When Optimism Meets Combat - Elijah Mann (part 2 of 2)

Part 2 of Eli Mann and he paints how a brand-new Marine grows up fast, from early training and culture shocks to the hard specifics of 2004. His story gets  into fear, guilt, and communication breakdowns, then land on what “constant vigilance” really means when you carry the lessons forward. 

• arriving to the unit as a PFC and feeling "lost in the sauce" 
• March Air Force Base and Mount Town training
• the value of practical hip-pocket classes 
• April cordon and search missions
• casualties that shape the platoon and rumors that spread in the hooch 
• VBIED warnings and comms choke points 
• late July and August tension rising and the fear of VBIED tactics 
• coming home on the Freedom Bird
• leadership influences and the lesson of staying alert

----------------------------------------------
If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ RamadiPodcast@gmail.com, or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

Transcript

Reunions And Old Regrets

SPEAKER_00 0:08

This is part two of our conversation with Eli Mann of Flight Hammer 14.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

I have uh I have a couple of memories of you over there, but the I don't know the one that sticks out to me the most, and I have zero idea why I was so wound up on you. But it was after a miss. We had it was right before a mission and I like I laid into you so bad. And uh and I think I just went off half cock because what I remember specifically is me coming back around and being like, that might have been a little much. For whatever reason it just sticks in my head that I I remember I just ripped you up one side and down the other, and then like took two steps away and then came back around and was like, that might have been about 10% more than I needed to do. And then I turned back around and walked away. I don't know if you remember that, but I do still feel a little bit bad about that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

I don't remember, but knowing me back then, I probably deserved it, you know. I was one of the harder, not smarter Marines.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

I uh I do remember. Well, it was I I I think it was more that there there was a couple there was a couple of you that uh you were just junior, you know, like you were really boot, and so you were really kind of lost in the sauce. And uh you and uh Wolf too, for that matter, you'd get lost in your thoughts more than like you were overthinking it, and it'd be like, God damn it, stop thinking, just fucking do.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Well, speaking of junior, you I mean, you were a PFC. When did you come to the pl or come to the company? When did you come to the unit?

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Um, I was a part of the kids that went to Hawaii first and then came to the unit.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

All right.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Um, I came from uh hotel company in um Paris Island to hotel company in Camp Geiger for uh uh infantry training, and then um from there we went to Hawaii, sat there for

Joining The Unit As A Boot

SPEAKER_03 2:22

probably maybe a week, I don't know. Um, and then came to 2-4.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Um what did you think of that transition? Were you uh were you pretty bullshit about it, or were you just like whatever? Just wherever I land is where I land.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

I was like, what the heck is going on here, guys? I thought I had a good one, but no, I I ended up in California, which was so awesome. I mean, it was uh great experience to be a magnificent bastard, but like at the time I was like, man, somebody doesn't have their shit together here.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, I mean, it's it was definitely a symptom of a larger issue that everything was so new, everything was changing. They didn't even know where to send people, they didn't know where to get people to send people. Uh yeah, it yeah, uh that story is crazy as hell to me that they flew you guys all the way out to Hawaii, and then you would think they'd just leave you there and then send somebody else, but nope, nope, it's cheaper or easier to package you up and send you. Well, and it was also a grip of you guys, too, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Like, like it wasn't just a few, it was a lot. Do you know how many of them? Yeah, they're there. I mean, approximately. I mean, I'm not looking for an exact count, but more than 20.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

They had to yeah, more than 20, definitely more than 20. Um, I would say uh probably around 40 or so.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

They freaking flew a platoon out there. Yeah. Awesome. Yay, Marine Corps. Oh shit. So then then you would have the were you part of did you end up going to March? I mean, we're kind of going backwards in time just for a second, but did you end up getting some other train like doing March Air Force Base? Did you get any other training other than the backyard shit that we did?

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Yeah, we did March Air Force Base. Uh, went out there and um did the exercises out there in the little the city area. Uh one night we got ambushed by someone. I don't know who it was, because by the time like they started firing, we were all dead where we were. So we were like, okay. Uh it was uh they just snuck up on us and ambushed us, and yeah, so that was uh

Training At March And Mount Town

SPEAKER_03 4:44

that was interesting. There was one mission, I can't remember if it was at March Air Force Base uh the first time or at uh um Mount City. Um definitely it was at Mount City, but um we were uh take we were driving down uh towards the city itself and uh Accles and Acres took my vehicle. Uh they actually uh came up and took us in the back and took us on a little joy ride, so that was interesting.

SPEAKER_04 5:21

Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Uh but yeah, Mount City uh that was something uh that was something new to us too, you know. Um just being there in a new unit and learning new people and I was honestly kind of lost in the sauce there for a bit.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Well, I mean, yeah, you were literally weeks into the fleet and then straight into you're supposed to be doing advanced advanced infantry stuff, like all of a sudden not the basics and with people you've never met. That's that's a hell of a jump.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Did you find it easy to transition into the like like were we, you know, we were pretty focused on the mission and stuff like that, or were you feeling kind of out in the air?

SPEAKER_03 6:17

Um I felt pretty comfortable uh transitioning into some things. Um other like relationship-wise uh with the other platoon, uh the people in the platoon. Um I was kind of lost in the sauce because I just uh I'm not one to make friends quickly. I fill out the area and then you know um then make my decision. Uh but training wise, we we did learn a lot there at March Air Force Base. Um and it was it was really useful where uh in Ramadi.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

To me, the biggest difference that I saw was, and I don't know what this was about the mount instructors, it's nothing against them personally, but they still had a I don't know, I'd like to say a peacetime mindset. They still wanted to use stress tactics, so they were throwing RD sims at us. They were like, Do you remember that? They'd come up and fire blank rounds literally right behind you. They'd be like, oh, you're like you're not wearing ear pro, you're talking to somebody. They'd fire a blank round like literally right behind you. And I'm like, what is that supposed to do? That's just it's just making me angry. It's not making me, I'm not learning anything from that. Thank you. But they yeah, they were they were very um, I don't know, almost adversarial as far as the way they were doing training. I remember I can't remember who it was, but it was one of the junior guys that was having difficulty understanding how to get over a wall with his gear on, and they made him do it like I I don't even know, 20 times the roll over the wall thing. Oh it was so many times, and I was like, I I don't know that he's gonna get it. Also, every wall's different. I don't know what that's really teaching anybody, but cool man, carry on, keep going. You're higher ranked than me, so I can't say anything. But you're right, when we went to March Air Force Base, I think because they were guest instructors, because they weren't even from like they weren't from Pendleton, there were some marine instructors there, some upper level people, but I think they were from Quantico, and then we had the guest British and a couple other people, and it was I don't know, man. It was good. It uh it definitely had a more I would like to say collegial, I don't know, something. It had a more like we're trying to actually teach you something environment versus we're trying to fuck you up environment.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

I remember one of the uh British guys going on a rant about sidewalk versus pavement. Um, he was explaining that to them sidewalk was you know, sidewalk, um, and the pavement was the sidewalk to them.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

So good, good tactical semantics. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Infantry is the same everywhere, man. You find something to complain about. You're like, what can I complain about? The pavement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Yeah, well, and actually bringing up the uh the British people that we we had another round with um when we were in Kuwait. I don't know if you were a part of that group where those British guys came over and gave us some hip pocket classes when we were actually in Kuwait. Um, that was that was some actually got some really good info from them and definitely incorporated a lot of their stuff.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Yeah. I didn't, I I was just gonna say I don't remember much about like the Kuwait stuff, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, I'll uh I'll jog your memory with a couple of dates and uh see if anything shakes loose and let me know what you think. Uh let's see. Obviously, there's all the stuff that happened in the beginning of April. I know that you guys were on guard duty for part of that, but not all of it. You happen to remember, so you would have been out on the 8th, 9th, and 10th. And uh I've been trying to dig into this more because I really can't remember exactly what happened on the 9th, even though we were all out. But the eighth was Operation County Fair. That was the first cordon and search, which was fairly successful

April Operations And Checkpoint Chaos

SPEAKER_01 10:30

as far as gathering material. We found field hospitals, that kind of stuff. I think that's what inspired uh Colonel Kennedy to have us do the bug hunt. Or I don't know. I don't know what was the inspiration for it, but we basically did that on a grand scale on the 10th, and you guys were part of that for sure. The first big bug hunt, and that was in the North Sophia district up by uh where you guys were at was closer to the Euphrates River in the north edge of the cordon. Any memories from that?

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Um I think that were we by the palms, I can't remember if we were by the palms around that time.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Um but we had set up a uh a checkpoint there um at this intersection it had uh um some old, you know, old Iraqi buildings around, and um this kid he uh decided to take a tow truck um on a little joy ride. He after the the fact we found out that he was not right in the head and everything. The um father came out and gave this signal, which I guess means uh like waving his hand head hand to the side of his head, um, saying that this kid isn't right. Um he drove through our Constantina wire and um already lit him up with a 240, um, lit up the uh the engine block with a 240, and some of it got into the cab and everything because I remember seeing the tracers uh bounce in there. Um and I was kneeled about ready uh to engage and the vehicle stops and um surprisingly this kid survived. I mean he was he had some scratches and stuff on him, but man, he was a lucky kid because that 240 can do some damage.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah. That was also the mission that we had uh the danger close uh mortar rounds. They kicked off the uh they kicked off the bug hunt by dropping we dropped our own mortars, but they had uh they were a little too close to us. So whoopsie daisy. Do you remember that? Or is it um no, I do not. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

I I'm curious, and I actually don't know the answer to this. I'm just thinking now. Did you so the next day after that was was Easter Sunday? Uh it was the memorial service that they did. Did you guys end up making it out to the memorial service? I know elements of Rainmaker did. I don't know if you guys did.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Um, I know that some of us did. Um actually, I think that I think that I did not make it to that. I'm I might have been, you know, off doing something else, but I know that I didn't make it to it. Yeah, I made it to the ones.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

I'm not sure. I'm not sure if Sledgehammer went out to it.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah, we we did not either. The memorial was still up on the next time we went to Combat Outpost, so we got to see it, but we were not there for the service.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Yeah. There's a couple ceremonies on Hurricane Point, but I don't remember going out to the Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Uh yeah, they did the 21 Gun Salute uh one in front of the palace. Yeah, we were there for that one. But uh and that was not on the 11th. I don't remember what day that was, but uh yeah. All right, let's see. Uh the last two weeks of April was uh when just in case this triggers a memory, maybe it won't. You may not have known anything about it. Uh this is when Sergeant Major Booker decided to have his own secret squirrel missions and uh grabbed a couple of guys and had uh the bearded guys that went out. They were trying to do like a low pro mission around the city.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

What you might remember of that is that we had to sit in our trucks. We had to sit in our trucks with our engines on and we were sitting there for forever. Actually,

Losses And The Cost Of Bad Comms

SPEAKER_02 14:36

that I think is what that was a time when I was that's uh I just remembered why after you.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Oh, was he was he not was he not on the truck on time?

SPEAKER_02 14:47

No, he wasn't. You you were you were uh you were getting you were slow rolling out there and we were already supposed to have our engines running and uh that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

So yeah, I triggered somebody's memory.

unknown 15:01

Good.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

And then we already kind of talked about Operation Treasured Island and the uh the fallout of that, trying to find the the swimmers from Fox that had drowned. Uh next thing that I have for Sledgehammer specifically and or for 81s would be May 12th. Obviously, was Savage getting uh killed by that IED. Did you happen to know Savage at all? Were you close with him?

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Um I knew him from a distance. Uh he seemed like a pretty cool guy, like you know, kind of a wiry, crazy guy, but you know, uh he uh it was sad to hear the news that he had been hit and killed by that IED. Um I remember seeing everyone's reaction and um just you know feeling feeling hurt by you know that um one of our own had been hit. Um I know Defon Seka took it hard, everyone took it hard. Um some of the uh scumba back in the hoosh was that he was hit but he was gonna be okay, but then we got the news that he had passed away.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Uh yeah, we sort of if it's I don't know if overshadow is the right word, but uh I mean Regalsperger was hit in the same IED and was was in critical condition. I mean he was had a lot of weeks of medical care and surgeries after that. I it was a hell of a moment because both of those guys were big personalities, at least to me. They're big personalities to me in 81s, they were guys that I knew well.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Yeah, we had really brief interactions. Um I just remember seeing him sitting on top of the uh the armor rolling out um with the 50 and uh just like not coming back, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah. My next memory or my next note anyway for Sledgehammer specifically was um May 29th ended up being a big day. Uh and it was a big day specifically because you guys were out there at the uh somebody called it the arches of death. I don't know that we ever call it the arches of death. We always call it the arches, but out at the arches, and uh that was when the engineers were sweeping the Habania Dam. And uh there was an IED that was not diffused that they that blew up and and hit those engineers. You happen to remember any of that stuff? Trigger any memories for you?

SPEAKER_03 17:36

No, I do not.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Okay, yeah, it's alright. Uh the other part of that day, and I don't know I don't know where you guys were at that point because you were not at the arches anymore, but the there was a VBI uh V bid that was parked on the side of the road that both your platoon had called in and my platoon had called in, but for some reason the word had not gotten to Echo Company, and a QRF track highback rolled right past it, and it was loaded with uh small uh ball bearings or nuts or screws or something. And it just shredded that iback and uh wounded a lot of guys that day, killed four right there. And so um you guys may not have been a part of that. The next big things was we already kind of talked about June a little bit. That was for the next big bug hunt, the gas shell attack. Uh the snipers were killed in June. That was June 29th. Uh Sergeant Condi was uh wounded on the night of the 30th and died on the morning of July 1st. Do you happen to have any interactions with Condi at all? I know he was, from what I understand, he was kind of I don't know, everywhere all the time, uh in the barracks and kind of helping people out and training them and getting them spun up.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

Um I never met him personally, but I heard uh great stories about him that he was a great guy. He was really compassionate about what he does.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

So let's see. Last few things I have for Sledgehammer specifically. Uh, you guys responded when the police station got exploded. I don't know if you remember that one, but uh they had just built a brand new police station and then the insurgency blew it up and leveled it. Uh that was July 3rd. And then there was a couple of things that you guys did respond to at some point. OP Library was attacked with explosives, they blew out the top floor. Uh let's see, and then Operation Traveler would

August Pressure And VBIED Fear

SPEAKER_01 19:30

be the next big one. That was the first week of August. That was with uh, so when Al-Qaeda and Iraq started spinning up, you had uh Zarkawi was the leader of that, and he had family in Ramadi. Uh, and then there was a bunch of different cordon searches that you guys were on the inner portion of the kick element. And uh I don't know how much you personally did, Eli, but uh I remember being the outer cordon while you guys did a lot of kicking down doors and taking out a lot of high-value targets.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Yeah, I was mostly on the vehicle for uh for those um pulling security. Uh really couldn't leave the vehicle, um, leave my gunner behind. So we were just watching each other's back. Um, I do remember the VB ID. Um, that's something that actually I carried with me as a a personal failure for a while because I saw the spray painted windows on that orange and white um like taxi cab thing. And I I looked I looked down um at the uh I forget what I was looking at, but I look back up and I see this thing and we're rolling by and I'm like, hey, look at that. And uh one of the guys that I was riding with looked at it and I I guess someone called it in. I didn't know that someone had called it in at the time.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

I just thought that it was missed, and when the echo company was hit, um, you know, I felt like I had failed someone. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Well, I'm I'm sorry you felt like that. Here 22 years later, it was not you, and it was called in. Uh this is one of those things, and I don't know that we'll ever get an answer, if I mean, especially 20 years later. But we had such a decentralization of command where small unit leaders, I mean, Lance corporals in often cases were making huge decisions. But when it came to comm, there was choke points in the com structure that were glaring holes in our strategy. We couldn't talk to the army ever. Uh no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't directly communicate. Uh, I remember only one time ever when we had air overhead where I could actually talk to the air, uh, which was weird since they were literally right over the top of me. Uh, you would think that would be something you always had to call into hire, hire would talk to them. There was like there, there's no there. There's no joint forces communication portion. And it that was what happened with this is uh we talked back and forth between map two and sledgehammer about that vehicle-borne IED. We both called in to hire and they reported it to Echo according to what I could hear on the radio, but somehow it just never made it to these guys, or they thought they were on a different street when they made the turn. That's also possible because they were on a whole different patrol on the north of the city, to my understanding. And they had just made a turn onto Michigan when they rolled past it and got hit. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know what happened, but it's a weird, it's a weird thing that that I'm hoping people learn from later because that was that was my biggest frustration. Probably the whole damn deployment was comms.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

It still said a shiver down my spine thinking about that vehicle, looking in looking at it and seeing what they explained to us it would look like, and it actually did look like it. Yeah, yeah. Um I'm like, holy shit, you know, that um but it is it's um it's great to it's great to know that um it wasn't a personal failure, that it was a comms failure, and um you know, people didn't know about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Yep, yeah, I a lot of a lot of tragedy could have been prevented that day, but it uh it just didn't happen.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

And that's who knows how that whole day was a lot of dumb decisions. Those engineers should not have gotten taken out now they did either. No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

No, there was yeah well, we're kind of rolling through uh again, talking a little about August. There was multiple uh cordon searches through August. I I to me, from what I remember, was August was just one mission after another of long missions, and and to me, the insurgency felt more bold. And maybe you remember this being on the trucks. Previous cordon searches, the cordon was boring. You didn't do shit. The guys on the internet element were getting all the action, not in August. In August, there was like you get attacked on the cordon constantly while people were kicking down doors. Did you ever have that issue when you were uh out there pulling security on the trucks?

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Personally, I did not on my truck. Uh I uh heard of a few things that happened. Um names and places, they flee me now, but um just the the intensity and the the tension in the air was palpable around that time. Um always vigilant, always looking around, um, even more so than than before. Um because like you could literally feel it in the air around that time.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Yeah. This is and I again because we switched our trucks out so much, I can I have a hard time remembering who was my driver and who wasn't. Um by any chance, were you my driver when um what was what was the uh that political party when they got it got raided and they had all the guns in there? Remember, remember this mission?

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Um we found a bunch of guys in this I know what you're talking about, and I literally just looked at the picture of the name of the party and it's not coming to me, but it was like uh something, something Liberation of Iraq party or something like that. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

But yeah. Yeah, and I think I was Oliver North that was out there with us too at the time. I I think I think he was there and he took some pictures, and I think he was actually with us.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

And anyways, to make a long story short, they after we after they had found all the stuff and they were like inventory everything, my truck was sent down. And this is where I'm asking you, man, if you remember this, is they sent us off to like hold like it was kind of the northern part, but the roads were so jig joggy that we were having a hard time getting line of sight like of any kind of matter. I mean, it was only like 50, 50, 60 feet, and then it would jig jog the road wood where you couldn't see anything, and we kept getting just far enough where the comms, the inner squad was getting just foggy enough, and it was like, all right, well, then we have to back off. Anyways, to make a long story short, I was I had asked, I think I I feel like it was the driver, it would have been you or maybe Winder, but I was like, hey, go ahead, we're all gonna stay here with the trucks, why don't you go take um God position? And at that exact moment, that car came whipping around the corner and almost hit hit us. And I don't know how, I don't know how we didn't all unload on the guy, but uh that was one of those kind of like, I don't know, like adrenaline blackout moments where like all I remember is kind of seeing the car come around the corner and then all of a sudden coming to and then having the guy pulled out of the gar out of the car and he was on the ground and I had two, it was me and another guy holding holding him down, being like, what the and it was just a random guy. He just didn't he was, you know, they drive like a thousand miles an hour and didn't realize that we were sitting right there, but that was uh up there with one of the nothing happened, but one of the scariest moments because I thought we were getting rammed by a V bid.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Yeah, that was around the time where he got the uh the egg hogs, wasn't it? Yeah, yes. Okay, I remember that. Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Um I think I think I went up on a building uh for Overwatch.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Um Okay, then it was you, yeah. That's I because I was because I was exactly that for that exact reason. I was like, I we can't see shit. Before you could even get inside the building. The guy came around the corner. But that's for whatever reason, one of my more vivid memories of of my time over there. Because I nearly shit myself with that car coming back the corner. I was like, oh, this is it, this is it, we're all dead.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yeah, I think, and I'm trying to remember, I think maybe it was the 28th of July. I don't know. I don't know. It was the last weeks of July. That was the first rolling V bid we had seen. Where one was I and it what's funny is it got pushed by another car, but but the original reports were that someone had driven it at the convoy, but it it wasn't. It got pushed by another vehicle or something. It got pushed by something, and it was rolling at the convoy, but it was the first rolling V-bid we had seen, and that was like that was an escalation of tactics. So you were right to be scared because we were all sure that was going to happen.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Well, I I do rem because I remember yes, because I remember they start towards the end they started talking about the kind of the suicide dead man's switch, you know, driver uh idea. Yep. Which did which did end up happening more. Thank God it never really happened for us.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

But yeah, I think we never had a confirmed, but we had uh a couple of like potential suicide IEDs, but never I don't think we ever had a suicide driver.

unknown 29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Well, coming towards the end of this thing, man, uh you remember anything towards August or transitioning uh into September and and on out of Ramadi?

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Um I remember right my ride out. Um it was on a seven ton and just looking out at at the expanse and everything, moving to um some base away from Ramadi. Um just

Coming Home And Talking It Out

SPEAKER_03 29:43

feeling a sense of relief after a while um that I made it through and that um I was lucky enough to be able to be the ones that went home from it. Um I I just feel I felt lucky is what I felt after everything that we had been through.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

A fair feeling. Did you have uh so do you remember the flight out? Freedom Bird Home.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

Yeah, that one was actually on a nicer plane than what we rode in on. Uh wasn't it a commercial plane?

SPEAKER_01 30:25

It was a United Airlines flight, yeah. It was much nicer.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah, yeah. You know, one that flew, one that didn't.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yeah, I mean drag service, leg room, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I think that I was on the uh the working party for the gear.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Um did you get set first class?

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Yeah, I got sit in first class. It was pretty nice.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Uh there you go.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

Uh didn't have to sit all zipper legged with everyone. So uh yeah, that uh that's when it really hit home that uh that I was getting to go and see my family again.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Um were they there for you when we got there, or was that later when you went home on leave?

SPEAKER_03 31:12

It was later when I went home on leave. Um I got to go and see my dad and my mom, my stepmom, uh my girlfriend at the time. Get to go and be crazy for about 30 days and then come back and nice um work up for Japan.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

So while you were deployed, were you in contact with your family much or your girlfriend? Did you call them or write them or I wrote my family.

SPEAKER_03 31:38

Um I wrote my dad more than my mom because he was uh an army engineer, he would understand more so what I was talking about, sure, and could filter whatever uh to my mom. Um good tactic for sure. Mostly I called my girlfriend, you know, because why not? Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

And did were people sending you care packages at all?

SPEAKER_03 32:08

I got a care package from my uh great-grandma hook and that side of the family, which was pretty cool. They sent, I think, some candy, uh hygiene stuff, um, just useful things that we could use over there. They wouldn't send tobacco because none of them smoked, but um with cigarettes at $8 carton over there and the Haji Hooch, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Yeah. So kind of uh had had me think just for a second. Did you um got any specific memories on it of any of the guys? We talked a little bit about this of our senior guys and stuff like that, but any of the uh any of the guys that you hung like who did you hang out with the most, like not on the missions and stuff like that, and any specific memories of any of the guys in the back in the on Hurricane Point?

SPEAKER_03 32:57

I remember hanging out in the smoke pit a lot, just uh the random guys that would walk in there and have a cigarette, uh hanging out with Adams. Uh we could we would call him Samada because it's Adams Backwards. Uh nice. Um Martinez, he would be back there with us. Uh George Hernandez. Um I bunked beside him. Uh, him and uh Jamie Rocha. Um uh Wolf, of course. Uh he was one of my closest guys that I was with there, although he kind of just went off off grid after we got out. You know, he's um I have his phone number and stuff. I just haven't gotten the nerve up to call him yet. Um yeah, just uh just those guys, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Nice. You should call him. He'd be happy to hear from you. That's uh more and more of the we talk to people, man. I'm I'm uh I don't know. It's uh it's surprising how how connected you are even after I'm happy to see you. I haven't seen you in literally 22 years, probably almost to the day. Yeah, it's uh it's been a long time, but it's good to see you.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

You as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Well, you talked a little about coming home and you talked a little about spending time with your family. Uh how'd you feel when you got home when you're on that that sort of we called it trash can leave, that sort of free 30 days that we got?

SPEAKER_03 34:28

I felt great. I uh just went out and partied and uh saw family, um, hung out with my stepbrother, which when we get together, it's like just a drink fest. Um went out and uh went to a frat party actually, which was pretty cool. Um nice. Got an overly expensive rental car and just you know, just have fun.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

That's good. That's good. Did you uh did you talk to anybody about anything that had happened, or did you just kind of keep it to yourself and and hang out and try to enjoy the time?

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Um, I kept it mostly to myself. I did talk to my dad about a couple things. Um, one of them was the sniper squad, one of them was uh Lance Corporal Savage being killed over there. Um and uh just pretty much just venting about how I felt about everything.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

It's good you had an outlet. A lot of people didn't have anything, yeah. Yeah. Well, a little bit pushing forward. Uh I mean you got thrust from being a PFC to being a senior marine real fast. Uh, you got your own boots uh pretty quick by by winter time that year. Uh anything influence your leadership? Anything that you specifically brought with you going forward?

SPEAKER_03 35:56

Um just a lot of the uh understanding and professionalism that I saw from the other guys. Um, Corporal Musser, he

Leadership Lessons And Meaning Today

SPEAKER_03 36:05

was uh great influence. He's always uh the intelligent guy, always uh the guy that um well to me knew what to do, um, which was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

You don't have to be you don't have to be nice to him because he's sitting here. It's not it's not required.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

We asked you that money later. Oh god it's no uh uh Sergeant Escabel, Corporal Wade, we had them through Japan, so I got to see uh got to see their leadership style and just got to uh experience other types of leadership, you know, with all of them.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

So yeah, you you guys took Escabel again to Okinawa?

SPEAKER_03 36:50

Yeah, he went with us.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

That was like his tenth trip to Okinawa. Escabel, if you're listening to this, I'm very sorry.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Yeah, because he came in in like '98 or '97 or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

He had done a few different 31st Mews long before we ever even met him. Okay. Well, that's good.

SPEAKER_03 37:12

That's cool, man. He was a firecracker. I loved him. He was great.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

He knew his shit, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Nice. And then you so you stuck around for the uh Barwana deployment also after that. And by most people's counts, it was much different than your trip to Ramadi. Uh and just to kind of round this out, any anything? Uh, did you bring any lessons learned from your 2004 time in Ramadi to what you sort of prepared your guys for? Because at that time you definitely would have been senior. So you've been preparing some guys for returning to Iraq.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

Definitely constant vigilance. Um, constant vigilance. You cannot uh let complacency sneak in, no matter how tired you are, how hungry you are, you know, how cold you are that time. Um, because the uh even though in our area we didn't have um much conflict, there was still like that sneaking suspicion everywhere. Um, when we went into the city, we pushed through it and they built a berm around it um with I think two vehicle checkpoints and two permanent vehicle checkpoints and one put one or two pedestrian checkpoints. Um just stay staying on alert, pretty much, is the gist of everything.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Well, that's uh I mean that's a hell of a way to round this out. And I've asked most people this, and I'll I'll ask you the same thing. You've got 20 years of reflection, so your answer probably if I asked you 10 years ago would be different. If I ask you in 10 years from now, it'll probably be different. But kind of now, how do you think about everything looking back on it? What does it mean to you? What does your service mean to you? And what does specifically 2004 Ramadi mean to you? What do you tell people about it?

SPEAKER_03 39:10

2004 Ramadi is uh when 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine in my era defined itself um as one of the hardest battalions that like is in the Marine Corps. We um held down an area that was very volatile, uh uh despite going in thinking that it was uh security and uh safety and security operations. Um the men who died over there um didn't die in vain. Um and everyone left something, you know. Um I know that uh I'm proud of what we did over there. I'm proud that we were able to hold our own in such a bad place. Um and some of us got to come back, so it's always good.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

It's a good way to say it, man. I like it. Yeah, that's good. It's a good way to wrap it up. Cool. I I not trying to push you out. Uh is there anything we didn't cover that you want to cover? I'm I'm uh I'm all ears. I just uh I'm not sure where to go from here.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

No, I don't I don't think so. I think we covered everything pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Nice. Well, it's good to see you, Eli. Thanks for joining us and uh and sharing. I I look forward to I look forward to editing this again and listening to it. It's been good to talk to you.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

If you like what you heard, make sure you subscribe

Final Thoughts And Farewell

SPEAKER_02 40:42

for future episodes on your favorite podcast service.