner of the house, uh or uh who appeared to be the owner of the house, the first time I got pissed off because the dude started laughing when we grabbed him. Remember that muster? Like we grabbed him and he started laughing as we were like clearing the house and everything. And dude, I just I actually uh ended up being the guy that just was holding security on him, and everybody started going into the house and clearing it all out. And like once everybody kind of disappeared into the house and stuff, I seriously contemplated beating this dude's ass because he he's he thought it was hilarious that we were getting shot at from the roof of his house. And uh there was a bunch of brass up there. I don't think we ever got the guy, did we?

Curfew Stop, Foreign Detainees, And Command Discipline

SPEAKER_00 53:11

Did we that not not on that one? We never figured out it, it wasn't the guy, it it wasn't the owner, quote unquote. Um he was there, but like but he was he was he was definitely there. Um, and we found the brass, and I believe we found we ended up taking him because he had um he had two guns.

SPEAKER_02 53:33

Yeah, and so we we were able to use that as the of justification for um Yeah, I remember we dropped him off and then uh the Intel guys wanted to talk to him like he was like somebody of interest or something.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

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