You Can't Plan War - Paul Hess (part 1 of 2)

Paul Hess starts his story as a brand new join... and straight to combat driver and dismounted Marine. Great recollections including the convoy into Iraq and the first overwhelming sights and sounds of Ramadi. We also discuss early urban combat realities at Hurricane Point, from IEDs and route tactics to the anger of not having a visible enemy to fight. 

• Paul Hess’s background and early Marine life 
• Leading a convoy memories 
• Pre deployment training 
• Remembering Ken Conde’s impact as a teacher 
• Ramadi arrival impressions
• Early mission tempo and route unpredictability
• First IED experience 
• “Pistol Pete” story 

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Transcript

eet Paul And Map One Roles

SPEAKER_01 0:37

All right, let's tell everybody who you are.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Uh Paul has, let's see, two thousand and four was ranked PFC or Lance Corporal. Both.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Combat promotion. Say that again.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

I said, was that a combat promotion?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there you go. Nice. Um, and then uh what, map one?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Nice. And if I remember correctly, you were an O352, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yep, yep, yep. I think map one had about five, six, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Yeah. It's important we get more tow gunners on here because there's too many mortarmen.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

So were you ever were you ever up in the gun with the uh or were you all just mounting?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Uh I was a driver for uh Crawford, our um platoon commander. Oh nice. Um, so a lot of the tow gunners ended up being drivers because one, the driver training in in uh uh soi, and then because there was a 240 and a uh a tow on top of the uh the Hum V's, a lot of the times it was machine gunners up there versus a tow gunner. You know, I know in your platoon you had Mosey. Mosey was a tow gunner, so that that was a uh opposite, you know, and maybe maybe we did, but um, but yeah, no, so I drove and uh did a little bit of dismounting. Um something you guys said a little bit ago, someone asked me just the other day, it was literally two or three days ago, and I better tell it now or I'll forget. But they asked me, they said, They said, when did you know, or like when did it feel like it was like holy shit, like things have just gotten rude. And and for me, when it really set in, like, hey, this is really happening, like this, this, like there's no turning back, was uh leaving Kuwait in the what was it, the 150 vehicle, uh, 150 vehicle convoy. And you know, uh Crawford and I, we were the lead vehicle of that 100 and uh Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. And um, but yeah, just crossing that line and going into to Iraq and seeing random camel out in the uh desert, it was kind of like, well, all right, this yeah, it's real now. Like everything that you can imagine, like your imagination really started to work at that point.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

So was there any extra pressure knowing that you were the lead vehicle of uh that long convoy? And if you took a wrong turn, we were gonna end up in the wrong spot, or were you just uh focused on the road?

rossing Into Iraq With The Convoy

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah, no, I don't I I didn't really I don't think it was pressure, right? Because you know, you got a lot of firepower. Uh but what I do remember though, worse than any type of pressure anything. Do you guys remember when we pulled off for like the last like piss shipbreak? And there were like those like 20 portageons in the middle of the desert, and the poo was like above the seat, they were so full of poop and flies, you know, like you had to hover, and uh we we still on the thread message about about that.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Do you guys remember that?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Oh, yeah. I yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

I also remember when we uh when we killed our honeypot man when we were actually in Ramadi and the same thing happened later on that when we were in uh at Hurricane Point, and it was like almost two plus weeks before the honey pop man came to clean off the portachers.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

And that's kind of that's kind of like when we lost um when we lost the one guy that would bring all the Haji porn. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, oh yeah. Same thing. Gutty Maraki swore he saw him pacing off the camp that he was like taking steps and counting, and so they wouldn't let him back on, and then we'd eventually, like two weeks later, end up killing him in a raid.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

So yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, I thought I heard that he died. So okay. At first I was I thought you were gonna say no, he just wasn't allowed back on, but okay, nope, it's nope confirmed, yeah. Um yeah, so no, that stuck out in that conversation the other day. Um, you know, I uh something that's a little bit unique about myself, and there I think there were probably a couple others in the company. Um, but I actually had my undergraduate degree when I joined. So really, yeah, I didn't come in at 18, I came in at like 21 and um got my bachelor's in accounting. And um yeah, so and when you asked the question about the convoy, that was the other part that I think I don't know. I think you know, some of like just you know, extra a couple extra years. I just I don't know. So um with that age and and and my buddies, uh the guys really liked that that four years, the uh the legal, the uh the beer, the uh yeah, yeah, you were the hookup. Yeah, yeah. So that was always fine. Um yeah, which way you guys want to go? What's what's a good direction from here?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Well, let's uh let's dial it back a touch. When did you come to the unit? I I feel like you came pretty late as far as I can remember, but uh I don't have an extra exact date in my mind.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, so that would have been just the turn. Um, it was literally 30 days before we uh um deployed.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Okay, so you came in January?

rriving Late To The Unit

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, yeah, because I joined in late July, uh, three months of boot camp, and then SOI. The funny thing is, they flew 150 of us to K Bay, and so we're all excited. We're like, yes, we got Hawaii as our duty station, and then three days later, uh, they get us all together and they said, We didn't know you were coming, we don't have room for you, and so they they shipped us off to Pendleton, and then 30 days later off we went. So we we were definitely green, and here's a good story for you with linking up the uh the unit. I think it was the very first night at Pendleton with with uh weapons. Um so of those 150 guys, the five newbies uh that joined map one would have been myself, would have been Liszt, would have been Cacley, Steven, and Silvera Terry. Nice. So for example, map two would have been Calais, would have been uh Moselle. And I'm drawing some blanks if you guys got any of the uh let's see, Homewood. Yep, Homewood, and then um ready. Okay, yep. Um yeah, and the interesting thing, okay. So what of even the five that I named, including myself and Matt One, four of us were tow gunners, yeah, and one was a uh uh Cackly was a machine gunner. Um but that first night with the unit, do you guys remember Sergeant Saniago? Oh yeah, of course. So he would have been platoon sergeant. He pulls us underneath the stairwell, uh, the five of us, and it's dark, you know. And he's like, listen here, you motherfuckers. One of you's not coming back. He's like, so you better get locked on because one of you motherfuckers isn't coming back. He was trying to scare us straight to get locked on, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Um, yeah, so so yeah, January. And you guys, not too long prior, had gotten back from cold weather training, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah, yeah. We went to Bridgeport. Yeah, that was terrible, and everybody was sick, and and a couple people almost died, and all kinds of stuff. It was that was a pretty awful training up and ended up being not very useful, but uh it was interesting nonetheless.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, yeah. Something else that's fixed out uh with with linking up right before we're taking off is you know what, each platoon sent off someone to do like linguist linguistic school. Yeah, and so for like map one, that would have been Kern. And Kern actually um excuse me, was uh in my Hum V, sat right behind me. Um, so I was always kind of funny hearing stories from him about that stuff, but uh I can remember him coming back and trying to educate the rest of us on like MC and you know the random basics. Wide, wide. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

One by one, one by one.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

The five words you get to learn. Yeah, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

And then and the hand gestures. Who was the uh uh other linguist that you can you guys remember?

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Like it was me. I got sent. Um I got I was sent over. Um Hersher went Hersher went. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

We had we had Cohen who uh already spoke Hebrew and didn't even finish that Arabic training, but he went to it. And then I don't remember who else. There was somebody from map three, but I don't know who else.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

There wasn't uh there was I think there was one or two from each platoon. It wasn't that many. It was it was a bigger class, but it wasn't that many. We carpooled over there in only a few vehicles, and so that sucked. That was the first that was the first time in my entire life that I I got tension headaches from thinking for as long as I did because I hadn't well I didn't try in high school ever, so I think that was the most studying that I'd ever done in my entire and so I was like, oh man, thinking actually hurts.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

All right, so linking up with the unit, another memory that sticks out. Um I feel like it was either the day we arrived or it was like the next day, it was early, and I remember being up above the basketball courts, right there. I believe map two is where you guys were at. And I remember, wasn't it Matroca that would play guitar? Oh, yeah. And then I also remember Hodges, and the two of them were just letting loose, and I mean they were, you know, talking smack to us, you know, fresh meat. And but it was funny. It was like I I just remember thinking, man, this is this is gonna be interesting. We got some characters, you know, like uh yeah. I know at the two reunions running into Hodges, man, you're always gonna be laughing your ass off when you when you see Hodges.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Weapons Company was not short of personality, that is for sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Um, yeah, so that's kind some of the big memories that sticks out from uh the initial linking up with the unit.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

And so did you show up after March Air Force Base?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

No, we went up there.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I was gonna say, I thought I remember you going. I think I remember you being at March, and we trained together a little, not much.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah, yeah. No, that I actually thought, and maybe this is just because we were brand new to the unit, right? But I actually thought that was halfway decent training.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, yeah, it was all right. It didn't end up that this is just my personal critique. It doesn't, I don't know that it actually reflects anything. It didn't end up being as useful as we thought, just specifically for what we ran into in Ramadi. Yeah, but the quality of the training that was some of the higher quality of training that we had received to that point. The the other example of something we did that was very similar to that was, and you weren't in at that time, this was a few years before you got there, but in 2001, right after 9-11 happened, there was something called Operation Noble Eagle. And out of nowhere appeared all of these domestic riot control training experts, largely from uh embassy duty. And they came and trained us how to like deal with civilian populace and how to do operations in urban terrain that way. And it was very similar to that March Air Force Base training, and that was also some of the best damn training I ever did.

raining Scramble And Learning Arabic

SPEAKER_00 13:48

And then everything in between was piecemeal put together and usually designed by some random sergeant, but yeah, and and maybe that's why I remember it that way is because, like you said, a lot of trainings just felt sort of uh Modge Podge thrown together, but like yeah, and we were such sponges, we we had to just soak up as much as we could in 30 days, and I just remember thinking walking away taking a lot. But here's another story that uh that really sticks out that um it's one of the biggest memories that sticks with me, like thinking about the four years and it's linking up with the unit. Um, but we were down at the armory and uh probably doing weapons maintenance, right? Got all the weapons out on the tables. And um, you know, like we're we still don't know anybody yet, and we're kind of learning people, and at one of the tables leading things up was um oh man, this is bad.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Uh it's been 20 years, it's okay if you don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Map three, uh Conti. Umdi. Um and so you know, he was running this at uh running running something on basically showing us how to speed load uh magazine, you know, M16 magazine. And um, you know, so of course, you know, meeting his parents and just uh, you know, uh losing him. Um, and just seeing like, man, he was a good teacher, like, and he he had the enthusiasm. Yep. Um, and uh that just you know, that day all these uh I believed it, right? Like there were a lot of people that came that that you crossed paths with that like you didn't believe it, but with him, first time he ever opened his mouth, he was just somebody I believed. Um so yeah, that one still, you know, like uh cuts a little bit. Thinking about him 100%.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

I I feel like we've uh you asked earlier how many people have we interviewed up to this point, and I I think it's about 30, somewhere around there. Almost everybody, not everybody, but almost everybody has that same story where they learn something from uh Ken Condi. It's uh it's interesting that and you weren't even in his platoon, right? Yeah, yeah, you know, uh that he was just and there's somebody else is talking about it from mortars, uh, that he was be pulled guys aside and was just doing weapons handling drills, and they were clearing rooms and stuff, like you know, different things. Yeah it's very, very interesting. Uh how much he really went through the whole company and and trained everybody in one way or another.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

And and in life, you can oftentimes in life you come across folks that you're like, man, they're just trying too hard. And like I I never got that from him. It it all felt genuine, it didn't feel like he was just trying to get a check in the box, right? It it it it just all felt genuine.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yep. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. So moving forward, uh platoons. We split platoons late. Like it was literally, I think a week or two before we we deployed, and we divided everybody up, you know. Some people went map three, map, and then map two and map one was the big division, which felt so weird to me. Almost most of your platoon, I was with the entire three years prior to that, and then all of a sudden, poof, they're gone.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Like not having that history and just being fresh, like you know, my lens. Now that you say that, you could definitely being new, you could pick up on a little bit of tension of like things just got scrambled, and it's like everything's happening so fast. Yep, and yeah, like it was uh, you know, not to cut you off, but it was from my lens, it was really interesting to see like, whoa, something's happening here, and like we don't have the history of it, but yeah, tell I'm interested to hear more about that.

emembering Ken Conti The Teacher

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Yeah, well, I I'm not trying to hijack your story of in the middle of me telling mine, but it was it was abrupt, just to give you an idea. Literally every experience you can imagine in the Marine Corps. Uh, I was right side by side with Garcia, Pacheco, and then later Solis. I mean, I I can't think of a memory that I had, and prior would be the other one. Uh, in Cat Platoon and early, like we were boots together, we all dropped on the same day. Pacheco was also a tow gunner, so was Garcia. Me and Garcia were literally side by side every single day in infantry school from the 0311 training all the way up through the 52 training. Uh, we went to Hum V school together. We were a driver and driver together at Humvee School. Uh, so for that all of a sudden to be like, nope, 50 said 50% of the people you've counted on for three years, poof, they're gone. It was it was weird. I mean, I had plenty of good friends in map too. It's not like that was uh uh a huge loss. I had Harden and I had Jordan and I had all these people that I already knew. But it's real strange to watch half my platoon go away after being on Okinawa for a year with all these people and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And I think that in itself is one little bit of like foreshadowing of like you know, the recipes there for stuff to happen that like right, like sometimes when you have to, you know, do a major uh a major 180, yeah, right, there's a recipe there. And uh, you know, I've never quite thought about it like that until just now hearing you, you know, talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So then moving forward to your story, yeah. You guys all organized together and then went to Kuwait. Do you remember getting over to Kuwait?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

I do, I do. Was it was it only two weeks or so? What was that window like before we pushed out, or was it a little bit longer?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

So I'll I'll tell you my timeline. I'm not exactly sure. Sounds like you led the second convoy. I was the first vehicle in the first convoy. And uh that was we left California February 16th. We got, as you know pretty well, we got delayed in New Jersey for a couple of days. We got delayed in Germany for several days while they had to find parts, which was difficult. Uh, there was a couple in-between stops also in between those. And then we were in Kuwait until March 6th, was when my convoy crossed. And I think you guys crossed the same day, just a different time.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Okay. Um, yeah, remember, uh, I remember thinking at Rammstein, like uh, you know, anytime you go to uh another base, another, especially another branch, it's like chow, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah. I remember playing ping pong for like what three days in Germany.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

That's funny. Half my platoon was sick, they got some random mystery illness. And so I was we were trying to figure out if we were gonna be admitting our people to the hospital because a couple of them couldn't keep food or water down. So yeah, that was what I did for three days.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

I remember a couple weeks or however long it was in Kuwait, um training, right? I mean I remember just uh you know running, you know, going for platoon runs and just anything that they could try to prep you. I kind of remember just buying time, right? Like it's like, all right, when you know, when are we going to get moving?

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, do you remember picking up gear and getting your trucks?

SPEAKER_00 22:03

That's fuzzy. I I do remember once we pushed. Here's a random memory. Remember, didn't we have a long stop where we slept over somewhere like underneath, like right there beside the vehicles on like big rocks, right? Like big almost like railroad rocks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Yeah, yeah. I it so it's funny. I wish I knew the official account and We've talked about this a couple of times, me and Blake have. We definitely stopped for a long extended period. I don't know if it was just fueling 150 whatever vehicles took that long.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Or if we were actually there overnight and slept. But I know we were there for a very long time. And it was a place called um Scania, was the it was Scania is actually the name of a trucking company, but they called it Outpost Scania. And that's where we stopped. And the civilian workers that were there came out and brought us like weird treats, like I don't remember what they were, but some kind of pastry and sodas and Gatorades.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

My memory is that it was a little bit more of a planned stop because I remember getting word that we could rack out a little bit.

unknown 23:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Well, that's I mean it was I wonder if the idea was actually to sleep or if it was because it's again, if you look on a map, if you drove straight from Kuwait to Ramadi, it would not, it would take you six to eight hours, even if you drove if you drove slow. But I know we were driving seven tons in those log trucks, and we had you know the Hemets and we had a couple of uh you know, it's a million Humvees. So however long that stuff takes to fuel up, I imagine it takes a long time.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Man, I I do remember just looking in the rear view mirror driving, and it's just as long as you can see this line of of uh military vehicles. It was just like, you know, that's still etched in my memory.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

Do you remember by any chance? Do you remember when you uh crossed the LOD? Like time was it early in the morning, also? That that sounds about right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

Okay. But you don't remember what day you maybe crossed? No, that that's all blurry. That's okay. I was just curious. For whatever reason, uh the the exact dates seem to be elusive for us on the details of how everybody got up to Ramadi. Like we've pieced together quite a bit, but there's still enough questions. So that's all good. It's all good.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Um and then you had, you know, like the the pissing in the bottles, right? Like on those long convoys. Uh yeah. Yeah. Did anyone has anyone brought up yet that um that Pace and Map One was the king of uh, you know, just made it easy. It was just, you know, filling up a bottle was nothing for him. The he just he had it on lockdown.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

No, no, I didn't know that was this particular skill of his.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Is that he was naked all the time. That's all I remember. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Oh man. All right. What what's what's another good segue, uh, timeline that uh well, how about pulling up into Ramadi?

SPEAKER_03 25:24

I mean, for some people, that's a pretty specific memory, rolling in and seeing matches. And did you have any first like impressions of either Ramadi coming in, the marketplace, uh Hurricane Point?

etting To Kuwait And Rolling North

SPEAKER_00 25:36

You know, I remember coming up Michigan, and it's like you're just ID, IED, right? You're like all you know, you're kind of hyper aware and like uh just uh looking and looking. And yeah, I remember the arches, and then for sure the uh it'd be the souk, right? The um or the marketplace. Um and uh man, I remember before we ever left when during one of the meetings, the big company or battalion meetings down on the basketball courts, and they were talking about it was almost like a slideshow giving us statistics, and you know, I remember them saying it what was it, like a 400,000 population. And uh man, that's when it set in that, like, yeah, no, that number's accurate when you pull up to the marketplace, yeah, and you just see all these people, and then you come to a screeching halt, and it's like, how are we going to get through this? And how are we did we just not become a major target? Yeah. Um, and then I always thought it was wild right in front of Hurricane Point, right? Like uh with uh the big circle, and that was always a unique. Um I'm so that that stuck out.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

You know, it's funny, you're the first person to mention that, but I do remember that being so weird to me as well, that the second you pop out of our gate, there's a roundabout.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Which big one, too.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I mean, I guess it prevents anybody from just charging straight in, but it god, that it drove me nuts driving to drive out into that roundabout every time.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah, yeah, because while while it may have been helpful to like slow traffic, the way I remember that wall and and the entry point being recessed, it also probably created some type of blind spot, right? 100%. Like you couldn't get absolutely if if the bridges missed something coming across, you kind of got this blind spot. Um so yeah, that was definitely a unique sort of entry point.

SPEAKER_03 27:50

Yeah, we couldn't burst. I I I I do remember having conversations even at the time that you like we called at least with our group, we were called it bursting, but you couldn't burst out appropriately.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

You had it, you had to navigate, you had to navigate so much stuff, and so and like you had to kind of fight traffic to get like if you were trying to haul ass on QRF, it was kind of like yeah, it just you weren't isolated and balls to the wall were gone. It's kind of like a shit show of of getting out of there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Yeah, some guy on the lead truck has to whip a water bottle at somebody to get them to stop in traffic because they're just not they don't they didn't look, right? They were just driving straight straight ahead, they don't look. You're like, hey man, we're here, we gotta go.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

You know, I've never really completely thought about it until just now, but you're right. Because that's the I mean that was a major intersection point because it was people coming across South River and North Bridge and and coming through the the main artery for major bushes right there. Yeah, yeah. I mean it was a good logistical spot from a like tactically for a stronghold, but that was awful getting out of there.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

And and it would have it would not have taken much to shut down that entry point. There was no other way to get out of Hurricane Point, there was no second access.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

So you're right. We didn't have boats, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:20

We didn't uh no well, that's what the U toe gunners are for. Get about three of them and hit the wall, and we'll make another make a new hole.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Oh what's another good timeline piece to keep moving along here?

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Um well we did we did a little left seat, right seats with our our handoff folks, which were pretty short, just a couple of days. And then not long after that, we started running some first missions. You uh you remember any first missions?

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Yeah, like man, I I kind of forgot about the uh the transition with uh what was there that army units uh so the main group that we had there was a National Guard unit from Florida.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

That's why it was called Hurricane Point. They were nicknamed the Hurricanes.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

There was a secondary uh ranger unit that was also had left a little more than a squad, like a squad reinforced uh out at combat outpost, but they're they had come by Hurricane Point as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Um gosh, man, that's that's wild thinking uh first few missions. It's funny how so much is blurry, right? Like it's like your good friends that you've had your whole life, it's like you remember stories they don't, and vice versa. And you do stories together, it's kind of like it's called memory sharing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

Um well to help you out a little bit, so those first couple early, early phase missions was uh a lot of us getting to know the town because the the left seat, right seat that we got was just basically zipping Michigan. And so each of the platoons took it upon themselves to just really uh get a lay of the land. And so those first several weeks uh we were still doing SASO operations, so it was a lot of schools and hospitals and soccer balls and stuff like that, but it was us just getting to know the streets, just as a a framing for your point.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

And and wasn't the is this accurate? I feel like I'm remembering folks saying that the units before us, they you know, balls to the wall, they never slowed down. They they were trying their hardest to avoid any type of uh correct, yeah, yeah. Um that that part sticks out. Um, so have you had any of Map One talk about uh, you know, Lieutenant Crawford's strategy was uh we never took direct routes. So, you know, a lot of left, right, left, right. Like he spent a lot of time trying to create routes that uh the opposition, you know, uh wouldn't expect. Um, and it was funny because you know it drove everyone nuts, right? We're all like, let's just get there. Why are we, you know, this, that, and the other? Um, so that that sticks out that I I think that was pretty much right out of the gate. Um and my gut almost says that because did we what are you guys hearing as far as how soon we started to see IEDs? And and well, let's see.

irst Impressions Of Ramadi And Hurricane Point

SPEAKER_01 32:51

I'll I'll I'll give you I'll give you some some some dates that'll help. Uh before right, before April. Obviously, April's a big turning point for everything for us, but just before April, probably the first IED that happened was with the log train. It was a week after we were there. The first injury from an IED, major injury, was March 13th. So just to give you an idea, we arrived in Ramadi the 7th or 8th, depending on who you were. The first big injury was uh was McPherson from the line companies. He got his jaw blown off. I'm sure you probably remember that story uh from an IED. From weapons company specifically, our first major wounding, our first minor wounding, I think, was me uh and my truck on the 18th when we went out to go do a raid. And then the first major wounding was when Worth got wounded by the bike IED on March 20th. Um the first thing that was not an IED was March 22nd. That was one of our attachments. Lance Corporal Dang got killed from an RPG uh from Fox Company. Um and then the first uh the first KIA was March 30th uh from an IED.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Okay, so less less than 30 days. Yeah. Uh yeah, no, it's wild. Uh, because I've I've never gotten this granular in thinking back, but it it's it's a neat exercise and thinking down to the day or week of when we got there, it's like wow. Because I would have almost thought if you asked me, I would have thought it was uh earlier than March, right? Like uh February. Uh, but yeah, no, it's just a all that stuff took a long time leading up.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Jeez. Um yeah, no, I think being that, like you said, with uh a week in, we've already seen our first IED. I think Lieutenant uh Crawford, right, even before IEDs, I think he just he was very concerned with bringing everyone in the platoon home. Um so that that you know you could ask anyone else in the platoon, man, we were a lot of left, right, left, right, left, right. Um so that that sticks out right from the get-go. Um and just your eyes are right, you're watching everything. It was just a lot all at once. Yeah. That's what it uh what what sticks out is uh, you know, in just third world country, right? Like uh one of one of my biggest takeaways from the from the military is just right, like appreciating prior to that, you take so much for granted, you know, and so it's like you're not there very long at all, and you're like, holy cow, like we've got it good. Like this this is uh felt like a different planet. Um what else? Uh yeah, and then um food, of course. Uh, you know, you're you're uh you're adjusting to MREs uh a lot more than just you know from from training exercises. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Did you end up eating a lot of MREs?

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh I because I I remember trading with people all the time, you know, like for the stuff that you want.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

I think by the time we had gotten over to Ramadi, uh, I'd eaten enough MREs that I don't think my last two years I ate the main meal of an MRE but once. And uh so I would rat fuck the shit out of the MRE and be like, all right, I'm having the crackers and maybe the dessert. Give me the fruit. I would eat the fruit.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

I think that comes from being locked down in Okinawa or something because I did the same thing. I almost never ate MREs over in Ramadi because I I refused. I'd rather starve. I I fucking hated those things.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

I still physically get can make my stomach turn thinking about we, you know, we had like a I don't know, zero three hundred mission, and I just wake up and you know, 10 minutes before we leave, just eat a chicken teriyaki right out of it and just feeling like ass the rest of the day. Like I still like yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Well, especially when it wasn't even real, it wasn't even real meat, it was chicken product, you know, and so like the the lips and asshole of a chicken, you know, and so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

So oh, here's another one too that sticks out right from the beginning is the mosques hearing like the first morning you wake up there and you hear the music playing, right? Like or or music, uh the you know, them then the chants and the uh call to prayer, yeah. Yes, yes. Uh man, that was I remember hearing it the first time and thinking, wow, like the movies are pretty accurate. Yeah. Um yeah, it's it's I'm kind of stunned thinking about like thinking back how it was just so much to consume, you know? Right. It was a lot to consume. Uh before we started recording, you know, you guys said something to the effect of just you know, a lot of people talk about a lot, right? Like how how much uh it hits you, and uh for sure.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Well, and also it just people don't understand your particular timeline, right? You were a civilian the year prior, you went to boot camp mid-summer, you did infantry school fall and winter, and then you suddenly got to your unit in January, right before, and you you were in combat within four to six weeks of being at your unit, right? That's that's an extremely fast timeline, and uh you were literally transitioning about a thousand things all at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah, and it's like you can't you can't plan methodically war out, right? Like you can practice, but it's like once they knew, okay, like the power's above, right? Like they're they're planning things out, and it's like, all right, we're sending two four. Like that all started happening so fast that it like this wasn't just a thing of like young adults, like young kids out of high school. It's all the way up to Booker and Glenn, like that every stinking, you know, swinging dick was consuming at rapid fire a lot super fast, right? Like, yeah, and you know, just sitting here thinking about it, it's making me dizzy thinking about it now because I haven't quite thought about it.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Well, and here, and I'll add it, and we've talked about this before, but I'll add it for your purpose. Um, it's important to also recognize that when we went over, we we were entering into a phase of war that hadn't been seen since Korea, which is urban con, which is sustained urban combat. And so our spin-up was almost zero. If it was just kind of like, well, the last time we did this in any kind of real way was 50 years ago. Um, good luck, godspeed, you're gonna have to figure this out on the fly. And on top of that, we didn't know we were going specifically to Ramadi, but two and a half months prior.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

No, less than less than that. Less than that. We thought we were going to be able to do that. Oh, wait, you're right. We thought we were going to Habania was the original plan, which is a city a tenth of the size of Ramadi. It's a resort town, not even anywhere close to that.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

So, when when did we find out like after that? When did we find out about Ramadi?

ast Transition Into Sustained Urban Combat

SPEAKER_01 41:51

My recollection was it was a week prior to flying. It was February 10th, 12th, something like that. Uh we've we've talked to a few other people and officers as well. They they seem to think it was Kuwait that we figured out we were going to Ramadi.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Dang. And then how close to when we flew to New Jersey, how close to that was March Air Force Base? What was the window of time between March Air Force Base and then you know jumping on a bird to go over? Five weeks.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

The training, yeah, four or five weeks.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Yeah. Pretty short. I'll have to look back. Oliver North has some dates on his his videos and stuff. I'll I'll take a closer look. But yeah, that's it. It was pretty pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Yeah. Yeah. Like, man, you know, to be to do this 30 times already, you guys are redoing it like frequently. Like, this is just me doing it, you know, like to this sort of granularity. Like, it's gotta be wild from your all's lens. Um, you know, oh no, piecing it to Nylon.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

Nylon and I talked, I mean, as we discussed a little bit before we jumped on here, but you know, like we'd been kicking this pig around for you know 20 years already. And I've done a lot of reading. I've I've I've picked up every single book that has ever been written about this time period and and have read it. And it still is amazing to me. Every single time we have one of these conversations, someone brings up something that I had not known or had forgotten, and it's just adding these extra pieces. And it's just the complexity of the situation is still. We knew this going into this podcast that when we stood this up, that one of the reasons why we wanted to do it in this format, it allowed everyone because the only way to tell the story is from multiple different angles, because everybody knew something a little bit different, and there was such a level of complexity, not just of our unit, but of where we were going at the time that we were doing it. And so it has been the only reason why we've been able to get to this granularity is because we've been doing this now pretty consistently with these conversations for two, three and a half months now. But even before that.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

And it kind of makes sense too with what you mentioned about the time period with Vietnam and content, right? Like that echoes it, right? That like these conversations take time, you know, and the synergy of like You know, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So it's starting to make more sense of like why there's the a certain type of sweet spot for you know things to flush out and just you know it all to kind of happen.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

And just to point out, somebody brings up something new every single every single con every single podcast. You're the first person to bring up that traffic circle. I hadn't thought about that traffic circle in 20 years. And it but it's a huge, like it's a huge thing. Like it doesn't seem like a huge thing, but it really is like painting the picture, like, oh, you came right out of the gate and you ran into a traffic circle, which is crazy as hell.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Yeah. Um and we're coming out against traffic. I mean, like, it wasn't even that it dumped out with the flow of traffic. We were getting pushed into oncoming traffic to come back around to pick up how anyways. So we've we've talked a little bit about some of those early missions. Um, do you do you have a specific memory of your first engagement, your first IED, first time that you had a shoot back, or is that really like the sixth and the seventh time frame?

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Yes. So I think the first one for me was we were doing a night mission and we were going down along the canal. Um, all six vehicles. We weren't uh broken up. Uh we were the lead vehicle, and we were going into a snake turn, and um the IED detonated uh behind us. I'd say closer to our Hum V versus the second to give you kind of like it wasn't a perfect split. Um, but you know, we were lights out, and so I whited out, and I was in the middle of uh of a of a snake uh S turn. So I'm judging, I'm trying to judge how when to straighten the wheel. And uh the on that canal, you know, there's like a five-foot kind of uh embankment. Yep. And so I I ended up going off the embankment a little bit, damn near flipped the Hum V. And you know, Pete's up in the up in the gun, and uh luckily it didn't flip. But as soon as as soon as we slid down, you know, Peterson uh disengages that 240, runs out in the middle of the street, lays it on the ground, and just starts opening up. And um, but it was wild too, because I can remember when I'm whited out. Uh I think the shrapnel probably hit the power lines because you could see sparks from like the power lines through your whiteout. It was just kind of this unique kind of everything's white, but you can still see these other contrasts of light coming in. Um you know, and I just remember running out and laying down in the street too, and me and Kern, and you're so pissed off because you can't find a fucking target. You know, you can't see somebody running away with uh with a rifle and just dropping them for that satisfaction, you know. Um and I think that's the story of a lot of us, right? Of those uh nine months or whatever, is so many times you've got these people, you know, inflicting uh harm and you can't finish the job. You know, we're trying we're trained to kill.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

And and you know, it's uh so that that was our that was my first taste, and it was like foreshadowing of what the next nine months was going to be like of just like you better get used to it because this is how it goes.

irst IED And The Anger Afterward

SPEAKER_03 48:32

And I really appreciate you pointing out that uh I don't know if the best word is the impotent feeling, but that was this like that that was one of the hardest emotions to navigate that entire time was sometimes you got to sometimes you got to whip it on and you felt you know that catharticness of like I'm doing my job, I'm you know, we've we've balanced, we've balanced things back out. But more often than not, there was like that again. I don't know if impotent is the right word, but that that feeling of, you know, I have no place to put my anger, frustrations, my my training.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

Uh I appreciate you calling that out.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Yeah, because it's like, you know, and luckily nobody was harmed in that in that engagement, right? But it's like it's even worse when you're seeing, you know, bloody brothers, and and but even when in a situation like that no one's hurt and you're just pissed off. You're just like motherfuckers, you know what I mean? Like you you hit a cell phone button and and off you go. It's just so easy. Um so yeah, yeah, that one sticks out. Um and and Crawford was pretty pissed off at me because uh because at when I slid down that embankment a little bit, I never put it in the park. So my ass jumped right out of the Humvee and it didn't move, luckily, but like you know, somehow he had the wherewithal to look over and he threw it in the park himself, you know. So he he schooled me up a little bit on uh, you know, having a clue. Um but you know, because you're ready to like you know kill somebody, right?

SPEAKER_03 50:23

So let's whip it on, baby.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

I forgot park. Um so yeah, that uh there I remember a skirmish down at the um uh the soccer field, right? But it was concrete. What what was the area where it was a field, but yet it wasn't like the the dirt, it was just straight up concrete.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

That was that was the military reviewing stance. And the only reason why I I remember this because I know which engagement you're talking about. I remember seeing a video of you specifically in this engagement.

axi Close Call And Part One Wrap

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Yes, yes, and it sucked because the way our Hum V end up positioning, I think what happened was being the lead, we came in and chose this first spot, and a lot of the uh the rest of the platoon kind of passed on, uh creating a perimeter. And so where everything's happening, we're tail end Charlie, and I didn't like the way Pete was uh, you know, Pete's locked on to everything happened in front of him, and I just felt like it was a perfect situation for someone to come up from behind and just get us. So, like that skirmish is me protecting our rear end, and it just sucked because they're up there getting some, and I'm back here, you know, in the rear uh uh you know, but it was wild because I remember, man, like those those rounds were cracking that wall behind me, and it's just these sounds that for the rest of your life stick with you, right? Like and some uh like how they say sometimes you know pictures don't do things justice, like like a movie will never replicate that in my head, like we'll never quite hit it just bright. Um so I've remembered that one feels relatively early on. Um, but I better tell this story before I forget. It was one I definitely wanted to tell. Um, but uh, and I I have a feeling unless unless Cackly, uh Cackly might have broken it out. So it feels like somewhere at least middle, you got to the point to where you'd start splitting the platoon up in half, right? You might take three trucks one place, three trucks another. And we had this night mission that it wasn't it wasn't past midnight, it was more like 10, right? Like an hour or two after dark. And you know, what was the purpose, you know? Uh can't quite remember. I remember we split up and I'm with the truck, and it's uh it's not Michigan, but it's still a relatively busy back street, right? It wasn't like one of the tiny, tiny uh residential. It it it was had some decent traffic. And um me and Pete are with Peterson or with the uh the Humvee, he's up in the gun. Uh, you know how it was. You uh it's usually driver and um gunner with the vehicle, and everyone else dismounts in in dismount situations, and uh lo and behold, here comes a car like behind us approaching the Humvee at a speed that wasn't slowing down, and like you could see it way down there, and as it gets closer, you hear the music, the music's just blaring, still not slowing down, and I'm at like literally I could just like lean against the back of the Humvee centered, uh, was so that would mean Pete's right above my head, um, up in the gun, still not slowing down, so much to the point to where I lift my rifle up, I'm watching him still coming, still coming. It's like, all right, I gotta engage, right? Like, and you know, we're waving our hands and yelling, and nothing's working. So the moment I take my safety off to pull the trigger, Pete pulls out his pistol. He doesn't even engage with his two four, he pulls out his pistol. So my best guess is 50 to 100 feet, right? Maybe more like 100. Um, pulls out his pistol, bam, bam, shot the guy right in the shoulder through the front windshield, and as soon as he hits him, you know, the the it's it's I think a taxi, you know, barrels off. And uh you're thinking this guy's trying to kill us. He's you know, is this a uh uh he was just drunk? He was just drunk and clueless. Yep. Jamming us some tunes, mister, mister, help, help me, help. And I mean, perfect shot though, through the uh through the shoulder, and uh, you know, the ambulance came and and took care of him, but like, you know, from that day, Peterson became pistol Pete.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Uh that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Yeah, and I mean, literally, like the safety just came off, and and I was just getting ready to squeeze that trigger. It was another moment of like, God damn it, you know, like that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 55:57

Um yeah, so uh if you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.