The First Lioness - Ranie Ruthig (part 1 of 2)

Straight shooting story from Ranie Ruthig, a mechanic Staff Sergeant who became a Lioness in 2004 Ramadi, building a mission from nothing, learning the culture, and surviving April’s chaos with Weapons Company Marines. The stories are raw, funny, and unfiltered, and full of details that can only come directly from the woman who lived it.

• converting Camp Rifle to Junction City with no infrastructure
• plywood armor, scarce showers, and late-night recovery runs
• why Lioness teams formed and why they always paired up
• early missions with 1-5 Field Artillery and Weapons Company 2/4 Marines. 
• culture and language gaps between Army and Marines
• April 2004 tempo, contact, and on-the-job lessons
• inside Iraqi homes, tea etiquette, and gender roles
• handing over to replacements and selecting the right people

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. 

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Transcript

Setting The Scene In Ramadi

SPEAKER_03 0:37

All right. Well, let's introduce you.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Okay, my name is uh Randy Ruthig. In 2004, I was a um newly promoted staff sergeant when I started going with the weapons company, which would have been the E6 Army Staff Sergeant. And I was with HHC First Engineers out of the um 1st Infantry Division, out of Fort Riley, Kansas.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Nice. Nice. And you guys are primarily based out of Junction City in Ramadi, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yes, and that was named Junction City because um Fort Riley is next to Junction City, Kansas.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Oh, that's that why?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

That is why.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

I see. This is one of the one of the favorite parts of these uh these conversations is all these fun little nuggets of uh where where the where things were why they were named, how they were named. That's awesome. Thank you for that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

That is why when we came in, it was actually rifle, camp rifle when we came in there. Um and because we came in in October of 03.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Okay, okay.

From Camp Rifle To Junction City

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Um so it was basically just us at um, well, Camp Rifle, and we renamed it to Junction City because the first infantry division took that area over. And um we had nothing there. It was a nasty, um, nasty uh prison that was triple constant and wired up. They left everything when they left. So every thing. The bodies were still there. Oh wow. It was nasty going in there because um we had a detachment of chemical guys with us. They had to put their chemsuit suits on to get you know to be able to dispose of those bodies correctly. Uh, I mean, a shower pit of like a 12-man shower pit. Women got a whole hour a day. We're so lucky. The mechanic, that was awful because I was a um track vehicle mechanic. Well, but when I turned as an E6, I turned into a wheel vehicle mechanic. Um and in that unit, I was uh the platoon sergeant for HHC for the maintenance, and then um I was on their wrecker besides. So we'd go out on late night missions and recovery, and our female shower time was at 1800. So if you did PT, you waited all day, wasn't that nice? It was special.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Oh, the the crazy rules that they made in combat.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Detach from reality.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

It was so let's see.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

So Octo, how did you guys drive up then to do your release?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Is that yeah, and our convoy broke down right outside of Fallujah on the on the clover leaf. Oh wow, yeah, and we got a counter bullet holes when we came in, and we came in soft, so we were, I mean, we came in naive. We had plywood in our doors and sandbags in our floors. Dumb.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Yeah, we we weren't any better with our little tin half doors either.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

And oh no, I remember when I remember we were out on the mission with one five when I started watching your seven tons come in about the end of March to April. Yeah, end of March, you guys came in, and I watched you guys roll in. I'm like, oh, they just as dumb as we were. Look at them go. Because you know, everybody's dumb when you first came into country, especially back in 04, you know, 03-04.

Arriving Soft And Learning Fast

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Well, that was kind of what I was thinking is is you know, everybody did the push. There was the the race to Baghdad, and then the race to the outer areas, and and then they just well, now what do we do? And we had this the transition, and so it's wild that you had um you I mean your experience almost mirrors ours, where the unit that was before us, they just left. They left everything right where it was and just left. We found trash and grenades that were buried and and all kinds of stuff. So if I remember correctly, and I I may be wrong, but uh, you guys did some missions where you were out with the populace long before we were ever there.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Actually, we started doing lioness missions with 1-5 field artillery, was the most um that was that was Colonel Brinkley, our our battalion commander, right? And Colonel uh Cambria. Um they were the brainchild of the lionesses. They wanted to initially, I think uh Colonel, I'm sure it was Cambry. Um, he wanted to call us shield maintenance. Um, so they all and he wanted just a female to go with because they were doing, you know, just like you guys learned as you went in there that you know you guys were losing so much intel, you couldn't touch the females, you couldn't touch the kids. And um, they're like, We we gotta have a female. Well, there was only in our unit, there was 500 males and 19 females, you know, because of the engineer unit. Uh 15 had no one, 116th had no one, and some now some of the sport units had something, but they weren't letting their females out, no males, you know, because that rule was there, you know, there was no females in combat, there was no everything else like that. But Colonel Cabri and Colonel Um Brinkley had a tight, you know, tight relationship. So they started talking about how do what does this look like? How do we protect them? And so Colonel Kane uh Brinkley wasn't gonna give out one female. He's like, because I can never guarantee your guys are gonna protect my soldier.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

You're just not. He's like, so you can't have one, you can have two. And so that's always went out as a pair, and so that way we could always protect each other. And so usually we always paired up pretty common with each other, so we would learn. So I went out um pretty common with Shannon after we learned who could do what roles. So, like when Shannon and actually it was Stone went on the very first line nest mission, and I took them to them over uh 1.5, and it was before Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

It was right around um, I want to say it was actually around. We got there in October, and I think we were doing it by November. We were we were going with 1.5. Uh 116 and you know, they're infantry, so they don't think they need help. So they didn't call for us as you know, that's how they are.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Um it's true, that's how we are too.

The Birth Of The Lioness Teams

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah, uh they didn't call on us as much until they were some real big missions that we went out. So we started doing it, knocking searches, knocking greets. Um pretty regularly. I mean, probably at least once a week. But Shannon and uh Shannon and Jessica Stone were the first to go out on that mission. And then, because you know, it was a night mission, and um, and I remember they came back with Intel because that was the first time, you know. Hey, keep your hair down. It's like, well, that's a that seems a little weird, you know. Spent how many years of your military? Put your hair up, put your hair up. Right. You know, telling me to put my hair down. And um, so after they went out, and that proved to be so successful, they started doing more missions and more missions. Um, Shannon seemed to get the weird shit. Shannon and Stone. They got teamed up together. They caught one, they ended up catching somebody, and they went into the prison because we got the prison cleaned up. And uh and I think this was the last mission because uh Stone ended up falling and breaking her leg and having to go back to the rear. Uh so that was the last mission. They didn't do too many together before uh Shannon and I started doing them together. But they were in they brought the prisoners into the um the prison for to hold. And uh so they're standing outside and they're kind of and one of the because we still had you know the some of the Iraqis that were the good guys and everything, and they were in there, and he started swallowing a sword. And I'm like, because I'm over there to pick him up, and I'm like, what is going on? I mean, he's up there and just swallowing the sword, and I'm like, What's going on? But you know, we were still that was still when they were kind of everything, we were winning hearts and souls and minds. Right. Yeah, we went to the schools, we did a lot of running over to Camp Hurricane and getting water, you know, that good old water that we can't drink no more. Uh and all those rashes. Uh, we went over there and we'd bring them in because Ramadi'd get no water, so we'd bring it in the water, we'd let them drink it. Um, we'd bring water into them. Um, we'd do that, a lot of that kind of stuff, you know, to win the hearts and minds going into school. I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

So your your AO out of uh JC would have been more than Ramadi because of where you were. Were you getting into the other areas, or was it really only when you're getting when missions were run in Ramadan?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

So running this missions, we stuck with Ramadi area. I would go to TC and Aconda and stuff like that, but those were record missions.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

So that was uh a TC and then a gunner on a Hemet wrecker, besides.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

So I mean, I got out of the wire down to uh Baghdad and all that, but that was because we were on record missions, so I got that. So I got all that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Yeah, you know, it's and for us, for our unit, when we got there, I don't know, I don't know if you've ever been to a Marine base, but anybody who's in as part of a uh Victor unit, there's literally no female presence at all in our training camp for our whole regiment.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Even our attachments, our attachments had to not have any females in it, too.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Right. We we had no female.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Oh, yeah, back then. I mean it's different now, but yeah. Yeah, this is O4.

First Missions And Early Intel Wins

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Yeah, yeah. We had no female mechanics, we had no female medical personnel, we had no female comm, uh, nothing. I remember it was a huge deal. They could not get a uh a dentist to come to our dental office forever, and they finally got a temporary approval for a female dentist, and it was like this was the only woman on our whole whatever six, seven thousand person camp. And everybody was like, You have to be you have to be nice and you can't use bad language when you walk by the dental office. Yeah, it was a huge deal.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

I was the first female when they opened up the engineers. I was over in uh Korea. I was up and they opened up the engineers, and the first time that was my very first duty station was uh Korea. And um, so I ended up going back over there. Uh after I actually elected to go back over there because I like the sense of mission and everything else like that. You know, it wasn't the reason that you know people go to Okinawa or you know, Korea, because some women like to go over there because you know you're queen for the year. I didn't like it. I like the sense of the mission. You know, you had a job, you had purpose. Um I like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

I know you guys were thinking no comment, no comment, no, but that's hilarious. But I love what you snuck in there. I caught it. I and that's that's freaking hilarious.

Life Support, Showers, And Rules

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Queen for the year. I If in America, she's a three, but it's oh that's too funny. Um Army some shit doesn't change. Um but uh I like to, you know, because there was a sense of mission and everything. And I was in uh Kansas, and I went, Oh my god, I don't want to be in Kansas. And the Army calls it the KKK tour, and they call it the Kansas Korea, the Kansas Tour. And that's what they are like to do to you. That's you know, that's what you're doing. You're going to Kansas, you go over to Korea for a year, and you come back. And they're like, How did you end up with a backwards KKK tour? And I said, Well, I volunteered to go back, and I'm like, So the first time, because my name's Rainey and I was a track vehicle mechanic, the first time I went over there, I get to you know the turtle farm because you know it takes you a year from to go to one building to the next, and you know, in Korea, you know, because when you get there and then across the street and then you come back and you then you get out, and so just in processing, and I get there and they're like, Well, so they come to pick me up and they're like, Well, you're a female, and I'm like, last I checked, and they're like, Well, you can't go to you can't go up to the uh the DMZ, and I'm like, I don't want to go up there, and so I ended up staying on Camp Casey, and then then I ended up in a 701st of port in Kansas and going back over there, and I had not heard that the engineers had opened up to females, and I ended up I'm sitting around the turtle farm, got done taking our PT tests and getting all our shots, you know, everything with the new duty station, and you're overseas. And and I'm like, okay, and they pull up and they tell you the duty stations, and they're like, okay. And at that time, my name was Moore, and they're like, All right, specialist Moore, you're going to 44th Engineer Battalion. And I went, Holy shit, no, I'm a girl. Girl, they're still there. I'm a girl, you know, and they're like, Oh, yeah, the engineers open to female my life. And uh, so that's why I've been up 12 miles from the damn DMZ and the and the first female to go on Camp House Korea, and so that was a very eye-opening experience because you know, I was used to being into I was in a male-dominated MOS, and a maintenance field is male dominated anyway. But to go onto a post with, you know, I am like female number one, that was it's like they're like, oh my god, and engineers are you know, they're just as bad as infantry and everything else. You're they're peeing everywhere, they're cussing, and I'm like, you know, I have enough years in the military by this time. I don't sure. And I'm like, yeah, it was good time. So yeah, I do. I I understand all that whole thing with the men going like it's a girl.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Well, we we had uh we had uh gotten in trouble uh even the one time when we were uh on our way over to Iraq in the first place, our plane broke down a couple of times, and the one time we were uh at a Air Force base for a little bit and we were running we were running PT and uh we were singing singing some uh motivational cadences and uh gotten a little bit uh asked to tone down our uh our favorite uh verses. And so uh gotta mind our P's and Q's apparently. But uh but so you you were running your so how could you kind of going back to the Iraq time frame and how did was there a selection process after they had come up with this uh this brainchild, or did they just grab people?

SPEAKER_00 16:02

So only um the only females that did it was in the uh first engineer battalion. Uh Colonel Brinkley's females were the only one. Our battalion also was the only female, uh only battalion that co-mingled. So we slept right next to the male soldiers. Um Colonel Brinkley, I think he did an amazing job of making us not that we were untouchable, but um, we took away the pedestal. He, you know, because you know, the infantry or the one fives would come up to the guy sleeping next to us and be like, Oh my god, you're sleeping next door, you're to sleep right next to Ruthig. That must be so cool. And they'd be like, Ooh, no, that's Ruthig, man, because it'd be like sleeping with your sister by then.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Right. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

They took all the joy, you know, of the untangible just away.

unknown 16:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Right.

Working With Marines And Culture Gaps

SPEAKER_00 16:57

I think that was the smartest thing Colonel Brinkley did. The other thing is our, you know, our company commander was a female. You know, I'm on a wrecker and the uh platoon sergeant for uh the maintenance. So I mean, I need to be with the male soldiers. And then we have Shannon too in maintenance, and like every section has at least one female. Now the cooks have a lot. Cooks, I mean, it seems cooks and medics are where all the chicks are at. That's just where they go. Um, Ed, of course, like uh we didn't have a lot in the admin. It was basically a few in supply, but it was mainly cooks and medics. And we started the selection at one point in time, especially when April, when everything went down shaking hard, all 19 of our females to include Captain Pendry or Major uh Colonel Gus Horseman is when she got out, were out on a mission. I mean, they had all 19 of us out on really with that big, huge remember when all of us were out night and day, and for some odd reason, you guys decide that the perfectly good trucks that are driving right beside of us, we shouldn't get in, and we need to walk the five miles with rucksacks and people shooting at us because that's marine mentality right there. Like a fucking good truck. Why are we walking still?

SPEAKER_03 18:17

Yeah, that sounds like us.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

We're still walking, it's new, not dying. But so um it was really mission. Um mission and who kind of fit the best categories. So I mean, y'all met me. I mean, I am and Shannon. So I mean, we're kind of big country girls, you know. We grew up hunting and fishing, you know, shooting, not much backs us down. We both got pretty much a mouth on us. And um CJ and Brandy were kind of the same way. So that's why we got picked for the I'm not I'm gonna say the rougher or harder missions. Not that all missions weren't bad, but the ones that the Marines, we we typically always went with the Marines. If the Marines called us up, we would go, you know, okay, the Marines need somebody, and one five needs somebody. Us four would go with the Marines, and they'd pick other females to go with one five or and stuff like that. So it was just on who kind of fit what would needed to be done. Like Nava, she went on a lot of the um school missions, the schoolhouse missions or the hospital missions. She was a little softer, a little softer. You know, not that she couldn't do her job. She was just, you know, she just seemed a little softer of a soldier to be, you know, that sounds mean. She's kind of soft, girl. Um but you know, she just wasn't all right, if I gotta shoot somebody, I'm gonna go ahead and shoot her type of person, I guess. Right. So that's ended up how it went, is just, you know, Captain Penry was the one who put us out there. And I mean, we'd already basically been around for how long, so she knew us. And so that's how we got put where we got put.

April 2004 Heats Up

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah, I guess I didn't realize that you uh I was under the impression that it started more about when we were there. I didn't realize that had already had been going on for a period of time by the time like when we got there in March, that that that had been established. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

You guys, yeah. I remember when you guys we were out actually on a mission. Um we had uh that night before they had hit got an ID on the back gate going into uh junction city. You guys, I don't remember who it was. You weren't rolling into our camp, you're rolling over to uh what the hell did you rename you guys' camp over there?

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Snake Pit.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Snake Pit, yep. Um, we did not call it, we called it Combat Outpost, but you call it called it Snake Put Pit. But you were rolling through, and um we were tracking them down, and and I distinctly remember this mission because I probably did something that I shouldn't have done or said something I shouldn't have done. And we always got stuck with them, you know, everything was calmed down. Um, we got the our bad guy, we're sitting there, and we're with the interpreter, he's going off, we're guarding him, because you know that's what ended up happening is you know, when off the boys go, and now we're you know, we're interpreter guards. Um, we couldn't do. I mean and I kind of got it. We can't go do the arm, you know, big army stuff because that's against the uh rules. And we're standing there, and you know, we're so the bad guys are sitting there and they're got their hands zip tied behind their back. And I think we had a fellow soldier with us, another one five guy we did, and all of a sudden I'm like, huh. You know, it was kind of one of those moments that you always wonder what an Irishman wears up or a Scotman wears up his kilt, and there they were sitting there, and I went, huh? What if they were up their skirts? And I went, Well, I didn't need to know that. As I looked down, and then Shannon went, I went, huh, well, that's that's a dumb idea. And then Shannon, of course, was once a dumb idea. I said, You don't want to need to know. And she's like, I need to know. I said, You really don't want to know. And I'm like, she's like, I need to know. And I went, fine. I just wanted to know what they wore up their skirts. Went, oh fuck, Rainey, you made me luck. And there's what she called me for the second. I'm like, I told you you didn't want to know. What are you guys bitching about? You don't want to know. I do. And then we told him, he's like, Oh my god, I looked. I looked. And then at that time, you guys come up over the hill and boom, boom off. You guys get blown up, and we're like, oh fuck. So we threw them in the back of the truck. And then we ended up going out to meet you all. And you're like, we're fine, we know what we're doing. And we're like, good luck to you, buddies. And off we rolled. But that's what I remember when I said, Well, that's the Marines, huh? And because you guys taking over its area command. And I went, Ha, this should be a good long rest 10 months.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yeah, that's accurate.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

I was like, damn. Well, the first thing I remember when we picked you guys up, and I I told you this story, but I'll retell it for the recording. We were picking you up for a night mission, but we picked you up specifically. I was with Mobile Assault Platoon 2, and we picked we didn't take you with us, but we did pick you up that day. And we brought you back to uh Hurricane Point. And that was an interesting discussion I had with our lieutenant. Uh our lieutenant was JD Stevens, and he was he didn't know why we were playing taxi in the first place since we weren't the one taking you on mission.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

I remember he was mad.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

And uh yeah, and so we brought you back, but we were hours before the mission. Uh eight hours, maybe longer. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Well, as you might understand why we had to go over so damn early. Right. They told us because that we're not risking another convoy. Just get you guys over there. If they want them, they can provide the taxi ride.

Chaos, Firefights, And Field Lessons

SPEAKER_03 24:01

Right. Yep. That's that was that was what we were told too. And that was commonly what it was. It was like, you're you're out, you're it's just your bad luck. Go. And so we went, we picked you up, we brought you back, and I said, Well, now what do we do with them? Uh and so every hooch that we had, as you might imagine, might have had a little bit of pornography hanging up on the walls. And so uh we we were all terrified of where we were going to bring any women into our space, and the palace had no place for anybody, according to them. And so so we were like, okay, we have one spot. We have this little dingy TV room that has a tiny 12-inch TV and a V and a DVD player and a couch. And so I was like, all right, I'll get you guys a couple bottles of water. Come on over. Here's our here's your here's your digs for the next eight to ten hours.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

The sad part is what we were used to.

unknown 24:58

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yeah, what's funny is that's the life of living over on Junction City.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

I was gonna say, you you were happy, which that also I do remember this very specifically. You were happy because it had AC. Yep. And so it was our one of our only AC'd areas, and so I sat, I was like, all right, uh, you guys need anything, whatever. And you're like, hey, this is gonna seem weird. Do you have full metal jacket? And I was like, I I I do, I could go get it. So I went back over the hooch. I went and grabbed the DVD and I brought it over. And you're like, Do you want to watch full metal jacket? I was like, I think as a Marine, I'm not allowed to say no. I I yeah, I don't remember you saying that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Oh, I spent like a week hunting down people. I'm like, man, that and Heartbreak Rich. And they're like, Why the have Marine shit? I'm like, look, those are like fucking classics. And they're like, Well, look, you gotta spend all day with the Marines, make them make them watch those damn movies with you. You know they're gonna have those.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Yeah, you know, I don't think I like I don't think I ever found Heartbreak Ridge, but I threw on full.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yeah, we ended up watching it.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Did you? Nice. And uh, I remember I sat there and I I watched I watched at least half the movie, maybe more, and we were rolling laughing, yeah, uh, watching that stupid ass movie. And and I was like, damn, like I don't understand why we have I don't I don't understand why we don't have more people with us. I don't know. It was a strange, it was a very much a bonding moment in that I was like, well, you know, this this could be all the time. I don't see why this is a weird thing, but uh you guys went out on mission with Rainmaker after that for a cordon and search, and it was in the middle of the night, and we ended up providing outer cordon, and I don't remember anything else other than that mission, but that was before uh the first battle of Ramadi.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 26:52

Uh it was a very early mission.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yep. I remember the very first mission we went on with um, and we started kind of getting on who always got us. And I I think it was rock, paper, scissors, and uh the two the two platoons lost, quite honestly, is what I think happened. Um girls, ha ha. And um and it's like, all right, I guess this is who we get. I remember coming up, and you know, and the one thing about it is, you know, I ended up retiring out as a first sergeant, and I spent a lot of time actually ended up in a training unit. So I actually went and trained some Marines. I went out to San Diego and trained out there, the um IMARs out with them.

SPEAKER_03 27:36

Oh, nice.

Longest Day And The Ruck Back

SPEAKER_00 27:36

And uh, so you know, I ended up a little bit longer learning a little bit more lingo and all that crap like that. And you know, I understand more the but the different languages and everything, but it was, you know, it is different, the the military structure. So, like the army, I'll tell you right now, you know, you guys put a lot of emphasis on corporals, which you should, because you know, marine corporals get a lot more than you know, army corporals. And army corporal, that is some E4 sucker that just got a shit ton of responsibility with no extra pay. And any E4 out there's going, no, I don't want that, you know. So for our very first mission, we get up, and the little team I'm on, I do not remember the little corporal's name. I shouldn't call it, he was little compared to me, but that I mean, I was six foot tall then before I started shrinking. So everybody's little. Um, but his little guy, and I'm a I'm an E6, and he comes up to me and he's like, Um, how's this rank structure gonna work? I said, Look, corporal, I'll tell you right now. I don't run infantry shit. I said, Yeah, I know how to shoot a weapon, do basic soldier tasks. I said, But I'm not a marine and I'm not a team leader. You're a team leader. I said, I'm not gonna tell you how to fix maintenance shit. Or you don't tell me how to fix maintenance shit, I won't tell you how to lead to lead a team. How about that? He's like, uh, oh, I said, so you're the boss. Oh, oh, okay, I can work with that. And that's one of the reasons I always kind of stuck with him because he knew you know Shannon was an E4. So he always knew that I wasn't gonna buck him, I could fit seamlessly in there. I'm like, all right, yeah, I'll stick in the back of the tech uh stack. I know I'm not gonna be, I'm not running your team. Nope. Um, and so you know, and so that's one of the reasons because uh E6 and I'm now in a stack, you know, that's a little team, and that like I said, corporals run those teams, yeah. So, you know, that was very confusing, I know, initially, because that little guy came over to me, and he I know he was like, How this this bitch is gonna take my job. And I'm like, I mean, I I went into the military with the mindset of why I became an uh maintenance person, besides uh college money, is because I really thought, man, if I know how to fix it, if I end up in war, I can fix a piece of vehicle of equipment and I can leave. No, that does not work out that way. I found out you know in Iran. A lot of people ask, how did that work out for you? That didn't work out.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

So can you um do you have any specific memories of uh some of the like actually performing your role as a lioness, especially perhaps with the weapons company?

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Um the very first one, and I was with um with that corporal and that's in the Rainmaker Stack uh team. And so I was on the one side of the team, Shannon was in the other. That's uh and we did a night mission, did the knock and search, knock and greet, all that crap. And and I I swear, you guys draw some bad luck. Um, it's like no mission went off without the damn Marines causing chaos somehow that we did not get something thrown off on us, something shooting at us, uh damn IED, RPG, and I'm like, what the hell is going on? You know? Um so I mean, the very first mission we go out, and all of a sudden, and I think you guys were pretty new still with the whole of how everything goes off because you know it's starting to get kind of light out, and like, ooh, this is not a good time. Then the prayers start going and everybody keeps going, and I'm like, ooh, you do they're crying, it's they're crying, this is not a good time. Everybody keeps going, and I'm bam, bam, bam, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, and everybody starts running. I'm like, where are you guys running to?

unknown 31:34

What the hell is the plan?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

And off y'all go. And I'm like, What the fuck? And I just start, you know, heading with because I'm like, I am not getting left behind. That's when I found out I run a lot faster than what I really ever knew.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Adrenaline's a hell of a thing.

Ammunition, Logistics, And Trust

SPEAKER_00 31:51

You know, the army has this whole thing, no soldier left behind, but we just don't really give a shit. They just think everyone's gonna keep up with y'all. And I'm like, off we're just running. And I'm like, we get all over the place, and I'm like, okay, now what are we gonna do? And I'm like, I lost half my stack, and then they circle back around, and I'm like, oh, there you guys are, and I'm like, and then we get back on the trucks and drop us back off. And I went, that was the most chaotic shit I've ever seen in my entire life. I'm like, what the hell happened? But everybody was just like, we're killing everything. If it's not, if it's not Camel Colourpop, we're killing it. And I'm like, okay, it just sounds like a plan. My funniest thing ever is I think it was when it was really bad out there. And now we uh wasn't that was that the time when the commander caught us out and didn't realize that we got fired one? It was one of the missions, and I don't remember if it was during the big push when everything just went to shit. Some of them just blurring together, but it was one of the same damn time frames. I mean, April was rough in 2004. And I mean, it just seemed like we're on back. I was out on the gate more than I was even in my bunk. I think I spent all of April out the wire. Yeah, and um I think I spent over overnight on combat outpost because they couldn't get us back, if I remember right, even. And um we were out, you know, Shannon and I, Brandy and CJ on the other stack, and I don't remember ever running into CJ and Brandy. But we're we're out on this mission. Once again, you know, we could start at night, in comes the day, there goes the prayer bells, and the call to I'm like, oh god damn it. And um and we start hauling ass. This, of course, is when you know bullets are flying at us, and we are running with once again, no great plan. I I think no one told me the plan. And we're chucking along, and Shannon falls down. There's bullets spraying everywhere, and I went, oh fuck, I just got a Linus killed. Oh fuck, shit, shit, kick, kick, kick. And I'm gonna turn around and I'm like, and I'm like, and she went, she pops up. I went, I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. This was like the worst day ever. And I went, okay, and then we take off running again because you know she had the saw, and what happened? She saw, you're going over the field, the saw hit her in the back of the knee, and she just went down and ran.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Oh, yeah.

Training Gaps And On-The-Job Learning

SPEAKER_00 34:33

And then we're running out along, and we're down. All right, all right, we're fire. What are we finding her at? And I'm sitting right next to this guy. I don't even know who this guy is next to me. This guy is not on my team, and we're firing. I'm like, where are we aiming? And he's like, that way. I said, okay, I pull my gun up and I'm getting ready to shoot something, out comes the marine. I'm like, maybe you said aim that way. And he's like, Well, don't aim him out of the marines. I'm like, the bullets are coming at you, just shoot at him. I'm like, where are you aiming at? What are you supposed to find? And then all of a sudden bullets come in. All right, I'm aiming this way. Bang, bang, bang, bang. And the guy all of a sudden he's like, fucking kick me. And I went, and he's you know, crouched right next to me, and I'm like a bitch. And he's bleeding out his calf. And I'm like, dude, you just got shot. And he's like, Yeah, I got shot. Fuckers, and he gets up and starts running. I'm like, hey, dude, don't run. I mean, maybe sit down. And he's like, I'm kidding, motherfucker. And off he rolls running after him, like, what is the room here? You know, and I'm like, okay. Got his calves, and they're like, Why aren't you just laying fire down? I'm like, I only have 210 bullets. Here's more rounds. And I'm like, putting them in my pocket. And I'm like, we go throughout. I mean, we're using RTG holes in there all of a sudden. We're coming around. And that's when the company commander, the one that got his uh the helmet shot, and he decided to keep wearing that helmet with a bullet hole in it because it was Lucky Helmet.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

Yeah, that was uh Captain Weiler. That was our weapons company commander.

Inside Iraqi Homes And Customs

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Yeah, so he came around and he goes, What are you two doing out? I don't like I'm following the team. He's like, get in the truck. And so now we're sitting there. It's like two moon marines and us in all the trucks. And it's it's like quiet. And I'm like, I don't like this. I'm like, Shannon, you put your back to mine. And she's like, You got it. And so we're sitting back to back, and we got one gunner up. And I'm like, if you hear the fire fight come closer, and all of a sudden, here comes our team again. And uh, you know, and the gunner's not paying a lick bit of attention to us because he's like, I just got fucking stuck with the chicks. And I'm like, and the team comes up again, he's like, What are you guys doing here? And I'm like, Well, the company commander told us to sit here. He's like, You want to sit in a truck? No, he's like, Well, come on! I'm like, off we go, we start running after the team again, and they're like, Well, so we go with them all the way around. And I was like, So, you know, then the day we get back in the truck, I'm like, all right, this is pretty good. Go back out the combat outpost. But I think the longest story I ever remember is that one that one day that was just forever mission, and it was, it was just, I mean, we went through everything because we went on a mission, and uh our units were out too because the tracks, our guys' tracks were right beside us, we're out. I mean, everything was going down, and uh and we get all done. I mean, and this is we must have gone 12 miles, 14 miles that day. I mean, we hit every point of and it truly we gotta go back to combat outpost. I'm like, whoo, all right, we'll get back in these trucks and we'll go on home. But we didn't, we rock marched back to combat outpost as a show of strength to those Ramadi people. And I went, why are we rock marching? I'm like, I'm so tired. Well, and the guys are like, Well, get in the truck. I'm not getting in the truck. Chan's like, I ain't getting in the truck, and we walked all the way back, and they're in what is like so we get back there, and every other female lioness is there, and that was the one that the mission that everybody was out, all 19 were out, and uh, and I think we were the last unit in, if I remember right. And uh Captain Penry came up to her. She's like, Where the fuck have you gone, guys? Where were you guys? And I'm like, they made us walk back. And she went, What? What? I said they made us walk. From where? I went, Romati. And she went, Okay. She's like, You get on ammo. And I had pockets full of ammo because by then weapons company realized that you know, we had to account for 210 rounds, and so we weren't, you know, we just didn't pray and spray like you guys did. You know, we had have to come back. We had a bat brief, we had to count arounds, and they're like, You really have to do all that? I'm like, Oh yeah, we have to account for everything in the army. And they're like, here's some rounds, here's some rounds. Every time we went over there, you want some rounds?

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Yeah, good. I'm glad somebody took care of you at least.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'll tell you what, it was pretty funny. When we ended up leaving Iraq, now I had my my wrecker, I had uh I had my eight cases of uh 50 cal ammo, my my cases of ammo. My TC had a uh saw, so he we had his pork chops, and then we had four other pork chops. I had about 16,000 rounds of uh 556, and I had I had um grenades, I had all kinds of stuff, and they're like, Where did you get this stuff? And I'm like, Yeah, that's right. And they're like it just came to me, and they're like, the Marines give you that shit. Maybe good. Oh my I wasn't turning down free ammo. If I had a weapon that that a grenade, I'll take two.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Philosophy is uh fire superiority, that's for sure. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Yeah. Well, what you what I think you're describing, especially with the uh when you're running across the street, I think that was April 7th when that happened, and then April 10th was the day that uh everybody was out. Everybody was out. Your tracks are out.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

I mean, literally everybody was out because we surrounded the whole north of the city, the Sophia district, and did the house to they had the uh MI and the Blair and Rock and Heavy Metal. I remember all that.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Yeah, they played uh they started with Drowning Pool, uh, let the bodies at the floor, and then they went from that to Slayer.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Uh I do remember rocking the Casbah for a while.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then the interpreters yelling, uh, come out, you cowards, we'll fight you in the street. And yeah, that was that was an all that was a 16-hour affair, essentially. Started before sun up. Yep. So reeling it back just a tiny bit, only because I I have a feeling I know your answer. Was there any training at all? Was there any at least cultural training of what to do?

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Um, so we we got very little, and that was probably our biggest complaint for as a female soldier, you get very little soldier skills. I mean, you get the bare bones you get in basic, and basically, I mean, you get like refresher training, but you don't get like infantry skills.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

The other thing is the marine language and army language, while similar, are not really that close.

SPEAKER_03 41:54

No, no, no.

Passing The Torch To Replacements

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Yeah, you know, it's it's not the same language because you'll you'll sit there, it's it's no different than a head. It's the you know, I'm like, what the hell's a head? It's well, yeah, it's a bathroom. I'm like, you got a latrine, and everybody look at you, I'm like, where's the bathroom at? Oh, you mean a head? Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I guess that's what we call it, you know. And it was stuff like that, but it was the same even in military speak that was hard. And now we got um we got some on how to touch them, how to talk to them, especially with the females. I mean, we they they mainly talked to us more about how to talk to the females, how to talk to the children, and that kind of stuff. So we got a lot of that cultural kind of stuff, but and a lot, but it was a lot of it was to learn how we learn how we went, you know, how to talk to them when we went into them. Um, like some of the places, especially, I mean, it always just amazed me how they lived over there and still live. I mean, quite honestly, is because you'd go into one of these houses and some of them would be huts, and you'd be like, Okay, yeah, you that's how I pictured that this looked in. But you'd go into one. I my big thing is I I went, it was one of the one five missions, and we got into one of the Casbots, and I'm like, oh, I can't wait to get in this thing. Oh, I can't wait. This gotta be gotta be great. And it wasn't. So it had, I know everybody has that grandma back in the day that had the wooden handle furniture, and you know, the couch had the old windmills and all that stuff like that. That's what their that was their fancy furniture covered in plastic. I went okay. And I mean, they had like three pieces of that furniture, and in their bedrooms, you know, all the women still slept together with the children with no with no AC, because the women didn't deserve no AC. They all were in on the same mats that we went down to the Haji Marts to put on our cots, you know, those plastic.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Um, that's what they slept on. You know, whereas meanwhile, you went into the the men room. Uh those were actually pretty nice. They actually had beds set up, but they all they commingled. The men all got that. They had the AC. I mean, because we ended up, I don't remember how I ended up getting stuck in one of the drink the teas and eat the food.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Don't touch anything with your left hand, and you know, you you gotta sit in the back. And I'm like, got it. And I'm like, oh wait a minute, we're eating this food. And they're like, Oh, yeah, you gotta eat that food. If they give it to you, you gotta eat it, you know, drink the tea. And the whole tea ceremony, and I'm like, I'm like drinking the tea, and I'm like, whoo, that had like 200 pounds of sugar in it. And I'm like, and I'm like, and the food, and I'm like, I am gonna, you know, quite honestly get the shit so bad from this. I'm like, I'm just getting dysentery, I just know it. You gotta eat it, and you're like, dang. But I did it. I was, I thought, and I went in, I'm like, but the wire was on the outside of the wall, just like the shacks. And I went, Well, this was disappointing. I'm like, this was not. I thought it was gonna be cool. I would thought it was gonna be like, I'm like, nope, they all live like this. I'm like, this is awful.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Yeah, it was very that was very striking, at least. And again, I didn't enter as many houses as Blake did, but the you would go up to some of these places that looked like mansions, and there would be nothing on the inside whatsoever. The external presentation was gorgeous.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Yep. Like you would go in there, there'd be a it would be a room with one chair, just a single, a single chair against the wall.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

That was for the name of the house.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Right. So you were talking uh, I mean, and we've we've talked about it on on here before that, you know, in this early phase of the war, we were having to invent it as we go. You know, we were we were creating the tactics and the and the theory behind a lot of it. And it sounds like you were doing the same with uh with what you were being asked to do. Is there anything in particular that that's that you remember that was like, oh no, this is this is a piece of knowledge or this is a tactic, or this is a a way of doing that. Then you passed on to the people that relieved you.

Command Decisions And Mission Fit

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Um, we actually took them with us. I remember that, not with the Marines. Um because I mean, we taught the next group that came in with us with the 1.5 Marines because they went on missions, we went on missions, and we just took them with us. It's like, hey, this is what you do. You know, that's how the Lioness mission kept going. Because of course, you know, the Marines were still there and still needed the Lionesses. Yeah, you know, and then it was um it helped that it was kind of it was kind of weird and kind of interesting too, is the unit to replace us was actually um second to none, second ID out of Korea. Um and our original company commander driver, Taylor was his name, specialist Taylor. He actually had left us. He had gone came on levy and he left us to go to Korea. And he's like, Goodbye, suggers. Um, he actually tried to go with us to Iraq, but he's like, Goodbye, suggers, going to Korea. I ain't going there. Sure shit, if he wasn't the one that replaced us. Um, so there was there was a few of them in there that we knew from, you know, because I mean it was engineers are engineers, and it's a small, uh, you know, it's just kind of like the Marine family, you know, engineers and marines, there's only a pocket full of you.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

You know, so um while the army's a little bit bigger than the Marine Corps, you know, that they they come back around. So we knew a few of them. And so that helped because you know, it's still the dumbest thing though. The company commander, she was also a female. She came up and she's like, I just want you to go ahead and we're just gonna take a convoy around and I want to see what Ramadi looks like. And Captain Penry went, No.

unknown 47:53

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Well, what do you mean? She's like, I am not jeopardizing my soldiers, so you can take a tour of the town. They they literally thought they would be able to get in their car or you know, get in the Humvees, go down there and find something to eat down in Iraq. And she's like, Have you not watched the news where you're at? She's like, That's not how this is. And they ended up one of the they got in one of the firefights and everything else like that. And their pucker factor, you know, they sucked the cotton off the seats and they realized that maybe this is a little bit, and then they took it a little bit more serious. But yeah, it was just like I mean, I remember sitting in the I can't remember Patoon Sart meeting or whatever, when she was sitting there talking, and hey, we uh we need to. And I'm like, I am not taking my record out so you guys can have a you know, a drive about.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

Right. Um, no tourist activity.

Multi‑Part Signoff

SPEAKER_00 48:43

I was like, this is absolutely crazy. And uh, so you know, so we were able to take some of the lionesses out. We talked with some that we knew were gonna end up, you know, because we talked to the commanders. Hey, you know, you're gonna have some that are gonna go with Marines, what some with this. This is kind of the missions we're going with. You need to have females that are more on like this, which ones, because they need to go more with Ruthig or talk to Ruthtig and Shannon and figure out and Morgan and figure out, you know, kind of. And I do think they went on a couple missions with us Marines before with the Marines before we went out, some of the softer, a little bit not, you know, not the oovook missions that were kind of you know the easy ones in September.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

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