A View From Cracked Glass - Michael Hanson (part 1 of 2)

Part one with Michael Hanson, who shares about becoming a Humvee driver and how trust, training, and tiny details decide whether a patrol goes smooth or goes sideways. We also get honest about the cost afterward, from drinking and stress to VA support, blast exposure, and hearing loss. 

• moving from Rainmaker to Sledgehammer
• getting picked as Gunny Cook’s new driver 
• learning to drive, motor pool training, and the attempt at climbers course
• ropes, knots, and why “simple” skills wash people out 
• coming home, partying too hard, and finally going to the VA for help 
• living with blast effects, possible TBI symptoms, and tinnitus 
• convoying into Iraq, first impressions of Ramadi, and early expectations 
• interpreters, accuracy, and the friction when translation gets crossed
• Hurricane Point life, the smoke pit, workouts, and guard rotations 
• early firefights, the Battle of Ramadi timeline, and what IED patterns looked like 

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

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Transcript

Meeting Michael Hansen

SPEAKER_00 0:10

All right. Hi, my name's Michael Hansen. Um uh I am I'm living in uh Lakeville, Minnesota right now. Um and as of 2004, I was a rank I got out Lance Corporal and then corporal after I got out.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

There you go. And which uh and tell us again which uh platoon you were with.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Oh, I was in um I was in weapons company and uh 81 millimeter mortars, so and you were in Rainmaker or something like that weapons company. Um I was kind of in both. Uh when I was in Ramadi, I think I was mainly in I started out in Rainmaker and then I moved over to Sledgehammer. Um they needed a they needed a Humvee driver. Um, so I was in one for maybe about a month uh for like the driveover, and then yeah, probably about a month, I think until probably late March, I think, I was with Rainmaker. Yeah, Rainmaker was team one, I believe, and Sledgehammer was team two, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Okay, correct. Yeah, I I uh after you now that you've said that I for had forgotten that you did get pulled over. That's that's right. I remember that now.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Well, that's an interesting place, interesting place to start just on its own. Is uh what what made it to where they wanted to pull you over specifically? Any ideas?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Um I don't know. They just they just needed somebody, and I don't remember exactly like what the reason was, but they just were going through and I was a Humbie driver and there was only so many drivers, so they just moved me over and it worked out fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

It was because they lost me.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I was it so when Worth after Worth got wounded and got pulled out, then they It was short, it was shortly after that, yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Right, and I was I was the driver for I would uh I was the driver for uh Gunny Cook.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

And um Yeah, and I became Gunny Cook's driver. Yep, that's correct.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

Yeah, and so they pulled they pulled me over to uh take a truck because we had gotten comfortable with the town enough, and so they didn't need me a qu they didn't need a corporal being a driver, and so like you said, they had we didn't not everybody had a Humvee license, so we needed to pull some people over and hold you over. So I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

And I'm right at the time I got I got along really well with with Gunny Cook too, so I think that was probably a part of it. We we had a really good, you know, working a relationship and got along and joked around a lot and stuff like that. So he may have said, Hey Hanson's good to go, um, he could be my driver, and everything worked out well. So it could have been something like that too, for his preference, and they probably looked at the list of drivers of who they were.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

So that's probably a great point because if you had control over things like having to spend sometimes 20 hours in a day sitting next to somebody, you want to make sure that they're not an asshole. So I I I would get I would pick somebody I like too. That's good, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Which which reminds me, sometimes we'd be on patrol, and there'd be things that some of the other drivers would do, and he would he'd he'd he'd choke them out, but he'd choke them out, and not ex not like literally, but he'd chew them out, um, and say, I swear to god, if I was in the truck with you when you were doing that, so help me, sort of thing. So you gotta have that trust of people that's driving you around.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

So you got you got a good review by watching other people get the shit chewed out of them. That's great. Yes, yeah, exactly. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

If I do you have any specific memories of any of those uh specific uh any of the uh incidents, I do, I do.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Um that brought because that brought me brought one story to mind. Um we were doing a patrol, and it was during the day. Um, you know, we did nine night patrols and day patrols, and there was one um that we were I can't remember exactly where we were going, um, but we were coming back from one of the outposts, and I feel like it was around, I think we were going around like a circle or a roundabout area, and an IED went off, and it was a pretty big one, and it blasted a chunk of asphalt up into the air, and the chunk of asphalt had hit, I think, Stadleman's window, and we had recently gotten um the up-armored glass for the front of the Humvees, and the drivers

Becoming Gunny Cook’s Driver

SPEAKER_00 5:00

were supposed to put them on, and at that time that he didn't put it on, and it smashed the wind. Luckily, nobody nobody got hurt, but it pretty much destroyed the windshield. And I remember Gunny Cook chewed him out pretty good after that. And he's like, if you don't put that windshield on directly, like right when we get back, he's like, I'm gonna have you. So that was one time in particular. I remember that something happened and and uh he made sure that he remembered it. And then uh and by God, he put that that windshield on directly right when we got back. Obviously, because it was smashed, but because those new ones we got, they were probably like what like three or four inches thick, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

They they did look like uh they were that polycomposite that's similar to like bank glass where it's like flexible if you touched it. Yeah, but it was you're right, it was like three or four inches thick, and it looked ridiculous on the front of those vehicles, but it worked, it worked, it worked really well.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

If I remember correctly, it also was a smaller viewing aperture, too.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

I if I remember correctly, because the frame was the frame was huge, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

Yeah, yeah. I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, so that was one one in particular, um of just driving. And then we would do a lot of night drives as well, obviously, because and I remember we'd have to do a lot with um NVGs on. So I think I I think I was a pretty good driver as far as being with the night vision goggles and stuff like that. Um, I never hit anything, so never went off the road or crashed. So it worked out pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Now, if I remember correctly, you joined the unit like early in Okinawa, middle of Okinawa, and did you drive? Yeah, it was done. Did you learn to drive in Okinawa?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Um, no, I wasn't a driver in Okinawa. I didn't pick up driving until we came back from after the deployment. Okay, but yeah, I was in the first Okinawa where we got extended. Yep. So um everyone came back, or we were supposed to be there for six months, and I think we ended up being there for I think it was over a year. Uh because of yeah, because of what was breaking out in um South Korea, um and China, a lot of that stuff was going on over there, and the invasion of and the initial OIF one invasion of Iraq. Yep. Um, we're we were all kind of on standby uh watching those from from afar, but that was cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

So you did you go to did you go to like a formal Humvee school when you came back? Or did you just go?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, we went to a motor pool, yeah, it was a motor pool training. Okay, and they had they had classrooms above the motor pool, I remember. So you'd go in, um, and I think it was probably like a training for about a week, a week or two, something like that. So we do regular PT and then go to the motor pool training every day. And then after that, it was we were the ones that did the regular maintenance, uh, PM checks on all the Humvees weekly. So we'd have a lot of off time to ourselves kind of doing the motor pool checklists in the morning as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah, I felt like because so it was different for me. Uh, as a tow gunner, you get your Humvee license at SOI. And then, but everybody else was like a weird mix. So if you're a machine gunner or anything else, sometimes you just drove a Humvee because you were the only one driving the Humvee. And sometimes you were good at driving, and sometimes, like yourself, you actually went to the motor pool school. I was always curious of like how everybody got to the billet of driver because like sometimes it was by default, everybody else sucked at it, and so you were the one that do it.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah, I think I think me and Savage were both me, Savage, home, and a couple other people. Uh, I think Dahl

When Small Mistakes Get You Killed

SPEAKER_00 9:10

was in the class with us. Nice. Oh man, what was what was my other roommate's name? There was a roommate that I had. My first guy, McNaughton. He was another one in our motor pool driving class, so we all went there.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Cool. Did you end up going to any other I imagine Blake's gonna ask the exact same question? Did you end up going to any of the other schools while you before we went uh to robot? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody got scattered in the winds.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah. Uh I went to Assault Climbers course, um, and that was a really cool school. Um, but I actually didn't make it all the way through. So actually, I don't think any of us made it all the way through the assault climbers course. Uh, it was me, uh Holm. Was it Dot uh Dotri? Um he was another, he was one of the boots that came back, like, and he was really new when we came back. Um, I can't remember exactly his name, but he was really tall. Um but I think it was a group of four of us. And because basically we'd have to uh tile the ropes, and I did it fine. They did a written exam, you had to tile the ropes within a certain amount of time, and then you also had to do it blindfolded, and I think the blindfolded part was the part that I messed up on. So we all came back, and somehow none of us passed the assault climbers course, so we actually didn't have any assault climbers. I think that was a big problem when we did I think that was like the second deployment that when we went back to Okinawa that we were gearing up for. But I wanted to because we were supposed to go to like Joshua Tree uh for like the second like the second part of of the training, so missed out on that. But you know, what are you gonna do? Yeah, but it gave me a kind of a love for like ropes ever since then. I've always loved tying ropes and knots. That was one of the things I really enjoyed learning in the military was how to tie all the ropes and everything like that, because it was something that I'd never thought of before. And I think we did a lot of it even when we went out to the cool weather training. Bridgeboard, bridgeboard, yeah. Yeah, bridgeboard, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

Yeah, I ended up going to the Hearse Master course, that's the rope suspension training for the Helos and stuff like that. And like you, a lot of people washed out on the rope on the rope tying part, on the knots, because you know it's surprisingly complicated to tie knots the correct way. And yeah, I was fortunate enough that I was uh I was in scouts, and so all of the knots that they were showing me I already knew, and so I didn't have to worry about that part.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Oh, that's a nice plus that you had there.

SPEAKER_03 12:10

Yeah, and then it was the same way at Bridgeport, like when they were trying to show everybody the knots, like again, like having a familiarity helped as they were trying to teach us all the one-rope bridges and anchor points and all that good jazz.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

So yeah. Um, I'm trying to think if there's any specific times or instances. Yeah, one thing I want to shout out is I'm still pretty good friends with with Mater. Um, we still talk on occasion. Um, he's like I said, and I know you guys are interviewed, I said earlier, um, he's in the SWAT team for the city of Minneapolis, and I work for the city of Minneapolis, so we still keep up on that every once in a while. And I just remember one time when I came back, oh man, uh Mater, when we when when we actually got out, Mater had a he got out about six months after I did. He had a party at his house. And I remember when I came back, I was drinking like way too much. Um, I got a job working

Humvee School And Rope Training

SPEAKER_00 13:15

at this warehouse, uh, doing O-rings and seals and stuff like that. There was a day, and again, this is his coming home party that he was having. Um I'd gone into work, but it was like an off day. Um, and I was drinking. We were it like it was a Saturday, so none of us were actually on work, but we were just finishing stuff up. So I'm drinking at this um this warehouse, and then after that, uh a buddy of mine had a party at his house, so I went to a party at his house, and then I was like, oh, today's Maider's uh going away party. So I left that party and went to his party with all of his friends over there, and oh man, I just got trashed, almost got in a fight with some of his new some of his like home buddies and stuff like that, and left, and it just turned into a mess. But but me and him got past that, and we've always been good friends since. But that that was one of the things that I realized when I got I realized now, um, because I did end up going to the VA and getting getting help for that kind of stuff because I didn't want to at first and never really thought I had a problem. Uh, but I'd moved in with my wife at or my now wife at the time, she was my girlfriend. I think I was having a lot of like kind of PTSD and I don't know if it was like flashbacks or what, but it I ended up going to the VA, and I think that that really helped me out with was actually going there and getting some help with all that.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Yeah, your story is not uh not a unique one. Uh uh, that's for sure. There's a lot of us, I mean, myself included, I definitely definitely lived with uh drinking a way, way, way more than I probably well, not probably, than I should have. Um not the case now, but uh glad I got my feet underneath me.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

But uh but I but I that was thinking I think that was why it was important for people to, you know, reach out to the VA and go get help when you can, because I never had to pay a dime for it. Uh and even if I even when I like had insurance and my work, um, I don't think they ever charged me anything for it. I ended up going through there. They said as symptoms of of a TBI from from like the all the blasts and stuff, because you know, we were mortarmen. So first of all, our heads were like right next to an 81 millimeter cannon, and I had some some hearing loss that I got that I still get some disability for for 10% for that. And they still they still follow up with me every once in a while. Um, I'll get a call or or a letter saying, hey, we haven't heard from you in a while. Is everything going good? And uh the VA is still do checkups with me. So that's good.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

That's good. Did did did you did your truck actually take an IED?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Oh yeah. Um we took quite a few. Uh I think we ended up, I think by the by the count by the end, I think we ended up getting hit by like 18 or 19 or something out on our patrols. But yeah, yeah, my took my truck took a few hits. And it wasn't any like debilitating, but there'd just be holes in it and stuff like that, um, that we would find like after.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

I don't does any in particular stick out to you?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

There was one that let's see. They were driving and it just blasted and and kind of rained asphalt on us. Um, and then it kind of knocks your your senses out a little bit, and you get out. So that was kind of the biggest one that I remember, but they were all close, you know. Every single one of them. You do you can feel it in your chest, um you feel like you've been hit in the head afterwards, and your your uh hearing is just going. You know what I mean? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

That's what that 10% rating's for.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

The tonight.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Yes, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I still still hear that. You you know, you kind of forget about a little bit, but if you whenever you kind of think about a little bit, it's it's always there. And let's see if there's any more major things that I can think of.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

We can kind of start from the beginning. I'm I'm curious. Yeah, did you were you one of the ones that drove up, or did you did you fly? Yeah, yeah, I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

I was one of the ones that that did the full drive up. Yeah, yeah, that was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, well, I mean, since you're your A B driver, that made sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Right. Um, my A driver.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

On the way up.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking I'm like, was it Gwizdak? No, he was a driver also. I can't exactly remember who my A driver was. I'd have to uh I'd have to look through some pictures. I'm sure I have 'em. Yeah, because we came out of that um that base in Kuwait. I think we were there for about a month or so. Is you think that's about right? We're there maybe three weeks, something like that. Two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

About two weeks. Okay. So we left March Air Force Base uh and headed towards Kuwait on the 16th of February. We had those delays with the plane, uh, and we were in a couple of days here, a couple days there, and then we landed in Kuwait, and then we crossed the line of departure the first convoy March 6th. Okay, okay, yeah. So, yeah, so you anything strike you from the drive up, your first sort of impressions of Iraq and and Ramadi

Drinking Too Much And Getting Help

SPEAKER_01 19:20

specifically, and then Hurricane Point, any any of that stuff that kind of stands out?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

You know, I was actually kind of surprised at the at the lack of we I just remember we we anticipated um that we might get attacked on the way up, and I don't think we really hit any resistance um at all on the entire drive up. I just remember looking and I remember that was kind of my first uh view of Iraq. I remember thinking Iraq has a lot more vegetation than I ever thought it would. Because, you know, there's certain areas like almost like you're driving through like California or Nevada, like desert area like that. So that wasn't totally unfamiliar. And then it wasn't the sand dune ridden uh country that they kind of made it out to be. So and you know, our our convoy up might have been unique. I'm sure that they may have had increased attacks later as some of the convoys kind of went up, but um for ours, I feel like it was pretty uneventful. I feel like it was probably about a two or three day drive that I think once we left, yeah, I guess at the time of departure, we drove up and took little uh little breaks at uh bases or stations as we went on the way up. But uh other than that, it was a pretty straight drive through. And that's when we were like, oh yeah, this is you know, the war is over. We were we had that mission of winning hearts and minds. And we just thought we were kind of going up to be a delay uh unit where we were kind of just kind of work with the people and uh with the uh with the shaws. I think that's what they what they're uh what the leaders were called. And Bunser, weren't you a uh translator?

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yeah. Yep. No, I I I ended up I had a a kind of a weird role where I would get pulled over and help out. I I wasn't fluent by any means, but I was functional enough where I would get brought in on a lot of even even when there was an a terp to go with, they just wanted an extra layer of someone that was actually on our side, just making sure that they were everything was going on.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah, they were kind of uh telling us kind of what we thought that they were they were saying, basically. I remember that. Um well and I was also I remember the interpreters, they had their own, I think I remember they had their own um hooch and everything that they all stayed in together. It was like right next to ours.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Correct. Yeah, eventually. Yeah. That's how it ended up. And so it was a it was definitely an interesting. It was an interesting time for sure. When they were still trying to figure out how to bring in the interpreters because that first uh uh the first several did not work out right.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

No. Um there were some that they let go and then they would just leave or they they would just yeah, they'd just be gone. Or they'd leave or get scared by um scared away by um the insurgents, you know, because there was a fear for them and their safety and their family's safety.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

But I remember one in particular, I think his name was Rocky, I think we called him. And he seemed like he was always a pretty good guy. And I felt like he was with us like almost the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yeah, it was yeah, Rocco was his name. Rocco, Rocco, that was his name, yeah. Yeah, and yeah, he was with us the end. He was he was the battalion and our company CO's favorite, as far as that goes. And um, I think towards the end, that was the only one that our CO would use.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yeah, yeah. We we ended up using uh Wilbur a lot too. Um about he came probably June time frame correctly. He was a kind of a skinnier guy. Um, Wilbur, Cosmo, whatever. Um, but I know Staff Sergeant uh Gunny Cook uh liked him too because he would he wouldn't he would translate as directly as what was being said. So he wouldn't he wouldn't make it nicer. He would because that's that was one of the bigger complaints that I know Gunny Cook had for uh is like they would soften what was being said.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

When when he was like motherfucker, he wanted motherfucker to be translated into Arabic.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Yeah, to be to be accentuated.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

So it was always my favorite when you brought out one of the terps for one of the missions, and the terp and the local are having like an argument, and you're like interpret, and they're like, hold on a minute, and they just keep like yelling at them, and I'm like, What they've been talking for 20 fucking minutes, we have no idea what they're saying. This is fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah, I feel like, yeah, that is a very cultural thing for them, is to like argue with each other. Um, I've had some other dealings with like interpreters back when I've been stateside, uh, working for the city of Minneapolis, and uh, we have a large Somali community in Minnesota, and a lot when I worked for I was in this area called utility billing for a while, and they will call in and we'd have to call for interpreters, and the same thing would happen is they'd get in arguments with the the people, and it would go on that same thing back and forth, yeah, for forever.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Uh-huh. Some of the some of the biggest debates I remember was when they brought in those uh those Algerian uh guys

Convoy North And First Impressions

SPEAKER_03 25:05

and they were speaking different basically it was the difference between Portuguese and Spanish. And so they were they would just get in these huge arguments about what something was called in you know Arabic. And we eventually were like, Jesus Christ, just just get out, just go go go get out. So that was uh an amusing shit show, but but no, but kind of pulling it pulling back to uh early parts of uh of getting into Hurricane Point and whatnot. What do you remember of uh coming into the uh the wonderful accommodations that we had?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Oh man, um they actually I they were better than I thought they were gonna be, honestly. Um you're one of the few, which might not be saying much, but I didn't really know what to expect when we got there. But the fact that there were full cement walls, and there were I believe if I remember correctly, there was there was air conditioners in there. Um, and I don't think everybody had air conditioners everywhere they went. But I remember ours in particular, um, there was quite a few, and they seemed to they seem to work pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

We did not have air air conditioning at all in our hooch the first month. It did get installed, but they would they were like putting it in. I think you missed, I guess you guys got it first, which is good for you.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Well, because I think ours, we were on like the very end, um, and they kind of like as they work their way down, because we were in it was a big line, and I I think the interpreters were on the very end. They were on the first one, and I think then it was Rainmaker One and Two, and then uh Machine Gunners was next, I think.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Uh, so it'd be at least from my memory, it was the interpreters, and then it was the two different mortar platoons, and Rainmaker then and then Sledgehammer, then it was Mobile Assault Platoon One, and then it was the COC, which had the radio and all the planning area stuff, but also had the staff NCOs and the officers in the back. Then there was the uh partially the MWR hooch, but also where the calm gear storage ended up being in the back, and then the headquarters guys lived in the back, so like Trujillo and uh the radio operators hall, Perez, um prior, Rake Brandt prior. Yeah, they lived in the back there, and then it was Mobile Assault Platoon 2 and then 3 at the very end.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Okay, okay. But yeah, that was my biggest uh surprise. I was like, oh, there's actually um Roof and AC. So yeah, we must have got pretty lucky because I was in there pretty quick. And then um almost right away, I remember Savage got to work building the smoke pit uh right behind our hooch there, him and doll within literally the first couple days, because we'd just be just be smoking out in the sun back there, and um they were able to scavage um a bunch of plywood and first built up the floor and then the walls. And remember, we put um the the gilly net over it, over the top, yeah, and that kind of became just a huge kind of like um uh wear down area where you come back from patrols and go out there and smoke, and um somehow there ended up being some hookahs and stuff like that back there that people must have got from some of the locals. But yeah, that was one of the most interesting things is how fast that smoke pit went back up that back there.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

If I remember if I remember correctly, Savage was part of the group that stole those cameets because we had we had two of them. We had the smoke pit behind your guys' place, and we had the one in front of map two and map three. And I uh I traded, I'm pretty sure I traded a carton of cigarettes for the other cannonet to Savage because he had stolen it. I believe that. I believe he might have claimed it and might have just gotten the cigarettes for free. That's also possible. But I think that's how that

Interpreters And What Gets Lost

SPEAKER_01 29:25

went.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah, he went out on a lot of uh scavenging missions, uh, to say the least. And he was very excited about that.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

So did you spend most of your time in the smoke pit? Is that how you uh spent most of your time, or were you reading and watch movies like cards?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, it was between that um and reading. I don't think I had a I don't think I had a laptop at first or anything like that. Um and in the first in the first monk I was with, I think I was over state, I was over Statelman in the first one, I think. And he watched a lot of movies. I remember he had a DVD player, and maybe I eventually got one. So I think I'd sometimes I'd borrow some from him. But yeah, for the most part, I think just laying around either inside um and reading, and or yeah, being out in the smoke pit, because or just kind of any time we could go on a little walk around here and there. I know we usually didn't stray like too far, but between that, uh going to chow. I'd go to the weight room a lot once that got set up. That was nice because we actually I was actually a pretty nice weight room. So I spent a lot of time in there when we didn't have anything else to do. So pretty much anything just to keep busy. But otherwise, I'd be so wiped out, usually from the patrols. Because I remember we had uh we had wall patrols that we had to do where we'd sit up um above the bridge for the bridge patrol. Um, so I was on that rotation. Again, yeah, being a Humvee driver, PM maintenance. Um, and then we had um fire watch, you know, where we would have to watch the vehicles. So that was usually, you know, that was a 24-7 thing that had to be from day and night. So anytime I wasn't on either one of those, either wall patrol or driving or whatever, I think I would sleep as much as I could also.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

One of my favorite pastimes, too.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who did you uh I was gonna say that obviously like weapons maintenance, did a lot of weapons maintenance on um on our gun systems, barrels, rifles, things like that. So I think we all kind of found a way of uh setting up pretty much good schedules for ourselves, I'd say.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

I think that's a fair statement. Yeah, is there anybody that you kind of hung out with the most over there? Like you kept falling falling into uh chow time schedules with and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Savage was definitely one of them. Me, Savage, and Holm, because Savage was one of the first people that kind of like welcomed us into the the platoon, me and Dan, uh Dan Holmes. Um, he was one of the first people that took us out, showed us around Kin, uh Kin Village and stuff like that when we're in Okinawa, and with us all being drivers. So me, Dan, Savage, Dahl, uh, we hung out with him a lot. That was kind of our core group, I think, that we hung out with a lot. And then um, yeah, State of Man a lot too. And then I was pretty good friends with a lot of other people from other platoons as well, like Latham. Uh, me and him got along pretty well, and the map guys. And I knew a lot of people, and everybody, I mean, everybody knew everybody basically, but um, I thought we all pretty much got along pretty well, so there was never any shortage of people being outside or working on the vehicles, um, and especially with us being uh a mounted platoon, um, there's always weapons maintenance for I think at one point I had a 240 golf on mine at one point. And Gwizdak was my gunner for that, I believe. And yeah, I think it was uh it would go between 240, a 240 golf and saws, pretty much, for the gunner for the most part.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

So yeah, that's that's it. What do you remember of some of the early? I mean, so you were with Rainmaker for the first part of of all of that. Do you have any specific memories of

Hurricane Point Life And The Smoke Pit

SPEAKER_03 34:10

of being with Rainmaker in March? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Um, I was a driver, but we would do some dismount stuff. Um, obviously, I stayed mostly with the with the vehicle, but you know, just basically doing little patrols of the area, um my school small area around the trucks. But the one big time when I did uh dismount and wasn't uh driver was during the first of when all the battle of Ramadi uh went went up, uh went down because I had just moved from Rainmaker to Sledgehammer, but uh Gunny Cook had come back and they were kind of like just refueling, restocking, and they needed somebody to fill one of the spots. So I became a dismount at that time with Gunny Cook when we went back out to uh re-patrol, uh reassess um some of the one after the first day of like heavy fighting. Basically, I went out. Uh I think it was probably later in the afternoon. I think we went out around between like three or four in the afternoon or something like that. Like sun wasn't down, but it was definitely like a restock for ammunition and and people and stuff like that. So that was one main time when I remember becoming a dismount.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

And then another time just as just to clarify that you you were you went out with rainmaker, or you or did I was with Sledgehammer, but they pulled me from Sledgehammer.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

I went back out on another patrol with Rainmaker with Gunny Cook. Okay, and those guys, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

I see. Because that's that's what I was remembering is that there was a handful of guys from Sledgehammer that jumped onto trucks because we didn't need everybody, not everybody was on we yeah, Sledgehammer was on camp guard that during that time. Exactly. But there were more people than needed. There's a lot of people in the hooch, and so anybody that wasn't really doing anything, I think quite a few people went out just to swell the trucks a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, because I remember they came back, and I just happened to be outside and I was down from I wasn't on a patrol, I wasn't on uh the gate guard at the time. So he saw me and he's like, Hansen, what the fuck are you doing? And I said, uh, you know, I wasn't doing anything. He was like, grab your shit, we're going. So that was about that. And I saw we went out and yeah, they'd they do street patrols where the 50 cows would shoot, and then uh down the lanes as we went up, and then we would kind of uh uh bound lanes up and down to as we made our way down the streets uh and set up uh perimeters, and then I remember while we're out, we'd see the trucks picking up um all the Iraqi people that had been wounded or you know, or I don't know, you know, I shouldn't even call them like the Iraqis insurgents um that were out because they had trucks picking up their dead. Um they're just basically big trucks. I saw one coming straight for us one time, and I was about to shoot them, but then they were like, nope, those are the guys that are just picking up their dead, unless you see them shoot at us. But we were in uh a 360 position at that time, uh pointed right at them. So that was a close one.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

But did you end up going out on the eighth also?

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Uh is that the next yeah, yeah, that was the next day. Yeah, yeah. Because I remember, but the next it was either the next day or the day after that, um it it calmed down really quick because the first day we got hit really hard. Um the second um I think I was on patrol most of that second day, and then the third day we went out, yeah, because the sixth, seventh, and eighth. Yeah, that I think that's the one where we went out and we had the trucks that were like blurring like ACDC and stuff like that, and that's when they were really we really wanted to look trended, like quantum to come back out, and that seemed like it was a really quiet day, too.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

I feel like so. It all depends on where you were, and the day you're remembering the music and the trucks of the big speakers was the 10th, actually. That was the first big bug hunt. But it was such a big operation, so essentially it had the whole battalion out there. If you were on the south end, there wasn't a ton of gunfights, there was a couple small skirmishes, nothing. But if you were on the north end, there was a whole bunch of activity. There was a ton of like house-to-house fighting and big engagements, and I mean Echo Company got into it in like like basically like 10 houses in a row, like full of guys, and like it was it was a pretty big deal on that side, but you could have been, you know, whatever. I mean, we were covering several miles of ground, so you could have been a mile or two away from the action, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

But yeah, yeah. Oh, and I've I want one thing I I just remembered one of our first big uh night patrols that we went on. I remember we took fire, which kind of surprised us, and um and that was the one, I think it was one of the first like big engagements that we got in on our first night patrol. And I remember we were with I think I think Gunny Markey was with us, and uh Sergeant

Early Fights In Ramadi

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Major Booker was with us, and yeah, that's the one where he just he he was on his own program at that point because he kind of snapped right back into um his old his old like I think he was didn't he does he didn't he used to be like a force recon uh platoon sergeant or something like that. Yeah, but he snapped right back into it, and that was my first experience of like wow, we got some seriously good guys on our crew with us because at that point they they got the people that shot at us, we'll just put it that way. Um, and I remember we brought them back and we had to figure out what to do with them at the time, so they kind of had a staging area for them in the on the base, uh, as they had to work with like the locals to get somebody to come pick these guys up that we attacked and brought back, and then yeah, so and I I think that was our first my first big engagement of saying, Oh wow, it's it's really real out here, and I feel like that was within the first like week or so, week or two, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Yeah, yeah, there were definitely a couple of like small running run gun fights that were before April, and yeah, you know, they weren't long, but it was enough to where it it kind of got you going. I mean, things got busy really fast. It was not a I know a lot of people are like, I don't remember anything until April. I was like, well, I think it's because April was just so intense that that's what you remember, but March was not really much of a slouch. There was multiple people wounded. We already had taken a couple of dead by before April ever happened.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Yeah, because I was on the on the patrol and I was in the truck right behind when uh Worth got hit.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Right. And that was March.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

I was actually the one I think I was the driver that we brought him to to the med to the med camp that we were closest to.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yeah, Junction City, where uh Charlie Char Charlie Medical was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Yep. And I remember that IED, and I think it turned out like it was some kind of like chemical that they had uh like a like strapped to like a bike or something like that. And I feel like it was like called like PE4 or something like that that we learned later. Um and whenever we'd be out, and because it was always busy in the streets, and this was in broad daylight, and then all of a sudden the people would just be gone, and we're like, where'd everybody go? And it would happen so fast that there'd be people, and then everyone just starts leaving the area, and that was usually when we look when we learned later, like that was a big indication that usually something was close or something was gonna happen. Because that was primarily what happened to us most of the time is we got hit by a lot of IEDs, and that was the biggest engagements before that, and sometimes we get hit at night, um, but I felt like a lot of them were were in broad daylight that they would set up um like artillery rounds like the night before, and like set them like by like the sides of the roads basically, or bury them in trash cans, uh trash bags. Um I remember one time there was a big explosion from like a propane tank that they blew off. And I remember that was when that I remember that when that propane tank bomb went off, it blew a big giant circle of smoke into the air like I'd never seen before. Like a perfect circle of smoke that went up from that propane tank, and that was pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

That had to have been close to the at least in my recollection, that that had to be closer to the end of the deployment, because that was when they started they for. Whatever the reason there was some group that had decided that burying a propane keg with every IED was like the best way to attack us because it was like I don't know, six or eight IEDs in a row, and you could smell the propane in the air afterwards. Yeah, like the burn off. And it was I don't know, it's just such a weird, it was it was a yeah, huge fireball, and yeah, sounded terrible, but it didn't, I mean it didn't do any more damage. It just no, don't it looked scary.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Yeah, those buried ones, they didn't do as much, like they were really big, and it would blow a giant hole in the ground. Like I'd wonder, like, did they just pave the road over this? Yeah, uh, and then it would rain asphalt on you, but it it didn't, and it and it would like you know, we'd take a little damage to the front and the sides, but I feel like at that time we had some decent armor, um other than some key spots. Uh I remember one night when uh Dan Holmwood he got hit and it went through the the bottom left like quarter panel of his Humvee, and that was like one of the only spots that like wasn't armored at that on that specific spot on his truck when that went through and hit him in the and it hit him in the the ankle.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Yeah, yeah, because you had he had some some of the some bolt-on armor, not much, but because that was pretty early. That was pretty early on too. But yeah, that was one of the spots that was completely unarmored, that was just the thin tin tin level sheet metal that was, you know, whatever rolled sheet metal.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

And let me see. What were what were we getting back to? What point were so we're we're kind of learning the early part of the deployment. Um some of the biggest things that I saw or remember uh when moving in. Uh yeah, just getting into to regular life. Oh, I remember when we take there was a certain there was a while when we were taking a lot of like rocket attacks too. Um and I remember I was on the outpost, and it was our job up there

IED Patterns Rocket Fire And Closing

SPEAKER_00 46:20

as well to try and like figure out like where they're being shot from. So when some of the mortars would go off or some of the rockets, because I know one hit like a like a quadcon or something like that, and then we'd take pretty regular mortar rounds, and we'd be trying to basically see or give like a direction of fire over the radio back to um who the radio operators were and kind of try and give them an idea of where coming because then they would send out uh basically whoever was on um Q or like QRF basically, I think, on standby at that point, because then we'd see the yeah, the load of humbies go out kind of in that direction, and I don't know how much they actually got them, because I know they usually ended up moving really fast once they fired off mortars and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

You had both systems, you had us trying to spot shit, and then you also had counter battery radar, and they would use the counter battery radar to triangulate a point of origin, and then we would try to yes, the poo, your favorite, your favorite of the of all of it. Yes, we try to go to the poo, and uh but oftentimes with with people shooting into the air or other things that was that was over at Blue Diamond, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, the the counter battery radar? No, that was at Junction City. Oh, was that junction city? Junction City had the radar, and that's uh it was attached to the um the mobile m109 artillery unit. It's part of their part of their hardware. I don't know. I'm not in the army, so I don't know all the stuff they had, but I just remember seeing them parked there. But it would get triggered by other stuff. That's what they would say. There'd be other things. So sometimes, like uh, you know, mortars would launch, but they had five points of origin, and you calling it in would like narrow it down to one or two, and the QRF could check the one or two.

SPEAKER_03 48:23

Yeah, I don't think I don't think we were successful in finding any. I don't think going out and trying to step around in the poo allowed us to get the grab anything uh that we wanted.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Um this is the dad joke podcast. Is that what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 48:39

And I just remember that Gandhi Maroku would get pissed that we could we didn't know where they were coming from all the time. And people like, oh the fuck don't you know where they're coming from? You're the ones out there, and we're like, we can't see, like, you know, we'd obviously be trying, but um yeah, we would we we we tried, but it did it. We we we rarely knew exactly where they were coming from.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

To my knowledge, we only had the two times where uh an enemy mortar team or rocket team was stopped and anything happened, and that was when uh the guys from map three started shooting down and did whatever, and then you guys from Sledgehammer went out and recovered those makeshift rocket pods and all the launch motor or the launch material and everything else, and some and some rockets. And then the other one was um we went out, but Echo Company's QRF also went out, and Echo Company's QRF ended up uh pulling over a car and killing a couple guys that had mortar gear in the trunk of the car.

SPEAKER_03 49:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

And that was it. I don't think we ever got any of the other ones.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

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