Marine Corps Legends: Lessons from Sergeant Major Devaney

Music. Okay. Go, Mac. We're back. Another episode of Street Tales. Tyler and I are extremely excited.

I want to introduce everybody to Dave Devaney, retired Sergeant Major from the Marine Corps. Now I'm biased because I served with Sergeant Major Devaney when he was a gunny and a first sergeant. I actually got to go through combat with him. And by far, I would say he is one of the deadliest Marines I've ever met. Also, on top of that, he's one of the, you know, we talk about in the Marine

Corps. I got to get into the Sergeant Major where, you know, you get like some officers don't only like officers, some enlisted, they're only like enlisted. Sergeant Major Devaney loved Marines, period. No rank. He didn't care. But Sergeant Major Devaney, if you were messed up, he didn't care what rank you are. He called you out on it, but he called you out, but he made you a better Marine by far. Sergeant Major started out as a as an O3. You were in 11, right? Right from the get-go?

Yes, sir. Right from there. He went to 03, went to Hawaii with 3rd Marines. And from there, he got bit by the scout sniper bug. And he pretty much was in 85-41 because we don't use, we respect 03-17, but Sergeant Major is one of the old school, legit 85-41 scout snipers. I can legitimately say that most of the sniper doctrine that's out there was influenced heavily by Sergeant Major Devaney and his time with the 3rd Marines, 3rd SOTG, and everything.

Like, and I'm going to come out and say it right away. Always been a Sergeant Major Devaney fanboy. I think he's one of the coolest guys. Before I turn it over, I have to tell this cool story. I got to get it out here. So when, like, after I PCS Sergeant Major, I went to the Pentagon and I was like, I don't want to stay in the Marine Corps if they're going to send me here. I want to be in combat. So I was applying to federal agencies and I applied to NCIS.

And the guy who was doing my interview was was a former mp in the marine corps he's like yeah like i knew this guy scout sniper like black belt like 83 different things he used to he used to train the mps and like he would do hand-to-hand for us and stuff like that he goes this guy dave devaney i'm like i know dave devaney he's a first sergeant he's like i i'm like i'll reach out to him i reached out to sergeant major devaney i didn't talk to him in like a year i'm like hey first

sergeant devaney i'm not sure if you remember me it's i think it was a captain it's you know captain Macaluso was a lieutenant back then. He's like, he emails back like 13 seconds later. He's like, of course I remember you. I'm not going to forget you. I'm like, I ran into this guy and I linked him up. That's the type of guy that Sergeant Major Devaney is. He's just awesome. Besides a badass, he's just, you'll hear from the stories. Tyler, all you. Sergeant, thank you.

I don't know how to beat that. So to get started, to get started, can you just talk a little bit about how you grew up and just, I mean, it doesn't have to be in depth, but we're going to work our way up to what, what got you into wanting to be a Marine. Yeah. So I grew up in Geneva, New York, upstate New York on Seneca Lake, north of the Northern area of it. And grew up in nine kids in an Irish family, one house with one bathroom, 11 people. Pretty crazy. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. I went to a public school. Then I went to a Catholic school for a little bit and they didn't like me so much when I went back to a public school. Yeah. I wasn't really good in school. I didn't like school. I hated school. But then when I joined the Marine Corps, I loved to learn. But you know what? It was interesting to me. That's why. But anyway, yeah, I grew up in New York. And when I was 21 years old, I was pissed off at the world and Lebanon was going on.

So I stopped by the recruiter's office. I tried to join the army. I was going to go for a ranger contract, but I stepped out of the office for a minute and I looked at the wall and it was a scout sniper, which I didn't know what it was. I just saw a seaweed thing there. And I saw some recon dudes There's some guys on a boat. And I was just looking at them. And the Marine recruiter said, hey, come here. So I walked in and I sat down.

And he started talking to me. And the three Army recruiters came over and said, hey, he's our applicant. Leave him alone. And he told him to fuck off and go away. So I changed my contract and joined the Marine Corps. Because one dude told three to fuck off. There you go. That's why I'm a Marine. That sounds about right. Let me ask you that. What did your parents do? Were they in the military? Or what was their... My dad was in World War II. He was 36th Infantry, yeah.

Well, we could talk about later, but on my, I think it was my third or fourth time in Iraq, I ran into 36th Infantry. So one of them gave me the patch. So on my gun belt while I was in Iraq, I wore a 36th Infantry patch, Velcroed to my gun belt. Yeah, we got to go back to that story, Sergeant Major, because you posted that on Facebook and I've always loved that story. And I'm jumping in again. I'm sorry, Tyler. But again, this is this is the type of guy Sergeant Major Devaney is.

He you know, he was loved Marines. We know we're awesome and he knew it, but he was like the utmost professional with everybody. And he always gave props. And when he gets to that story, I think it was a command sergeant major, right? That they gave you the patch or I forgot who it was. Yeah, it was just a soldier walking down the road. But then he said, go see my sergeant major. I went to see him. And he actually went on their next combat mission.

They took an American flag. I didn't know anything about it. And then he called my office. I was a sergeant major at VMAQ-4. And he called my office and said, hey, can you drop by? I came by and he had a flag with a certificate from the 36th infantry to my dad. And how cool is that? Yeah, that is by far one of the coolest freaking stories in the world. I love that story. I love it. All right, Tyler, on you. I'm sorry, man. Good, man. Jump in.

I love it. So your siblings, did any of them join the military? My oldest sister was in the Air Force and then the Army Reserves, and she was also a customs agent. So, ooh, okay. I like that. Okay. Customs agent. Okay. Because that's kind of, that's another interesting thing, the link between military and law enforcement. But again, we'll get to that because I know you trained.

There's so much to get to that I'm trying to really just kind of focus through because I'm very excited to capture your experience in your career. So you said 21 is when you decided to join. Did you try to do anything else? Would you have any other aspirations? No, I had a full-time job working at the hospital, working as a cook or whatever. I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. Like I say, Marines were in Lebanon. I wanted to go to Lebanon.

All right. I know it sounds stupid, but whatever. I did. I wanted to go to Lebanon. So Colonel Mack, he made a point a couple episodes ago. Colonel Mack was like the greatest generation. He goes, after 9-11, there was no draft. There was no need to draft. They had more numbers than they needed to. and it was a bunch of 17, 18, 19, whatever, 20, 21 year old men and women raising their hands saying, I'm going to go fight for this country.

And so I fully understand when you're like, hey, Marines are over there fighting in Lebanon. I want to go do that too. I think it's a very noble reason to join.

My son is a Marine. I've talked about it many times on the podcast. My daughter is training currently with the pulleys for the Marines. So that might be a path for her. I'm not trying to push her in anything, but it would obviously be proud either way. She'd be a badass and she knows it. No. So it totally makes sense to me. All right. So you get in, what year was that? I'm sorry. And I'm not familiar with all the. So I joined in 1983. So that was the year I was born.

Yeah, fair enough. So I signed up in 83. I was on delayed entry. So at the time, I was a martial artist. And all I did was fight. I just trained and trained and trained for the eight months on delayed entry. Just all I did is train to fight. And then I went to boot camp. And I was sick the whole time I was there. Like I had to crud. Yeah. Whatever. But I struggled through my 13 weeks of boot camp. But then, so check this out. So the final words of my heavy drill instructor,

the number two guy. You have the senior, then the heavy. But final words for him, to me, were, recruit Devaney, you won't last six months in the infantry. He was off by 29 and a half years. And he wasn't even a grunt, right, Sir Major? No. No, he was an airman, Sir. Yep. He was an aircraft mechanic. Okay. Fair enough. So anyway, so I got to infantry training school at Camp Lezune, and I was an honor graduate. So I got promoted to Meritoris PFC.

And then I went to 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines and India Company in Hawaii. And almost as soon as I got there, bam, we're on deployment. We hit, you know, like 13 countries. I think it was all over Asia, into Africa. And I could tell you a whole story of just that deployment.

Well, what's your mindset when you deploy like that? Because that's the other thing. Like you go from being a civilian, working, cooking at a hospital. I mean, obviously you had a fighting background, so I'm assuming there was some confidence. You know, you felt like you could defend yourself, But I would never been in the military or never been in combat in that capacity.

But I would say it's a significant difference than saying, hey, I can defend myself in a street fight as opposed to we're about to go overseas to another country I've never been to, especially as a young man, 21, 22 years old. And shit's real. Like, what is that mindset? Like, what goes through your head? I see what you're saying, but I can't say that from our first deployment because it was mostly fun. Okay. We just went from country to country. We trained with that country.

And then we went at liberty. okay go get you know i don't drink alcohol now but back then you know well we definitely we definitely we definitely drank so we went around the world you know seeing sites and training i think the coolest thing though is i've been to about 40 countries but the coolest thing about being an infantry type guy is that we see the worst of it so i see the absolute worst poverty in every country yeah and you'd be amazed the homeless people in this country are like brits

people in other countries and i'm not exaggerating so it's incredibly how poor some of these people are so anyway we just hopped from country to country the coolest thing was so my very first time i ever stepped foot on foreign soil other than canada doesn't count because i'm from new york anyway was iwo jima so 3-3 we were the first unit to ever do a landing on iwo jima yeah so we landed on the black sands iwo jima and it still blows my mind

that we were looking right at mel Sarabachi, but we couldn't go there. They made us walk all the way around the entire island, Because they had to stay on the roads, go all the way around the entire runway, and then climb the mountain. And it was like 6,000 degrees. So, yeah. Yeah, go ahead, sir. Go ahead. Yes. Snake or land. Ten years ago, he had extra black sand that he sent it to me. So, I have it standing on with sand from other countries and stuff like that.

So, you know. I got some sitting right there. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, no, again, raised by Marines. So I grew up with the Marine Corps lore, tradition, the stories from both my mom and my dad and, you know, cousins and uncles. And now I'm getting my brother, my son, and I love it. And nothing but, you know, proud dad, but also proud son, you know, proud son, proud brother.

And I love the stories. But then when it's like the intricacies inside and, you know, the camaraderie that you build, the build, you know, with your team, your platoon. And again, Mack, help me out here. But, you know, with the people who are close to you, because it's like all Marines love all, you know, they all get along for the purposes of the mission. But, you know, you kind of get your core group and those are lifelong friends. Yeah. You know what's funny about that?

Marines love Marines, but Marines beat the shit out of Marines all the time. Oh, 100%. 100% out of the time. Yeah. Marines are fighting each other all the time. I would like to add that when I went to Okinawa for the first time in 2001, probably some of the alcohol restrictions were probably from Sergeant Major and his buddies when they were there. I was with you. I was with you at the pavement, right? But no, no. I went with three, four, and then switched over to one set.

We were need you. Yeah. Yeah. But when you went in the 80s and 90s, I mean, when we get to it, you got to tell him. Sergeant Major, when you became a scout sniper, what was it like, the Easter Sunday where you guys made the rope bridge? And the OOD's like, oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it's, uh, this was 1987. We were in Oakland. I want our state platoon surveillance, target acquisition platoon. I was in a scout sniper section.

Anyway, we, it was a Sunday, Easter Sunday, one of the only Sundays I can ever remember Easter. Anyway, we pulled out our mountaineering gear and we made a two rope bridge and we bought a whole bunch of beer. And then we all got shit faced. And then we started climbing on the bridge and then everyone would try to knock you off the bridge. Oh my God. And you're like, you're like 50 feet in the air, But you were hooked on ropes. Yeah, yeah. You didn't fall too far.

But it was really, really a lot of fun. So the officer of the day. You think Mike will freak out or whatever. He came over and started laughing, taking pictures of us. A bunch of drunk scout snipers climbing on ropes on Easter Sunday. We were having a great time. Well, now that would never happen. Like I would say, like Sergeant Major, what would you say? Like probably after 2010, probably early 2000s, it's still like the OOD would have been like, what are you guys doing?

Yeah, yeah. That would never happen nowadays. Well, I can tell you in, let's see, it would have been six years ago. So 2019, 2018, 2019, I was in Vietnam with Trump during an APEC summit. And my role was the entrance to the compound where Trump was staying. And so we had all the EOD teams from all the different branches of the military. And we were there for two, well, I was there for two weeks, but he was there

for like five days, something like that. Two days in, one of the EOD teams doesn't report and they're like, dude, I think they're fucking really sick. I don't know what's going on. And I'm like, well, what happened? And I'll let you decide which branch it was. That EOD team got a cab, went into the mountains of Vietnam because they wanted to try Cobra wine. They rolled up on a guy in the back of his house, pouring moonshine into just

random bottles and sticking dead snakes in it. And they just drank Cobra wine in this dude's backyard all night and woke up the next day, like deathly ill. Yeah. So they were down for the rest. And their, their commander was fucking furious. I was laughing. I was like, well, once I was like, are they going to die? Are they good? He's like, no, they're just fucking hungover and they're sick as shit. Cause they're drinking dead snake venom moonshine.

Well, that's a trick. That was the Marine. When you do Cobra gold.

So in 2000, I've done Cobra gold multiple times since the eighties, nineties, but 2002, First Battalion, 7th Orange, we went to Cobra Golden, thailand okay so we had to climb over this mountain took us five days four nights to climb over this mountain with this recon team but before we did that the recon guy has given us at least classes on how to kill a cobra oh it's actually crazy yeah you actually grab the cobra by the tail and just pull on it like

this and it straightens out you hold it down it cut its head off but then they pour the blood in whiskey and we all drink the whiskey so every marine there is drinking.

Cobra blood whiskey so we cut we killed two cobras poured them into whiskey drank them and i was just always a company gunny and i could speak a little bit of thai because my wife is thai like i just a little tiny bit anyway so they're like hey commando they called me commando hey commando drink so i started i don't drink too much i started drinking out of this water bottle that's cut with whiskey in it so i'm drinking out of this he's guys trying to take a picture i'm getting like three

shots i take it down he's like oh i wasn't ready i'm like holy shit dude three shots are ready so i take it up get a couple more shots he takes a picture and like 10 minutes later i look at my first sword and i go holy shit is it hot out here he goes no you're drunk i'd have like seven shots in like 12 seconds you know oh yeah shit based and then the next day we climbed over the mountain for five days oh my god it was terrible just oh that's great i want

to jump back hold on i want to jump back because we're talking about iwo jima which i have been to in my travels and again both my parents were marines so i told them and they were like freaking out but the other one that i went to that was really cool i mean they're both cool phrases that way but bella wood in france yeah well yeah i've been one i'd never heard of it get there my mom and dad are like oh my god you got to get water from the fountain or something like that and i was

like i don't even know i had to go find but it's all yeah it's a marine corps devil dog and it has water and all these marines were like i mean we basically had to spend two hours just like corralling everybody like hey guys we need to get on post like stuff's happening right now, but the. I will say in all the countries where they have specifically, not just like, you know, American soldiers and Marine memorials, but specifically this is a memorial for Marines.

The level of reverence they have for the support that was provided. It was very impressive to me. I don't, I don't know that we necessarily do the same in the United States or that we've had maybe the same level of cooperation. Anyway, I'm getting, I'm talking out of my ass. On Guam? Yes. Guam, the main road is called Marine Drive after U.S. Marines. The main road. It's very impressive. Yeah. I've never been to Guam. The main street, downtown.

But no, I just, I wanted to touch on that because it is the way that other countries have that respect, reverence, whatever it is, because they take, I mean, it's beautiful. It's, anyway, it was very, it was very, it was a unique experience for me. But we jumped to Scout Cypress, but hold on. So you travel around for...

Again, correct me, you're a grunt, infantry, whatever it is. What was the process to be a scout sniper? Was it just you saw that picture and you're like, I want to be that guy? Okay, so I did one deployment. We're out on ships and the scout snipers stapled to it on another ship. I didn't even know what the hell they were. I had no idea. But then in between the next deployment, we went to a CAX, which is 29 palms, combined arms exercise.

We spent a month out there doing combined arms and this dude walks by with a shotgun with a scope on it. And I'm from the state of New York. I'm like, hey, why do you have a scope on your shotgun? And he's like, it's a sniper rifle, you fucking idiot. And kept on going. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I did another deployment. And then at the end of that deployment, State platoon was looking for people to volunteer. So I volunteered with a bunch of other people, got to stay.

We went to scout sniper school and then deployments after deployment. So I did two more deployments for the scout snipers. I did one as just a regular scout sniper.

And then my next deployment was the was a maritime special purpose force rns leader as a corporal and then as a i got a sergeant after that but anyway as a corporal and i led an eight-man team for six months where we did uh we were doing on-call stuff you know where you're ready to fly out and go anywhere in the world you know i'm saying yeah so our scout snipers were part of the maritime special purpose force which is you'll have reconnaissance

guys that are kicking in doors You'll have earnest guys doing eyes. You have scout snipers doing your shooting and your eyes. And you'll have an infantry platoon as your backup or travelers, they call them. Tyler. So. No, sorry. Got it. No. Well, that's a good question, sir. Our end docs were never the same. So it depends on how much time we had. Sometimes they were three days and sometimes they were 10 days. Okay. How was the one? The longer we had, the better.

What's that, sir? How long was yours, the one to get in? Three days, I think. Okay. Listen, they just want to see if you got hurt. Same thing when we ran them. You just drive them into the dirt. And you know what? People don't, I don't care if you know about how to be a scout sniper. I want to know if you know how to do your job. So when they'd come to us, you know, if they were 0351, I'd ask about how do

they use their anti-tank weapons, et cetera. I didn't care if they knew how to be a scout sniper. But land navigation is the most important thing, which if you don't mind, I'll tell you something real quick. How I was punished by a staff sergeant, And I was so pissed off at him, but it was the greatest punishment ever. I was in this thing called Super Squad competition, and I was just a rifleman. Oh, I remember this story. Yes, sir. And so my fire team leader has to go on emergency lead.

So my staff sergeant says, hey, Lance Corporal Devaney, you're the navigator for this platoon or for the Super Squad for this operation. And I begged him. I said, staff sergeant, I can do anything. Just please don't make me navigate because I don't want to get us lost. And he's like, I don't care. You know what? You're the navigator from now to forever. So for like the next five months, all I did is navigate, navigate, navigate.

And guess what? When you get to Scouts Cyber School, what's the first thing they do? Navigation. And if you fail, you're gone. You'd be surprised how many people fail school by the very first event. Do the PFT, then the land nav.

And they get rid of, you know, probably 30% of the people right there. Well, let me ask you that. Anyway, he did me a favor.

Yeah, no, for sure. Let me ask you that without getting into the details. about there's a lot of videos about scout you know well actually sniper school but what are they trying to get out of you like learning how to shoot i get the concept but like knowing how to shoot being a sniper i believe are two different things right would you agree with that well okay so here's the big thing is you've got snipers and this is very important you have snipers you have scout snipers as a ranger and

actually a ranger student explained this to me when i was a sergeant major in web Australia but I ain't quantical he says sergeant major you got to understand this. He says, we are snipers. We have our sniper rifle and a commander tells me what to do. Go here, shoot this, do that. Maricor-style snipers, which don't exist anymore, we were an autonomous unit. We could take a two to six-man team and go do whatever we had to do for the lines.

And we're the only ones in the battalion that were trained to do that. So we'd do short range reconnaissance where you'd have recon battalion would do medium range reconnaissance and Force Recon does deep reconnaissance. So if I had not been a state platoon and scout snipers, I wouldn't have stayed in the Marine Corps to tell you the truth. Why'd they get rid of that? I'm sorry. I wasn't aware they got. Yeah. So what they did, Tyler, is in like, you know, I say I was just a grunt.

I wasn't a scout sniper. And Sergeant Major, you wrecked me. Is they now they have a recon sniper course, which now they want to only send to make them 0317 because they redesignate the MOS a number of years ago. They only want to send snipers to the reconnaissance battalions and like MARSOC and stuff. So it used to be where there used to be a state platoon, roughly, what about 20, 25 guys? Maybe, right? Sergeant Major? Yeah. Well, these are like 18. Yeah. 16 to 18. And you could get bigger.

And those guys were the battalion commanders' eyes and ears. And I'm sorry I'm jumping in, Sergeant Major. Incorrect. I'm wrong. You're absolutely right. Marine Corps sniper school, scout sniper school, you become a shooter, but you're like a reconnaissance guy.

Surveillance and target acquisition you go out there and like you're not shooting all the time you're like saying hey you're calling back to you know suicide six like we got an enemy column coming down this road this and that and that's what they do they're like a roger keep eyes on it and advise me of their movement they got rid of i cannot fathom why the marine corps got rid of sniper school like it's world renowned tyler like fbi fbi regular swat

and hrt they send their guys to Marine Corps Scout Sniper School. That's where they go. Before the SEALs, correct me if I'm wrong too, sorry, before the SEALs really had their version of sniper schools, dev group guys, regular SEAL team guys, they went to Marine Corps Scout Sniper School. That's where they went. I had SEALs go through my urban sniper course when I was at SOTG. They love Marine Corps. SEALs do have their own sniper program now, but they're still snipers.

Still got scout snipers. Right, right, right. Does any group have scout snipers? Did like somebody take that or they just got rid of the scout sniper? No, they got, so they have scout platoons. They just don't have snipers in a battalion level anymore. Yeah. Which is the dumbest thing in the world, which I do not like if I ever get to talk to the commandant, I'm going to say like,

No, seriously, I don't get it. I like it was such like, and I know a lot of grunt officers, you know, that were like, why are you doing this? This is such an asset to the battalion. You know, like this is like where you don't need to rely on like, like a reconnaissance platoon because they're doing their own missions and you're not going to get it. Tyler, what the SF used to have is this SIF platoon that would deploy with whatever company or battalion from SF.

Basically, they were like one level below Delta. And if there was like a hostage situation or something and Delta couldn't get there in time, those were the guys that sent in. But they dissolved that too. So, I mean, I, I, I, I didn't know that. Yeah, they dissolved it. They dissolved it a number of years ago. So yeah, I get, so certainly, I'm sorry, I get on the tent.

Where, where'd you, did you go to sniper school in Pendleton or? hawaii hawaii okay okay yeah so we so you had the nice lovely lava rocks the whole time there that all the guys tell me yeah a lot of jungle stuff yeah so yeah it changes the game all right so we go through your again you had a vast career but i'm just trying to walk through it a little bit you were in you just volunteered your scout sniper was that basically your your again correct

me your job for the remainder of your career yeah how did that work so so i did two deployments as a regular infantry guy. Then I did two deployments as a scout sniper. Then I went, I got ordered to the drill field. So I was a drill instructor for two years. And then I went back to state platoon and did two more deployments. And then I went and did special operations training group and JTF 510 for six years after that. After two years or after what, three years on a state platoon,

I went to be a drill instructor. Did you enjoy that? No, I did not. So, yeah, I got to jump in again. So remember how Sergeant Major said he joined because he wanted, he saw Lebanon and he wanted to go. So when he got sent to the drill field, Desert Storm was cooking off. And he's like, I'm not going. I want to get out of here. I want to go back to 3-3. I want to go to combat.

They're like, no, you're staying at the drill field. So I feel bad for those platoons that went through for the past few years. Sergeant Major Devaney, he tells stories about it. But I mean, those guys still love him to this. but he probably took out his anger of not going to being able to go to desert storm on those poor kids at the time. Well, the thing is that I tortured him, but with love, with love. Exactly.

My thing is, is even my son, right? He, you know, and I mean, my son, my brother, my dad, anybody I ever talked to, they talk about the drill instructors and they talk about how hard it was and what fucking assholes. But at the same time, there's this level of respect and they had their favorites.

And like, that is your impression on you are teaching training, pounding in the culture for the next generation i i don't know i guess again i'm not a combat guy but it's like that is your that you're putting your mark on the next group you know what i mean that's coming up behind you absolutely but i will say of all the drill instructors i've ever talked to they also all said that was their worst assignment because they were fucking tired and they're

they were tired they wanted it was basically that wasn't their their goal and they wanted to go do something else but it's like so i happen to deal with that i will say having gone to Parris Island twice now, possibly for a third time, the drill instructors, they are fucking machines, man. I still love it to this day. Watching them sprint, full sprint, and the tight uniform, like a gazelle, it's very impressive. So what was, so then after drill, you went tight?

Let me tell you real quick about the drill field. I'll summarize it real quick. Once I got there, I was at 3rd Battalion Lima Company. If you've been to Parris Island, recently they changed it, but it used to be 3rd Battalion out in the middle of a slump by itself. That's for one. I was at Lehman Company, which meant we were in the back of the swamp, and you could look out both doors and see everything in the world. Nothing could come after you, like, you know, whatever. Anyway,

so I was at Lehman Company. I worked six straight platoons. I was exhausted. My first platoon, I was a fourth hat. So fourth in line. I had no mission except for to torture recruits. So for 13 weeks, listen, this is no shit. For 13 weeks, I never answer a recruit's question or let him make a head call. 14 fucking weeks. No, I mean a personal head call. So, I mean, we give them head calls, you know.

But you have to serve this recruit and use a head call. For 13 weeks, every time a recruit came up to me, I told him to shut the fuck up. Before they could get it out of their mouths. Never. Except for once. This recruit came up to me and he caught me off guard. He's like, this recruit needs to make a sitting head call, which means he's got to take a shit. I looked over and I saw this recruit named Bowles. So I said, come here, Bowles. I put him over there. I had the recruit grab him

by the arm and I had him walking around in circles. I said, what are you doing, boy? He says, making a bowel movement, sir. I said, get the fuck out of here. Anyway, so check this out. So I'm not allowed to answer questions. I'm not allowed to do anything. I can't even drill them on the proper foot. When I drill them, I have to drill them on the wrong foot. I have to do everything to piss them off. Even when I'm ready to graduate, I still have to torture them. I'm forced to.

But my next platoon, I skip from a fourth hat all the way to the second hat, the heavy. Well, here's the problem. I just spent 13 weeks drilling on the wrong foot. And now I got to teach drill. So anyway, I did three platoons as a heavy, and then I did two as a senior, a sergeant senior, which is almost unheard of down there. I think when I was a sergeant senior, there was like two of us in the whole regiment.

Anyway, I survived. I was minotauriously not demoted, and I moved on and went to state platoon and did two more deployments with state platoon as a platoon sergeant and chief scout. Now, these deployments, because you said that the first time you went and trained, are you training with other militaries, law enforcement? Yes. Anytime we go to another country, we train with that country.

Now, you just asked about law enforcement. Okay, I have been in different situations where state platoon, we will work with SWAT teams, you know, even Honolulu SWAT, etc. Etc so throughout my career man i've worked with swat teams all over the place you know uh to include srt's military police swat teams where you know they trip out because they know they point a gun at me and i take the gun away before they can even post the trigger you know and uh it freaks them out

anyway so yeah so then i did the two deployments for the state platoon two more so now i'm at six deployments and then i go to sotg on okinawa special operations training group And I worked at helicopter rope HRST, helicopter rope suspension training. So all we did is we trained people how to fast rope, spy rig, and rip out a lot of helicopters. And then we did clip the soul school, et cetera. But...

What was I going to tell you? So yeah, so after I was there for about a year, the RNS, for instance, surveillance and sniper guys, they started asking me for help to teach over there. So I was working at both places. And then I was at Airborne. I was a jump master. So I was the unit jump master. I was working at HRST and the snipers wanted me. So I went to the colonel. I said, hey, sir, I can only do one job. Give me one job. Do RNS or HRST. I could do the jump master on the side.

So they immediately moved to RNS. And then I stayed there for four and a half years. And in my last couple of years, I was in charge of RNS. It was the hardest and the greatest job you could ever imagine. Yeah. That's an absolutely incredible job. Now, what made it incredible? Was it the mission or the people or both? Oh my God. So when I'm training, here's the great thing is when I'm training urban snipers, these guys have already been to scout sniper school.

So these guys have already been to, It depends on what year it is, eight weeks or 14 weeks, whatever it is, for a scout cyber school. But anyway, they're already trained when I get them. And now, basically, my urban cyber school is kind of like you guys would do a SWAT. We train mostly from just 300 and in. And we train for shooting very rapid and very accurately. Are you familiar with color dot drills?

So you take a silhouette and you cut dots on the silhouette, and then you paint the dots on there.

So you have 16 dots four across four down so you got 16 dots and you paint them different colors so then you tell the snipers white top to bottom so they have to shoot the white dots wherever they are from top to bottom and then they have to end by shooting in the face so it's always five shots four dots and then one to the brain and that's how we train at every every level we do we did drive-by shootings i shit you not we would drive up on a range

the van door opens up the sniper of chutes and they drive away. That was one of our qualifications.

I like that. You had to do drive-by shootings out of Humvees. Vans, cars. It was awesome. How long was Urban Sniper when you guys ran at Sergeant Major? Three weeks ago. Oh, that's so, man. You know, we talked about that when I was in the Secret Service because we roll around, everyone sees the pictures, whatever. All the guys are rolling in the armored cars with the guns and always at the ready.

And I'm like, when have you ever trained shooting from a vehicle or an armored vehicle or deploying from a vehicle and then shooting? Cricket. At State, we did. At Diplomatic Surgery.

Yeah, you guys did, but service does not. Yeah, which is funny because we, well, because part of the reason that is because most of the firearms guys, guys when i went through state were all former marines and most of them were all former scout snipers there was a guy he passed away since pishak pshak i'm not yeah gunny pshak everybody knows him yep he he ran the the firearms for for awesome guy awesome guy he ran it for state for training and everything

and and you know we i remember we had guys uh they most and that's why we did all this stuff we we shot we shot from the vehicles we would deploy and shoot we did. One of the guys was a, he was a former force guy. I don't remember his name, you know, firearms instructor there at state. And we did drive by shootings. We would be, and he, when we did it, you know, it was safe, but he did it. Like we were doing off-road stuff.

We were doing it and, you know, he was going over all the bumps and everything. And then he's like, let's go see, got to see where your hits are going and stuff like that. You're not just spraying and praying. You got to, you know, because he's like, Hey, this is law enforcement.

You got to be accountable for every round so yeah i i you know that was oh five oh six time frame i don't know how much how it is now because there was like and the guys who did the tactics were all there was two former delta guys and a former green beret that did a lot of the tactics too so uh state ran solid training but that's weird tyler that secret service didn't you guys didn't shoot from vehicles no no not a lot we did it i did it on my own with

people who knew how to do it or you know kind of like adam what we talked about where you get your own training it's like hey yeah you expect me to be able to do this i need to go figure out how to do this but well let me ask you we kind of jumped around but when did you guys both serve together in afghanistan iraq when when was that iraq iraq iraq so i came i i got cross deck to one seven because i told you there was an overage of lieutenants i'm not a ship bag i would admit if I was.

And I went to Charlie Company and Sergeant Major had Alpha or went by Animal Company. Animal Company, yep. Let me tell you something though. This is the level of respect that Sergeant Major had in the battalion, but also from his company. So we got issued our desert camis, our tricolors for the most part. And we got boonies with them. And every Marine, I would say like literally 85% 10 of them look like Sergeant Major Devaney, who he's Gunny Devaney at the time, but he had it.

Do you remember Sergeant Major where you 550 cord your boonie to your cargo pocket? Absolutely. Yep. 550 cord hanging off the back like a cat tail. Yep. Absolutely. And they all, and I think, I don't remember, did you put your name on one of your cargo pockets, the left or right? I think like you stenciled your name Devaney, I think, or I don't remember if you did that. No, wait. No, I had my guys put up their blood type on the top of their boots. Yes.

In their boots. And on each arm, I didn't give a shit. And on the top of their helmets. Yeah. So I... Yeah, go ahead, sir. Yeah. So that's the level. Like, guys had that. And then the other companies started doing that. And because they're like, well, listen, if Gunny Devaney is saying this, like, I'm sorry, all the companies except for a company that began with B didn't do it. Yeah. Yes. That's absolutely correct. Yes. Absolutely correct. They hated me. They freaking hated me. Yeah. Yeah.

But this is, again, Tyler, this is the thing. I get there, and I don't know anybody, but Sergeant Major's like, I remember I had a Zero My Rifle, and I went out with him. We went out to Udara Range. I went with him and some of the snipers and stuff like that. He's like, hey, sir, come on. We'll take you out. We'll get you and everything like that.

And I remember he's doing, with the snipers, he was giving them different, because they were using, he was giving them different commands to Zero their rifles. He goes to me, he's like, sir, you go three clicks up and three, three clicks to the right, because he knew I didn't have, I wasn't a trained sniper or didn't have a scoped rifle, but that's the type of guy he was. And he went out of his way.

You know, he went from company to company, except for a company with B when we were in Kuwait and he was teaching guys like basic CQB there, you know, he didn't care that he wasn't like, oh, you're not in my company. You know, he's like, last time I checked, it says U S Marines and you have an Eagle globe and anchor. I'm training you. That's how it was.

And that's the type of guy he is. And I will die on a hill if anybody argues differently and says that, like, Sergeant Major, no, he went above and beyond. And we'll get later on, when he became a Sergeant Major, he was in, you know, quote-unquote units, like a logistics unit and then an air wing unit.

But those kids were trained killers when he got hold of them, when he was- yep so so like the colonel's saying if you don't mind so so uh so there's a saying every marine's a rifleman yeah and i actually read an entire i have an entire damn near a book's worth of stuff on every marine's rifleman so when i left special operations training group in 2001 one of my buddies recon dude he goes hey dave i know you say no to anybody you won't say no to anybody you train everybody i says

so all right whatever he says that might have worked here but that's not going to work in the grunts. So I got to 1-7 and my commander was Captain Barr. I don't want to get into details, but he's actually, he works up the road for me here. Okay. Anyway, he's a badass. But I said to him, I says, hey, he knew I came from Special Operations Training Group. And I said, hey, sir, hey, you give me an opportunity. I will help you create the baddest motherfucking company you've ever seen in

your life. And he goes, Gunny, go for it. And I actually just started after my first live fire. So my first live fire, they're like, hey, we're going out to do a live fire i get out there and i watch these marines shoot 18 gazillion rounds at nothing at nothing sounds like 29 palms that's 20 up yep yep yeah that's so they were training for maneuver warfare so these guys are setting a best base of fire these guys are doing that and i was like this is bullshit so what i did which i

still think was ingenious is i went down to the lavs light armored vehicle guys and their uh ammo cans are they're big so what i did is i got like a hundred of those ammo cans from them and then i just carried them in my vehicle out to the desert and i put so i could put targets everywhere i didn't need a range i just set up ranges because it's 29 bombs you can shoot just about anywhere you want yeah so you just go out there and i'd set up my range but i changed it and i put

a kill zone in there i put a kill zone that they couldn't see we used a nail so it was invisible so if they hit in the kill zone we gave them a point either kill zone or one and then two whatever but we made them hit the targets and then the captain i said sir let's play a game here it plays to be a winner so every time we trade from that point on we kept you know statistics on what platoon shot the best and whoever shot the best got to go to the army

and get on liberty right away it pays to be a winner yeah so we did all kinds of stuff like that and like but i did a lot of things for that company. When we hike, weapons company or the weapons platoon have to carry much heavier gear. And what we would always do is we'd go to the armory, so we'd have 170 Marines at the armory trying to get all their shit out of one window. And I was like, this is asinine. Here's what we're going to do.

Weapons platoon is always first. And I'll give them a half hour. And then every half hour later, I'll give another platoon. So they just walked up and got their gear and walked away. We hadn't seen it at the armor for two hours doing absolutely freaking nothing. So I set up my humps that way too. Weapons in the front. And then I just, I operated first, second, third, and then the next hump was second, third, first, et cetera.

So I rotated them because being the last platoon on the hike always sucks. Yeah. The accordion stretches out and you get, you get screwed. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. I think because I remember when I was in three, four, like it was, we had, I actually, I mean, I had a company commander that was crazy, but he was actually really big. He would do things like that too. He would get four by fours. And like, if we were, when we were out in the field.

You guys were in Okie at the time. So we were, we were out in the field because just before you guys got back and he would like the fire team that knocked down that, that four by four first, would get, he would like, he would bring them a pizza out when we were in the field, but he did it where it's like, all right, you only got 50 rounds per guy. So, you know, like I remember that because, you know, Sergeant Major, you know better than me.

Like a lot of times in the, I don't know how it is now, but like a lot of times it was like, all right, we're just going to go out and do with DumpX. Remember at the end of CACS when you're out at Lovac Lake and I'm like, what are we shooting at? We're just spraying ammo. We should be getting some feedback here. Yeah, I didn't do that. In fact, when we were at the planet, we relived you in 3-4. You were there in 2001. We got there in 2002.

At the end of the year, like September, my buddies from SOTG were still there. They were like, hey, We got to get rid of 100,000 9mm rounds. So I took 50 Marines from one 7, 10 from each company. I took them down to Camp Hanson for five days and shot their asses off. So they got like 200 rounds a day for five days. That's amazing. They were absolute badasses when they were done. Yeah.

Because I don't do that simple shooting. We do some combat shooting. Yeah. Sergeant Major trained his guys to be combat shooters. They may have not gotten like this in the bullseye. They may have gotten this, but those rounds were all in kill zones on dudes. Yeah. Sorry, let me ask you, where did you get that, that, that ideology from? Was it something you were taught, experienced, or are you just kind of. Sat back and looked at it and was like, this is dumb. We should do it a different

way. Where did that come from? That's a good question. So this is my philosophy from when I was a corporal on, is that I will do everything in my power to ensure that Marine knows everything they can to survive in combat. So when their family comes to me and says, did you do everything you could to save them in combat? I better be able to answer yes. So I train my Marines hard. I even had captains tell me what a state attorney would be like, hey, Sergeant, you need to relax.

You're killing these guys i says hey sir i'm training for combat yeah i wanted i wanted to go back i'm sorry tyler yeah i wanted to go back when sir major when you were talking about like for the in doc where you would question like a 51 a 41 a 31 or 11 on something i can tell you this okay granted i was an officer i never never an enlisted guy never i was an officer grunt but i can tell you this, that, that you go up, he can be a bag of ass or, or like a belligerent grunt.

But if you like, Hey, I remember from my experience too, if I'm like, Hey, teach me about like to a 51, teach me some crater, cratering charges. They're like, you serious, sir? I'm like, absolutely. They're like, all right, sir, sit down. They wanted to tell you about their MO. They did. they love talking about their MOS. They, that's what they wanted to do. They, they wanted to go like, I'm like, because I, like, I remember I'm like, well, I'm trying to get us like set up.

So when I was in XO, I'm like, I'm trying to get some, like, so we can do some demo range. It's like, okay, sir, let me sit down and help you with this. And then I would have all the things in my office try, like explaining everything to me. And they, they love, that's what Marines, like when you talk to Marines, like Marines, right? Sergeant Major, that's what they wanted. That's all they want. They want it to be treated like these guys were...

The experts for like, you know, for their rank and for their, like, they, like, they weren't going to tell you maneuver warfare or something like that. Some of these guys knew it and they knew it better than most people, but they wanted to like, they wanted to train you. They didn't care if you, like, if you, like, I remember going as a Lieutenant. And then when I was in the reserves as a captain, as a major going like, Hey, let's, let's talk about some, like, like some, they're like,

you serious. I'm like, absolutely. Let's talk, let's talk this. I want to get this shit out there for you guys. I would say, I go, you guys are the experts. I know a lot of this stuff, but I don't know it as well as you do. And Sergeant Major, they probably loved that when you were grilling them on infantry knowledge. That's what guys... Absolutely. Yeah, sorry. And this is on a different subject, but when I was at VMAQ 4, Electronic Warfare Squadron, I was on my second deployment to Iraq.

And with that squadron, it was my fourth deployment. And one day, the MAG Marine Air Group Sergeant Major came out to my squadron, and he said, hey, can you show me around?

So it was just it was a really hot day but no one was around the airplanes were in the air and there was nothing around so i went through and i briefed him on how each section works and at the end he goes hey are you an air winger and i go no i'm not a freak i'm not an air winger what are you talking about he goes how do you know all this stuff and i was like i never thought about it but i paid enough attention over three years that i actually actually accidentally knew what the

hell I was talking about with the wing, you know, kind of. But I was the kind of guy, man, I'll tell you what, I mean, I went out and I tried to learn things from them. They taught me. I helped them put an engine on an airplane one day. The truth is, I didn't help them do shit. But I went out there and I touched some things and I got dirty. Yeah. And that's all that mattered. One day, they put me in a little forklift and I put a pod up to an airplane.

And I said, if I crash, Corporal, I'm going to kill you. But, you know, I went out there and I let the Marines teach me stuff. But like the colonel was saying, so one day when I was at SOTG, I was in a flight suit and I was walking back to the armory and the only people that wore flight suits on Camp Hanson was SOTG. So I'm walking down the street and we had just got the new machine gun, the 240 Gulf.

We had the M60 machine gun, so we're transferring over. And I see this young Lance Corporal walking down the street from the armory from 3rd Marines. And I says, hey, that was a staff sergeant. I said, hey, can you give me a quick class on that machine gun? I've never seen it before. And he was just shocked that a staff sergeant with SOTG would ask a Lance Corporal a question. But he gave me an incredible brief on a machine gun, and that was it.

But I did the same thing with parachutes. I asked the guy how to, you know, he's packing a parachute. I asked him how to do it. It took him 30 minutes to explain it to me. I said, how long does it normally take? He says like eight minutes. I love that story. But, but I was sorry, you know, it took so long, but he goes, no, you're the first person that ever gave a shit about what I do ever. I learned how to drag forklifts. I don't forklifts in the reserve just because, you know, I like it. here.

So I got to chime in and this is again, and Sergeant Major, this is like, I attribute a couple of guys I went to TBS with that are still in that are full boards. They're both prior grunts. My one buddy is in charge of the, right now, the MARSOC training regiment. My other buddy was a 31st MU commander. I learned how to be Marines from the guys I went to TBS with a lot of the prior service guys. And I remember my buddy who's the colonel at MARSOC, he's the nicest dude in

the world. And I learned just be nice to guys and, and, you know, and they'll, they'll, they'll help you out, you know? So like I learned, and I learned this from you too, Sergeant Major, because I saw you, I remember in, in, in 29 Palms in Kuwait and Iraq, how you, you talked to guys, you gave them responsibility, you treated them like Marines. You didn't care if they were PFC or you didn't care if they were a four-year PFC. You like, okay, you fucked up, but you know what? You're under me now.

I'm going to give you a chance and you're going to, I like, I learned shit like that. I remember I was down at Camp Lejeune in April of 21. I was doing like, I was, when I was in the reserves, I was down there for a month. I was like a two meth liaison officer. I was, because I was a Marine emergency preparedness liaison officer. I really had nothing to do down. It was awesome though. Here I am. I'm a Lieutenant Colonel and my, my, he's the chief of police in my old department.

But at the time he was a Lieutenant, but he was a scout sniper with one eight and he did Panama and everything like that. And he always was good to me. And so like, I'm like, Hey, LT, I'm going down there. I'll try and get you a shirt from one eight, a scout sniper shirt. So I'm driving around one day, I'm in camis, I'm in my truck. And I see these four kids walk and I'm like, yeah, these, these kids are snipers.

They're in boots and utes that, you know, they're, they're a little bit more jacked in the standard grunt, but they got their spotting scopes and everything. And I, and I pull up to them. And I'm like, Hey, you guys scout snipers. They're like, yes, sir. I'm like, I'm like, who are you guys with? They're like, they're like one six. I'm like, Oh, is a, is one eight on deck? They're like, no, they're out in deployment. I'm like, damn.

And I, and I was talking to him for a second. I'm like, Hey, what did I like fucking kill one of your mothers? I said to the guy, they're like, no, sir. We really don't get many people that talk to us, let alone a Lieutenant Colonel. Like we're not getting yelled at. I'm like, I'm like, what are you guys talking about?

They're telling me how they would get yelled at all the time for like you know just you know by staff ncos or officers sometimes like if they like i'm like what are you talking about yeah we we had somebody from another i think three six or something yelling at us because we were doing like stalking exercises in their area and he came out and i'm like are you i go are you fucking kidding me you guys are training you're not training you're not like boozing out but you're

training your and your tradecraft i'm like serious they're like absolutely sir so i ended up i was talking to him for like 35 40 minutes i remember that this was around like you know 1500 teen 30 or something like that and i remember some staff sergeants like he was like he's like gonna be like he was a bit he started like what the fuck are you guys i'm like hey staff sergeant they're with me they're like he's like oh shit sorry sir i'm

like i'm like i'm like he walks away i'm like oh shit you guys really aren't fucking kidding me man you guys get yelled at for i i don't get it they're like and i remember i leaving i gave them my card i'm like hey shoot me an email if you guys ever need anything or get into trouble. And I remember the one, the one kid who was jacked and he probably could have bowled me up in seconds. He's like, you know, sir, I appreciate you coming up and talking to us like Marines.

I go, guess what? I go, that's what you do. It doesn't matter what rank or you talk to you as Marines. I go, that's what I learned from my buddies. And, you know, I go from prior staff NCOs that I had in prior like officers that I was under, you treat them like Marines. And, and Sergeant Major, I learned that one of the people I learned that from is you.

And I will say that to the day I die, you know, yeah, but let me tell you something, Tyler, though, like if I was fucked up, sorry, major wouldn't tell me in front of the Marines, but let me tell you something in a court and like, I never did this, but he'd be like, you're fucked up, sir. You know, you go, go do officer things right now. I'll take care of this. He would do that. Okay. But he wouldn't, he's not, he's not doing it because he's just trying to flex.

And I got to go, one more thing I say, and then I'll get back to you, Sergeant Major. He always talked about like guys that went to, to DI school and went on the drill field. That became their personality. A lot of guys, like they thought that they can bully, I don't know bully, but like, they would just be like, oh, I don't know what you think you're doing. But they were trying to, with fellow staff NCOs, like especially junior enlisted Marines and some officers.

Sorry you wouldn't i never knew sorry major devaney went to the drill field until he told me because you were the complete opposite of that where like you didn't need to be like i was a di no and i remember you always saying like some guys like that was their only way their their version of leadership was thinking they were on the drill field everywhere they went am i right absolutely sir but i'll tell you something you find and i don't care what the craft is,

If you find somebody that no one wants to talk to, they always yell at them. It's because they're hiding the fact that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. That's a fact. Yes. Yep. Finally got to yell, oh, I don't talk to him. He's an asshole. It's because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. I didn't, the only time I ever yelled at Marines in my senior time were, were always officers.

Always. I didn't raise my, you know, just some officer would push my buttons and all, you know, I'd have to, you know, let them know. Yeah. But because if you, if you don't outrank my boss, go the fuck away. So that's all there's to it. Yeah. And this is the, I mean, I like, this is, this is why like, like you, I talked to guys from one seven and they still talk about you and shit like that. And like, you looked out more for the enlisted.

There's, there's no, but that, that was your job as, as a senior enlisted guy. But you look, like I said, like I was, I was new to there and you looked out for me and I'll always remember that. And, but you would look out for anybody. But if like, if an officer, well, you did it to staff and sales too.

Like he would probably use a little bit more colorful language but if an officer was fucked up sergeant major let that like he he told them like hey like this isn't like if like i can be it never happened but if like some officers trying to say like when i was at ioc this is how he did cqb sergeant major would be like sir get the fuck out of here i got this i've actually done all this shit and stuff so it's kind of funny you just hear you think so when i checked into one seven.

I didn't have a job. I got to the sergeant major. He looks through my record. He's not been to like 50 schools. He's like, what are you doing here? So I made my monitor that gives you jobs. I called him a bitch. And then I got orders of 29 pounds. I remember that story too. That's the truth. Yes. He called me devil dog. I was a gunny. He was a gunny. So that's like calling me a bitch. So I came out and called him a bitch. Within 24 hours, I had orders of 29 pounds.

But it was the greatest thing to ever happen. He did me a favor by sending me 20 pounds because I got the one seven. What the Colonel doesn't tell you is that he was in Charlie company, the most famous company in the history of the Marine Corps. Suicide Charlie. Two guidance. They have two, they have two flags, two guidons. Why is that? Yes. Yeah. Go ahead. Tell him, sir. You want, or you want to, you want to throw in a history at him?

This is awesome. So it Guadalcanal 1942, same action that John Bassalone got his gunnery Sergeant John Bass from New Jersey, got his medal of honor for. So at Henderson field, like, so, you know, the battalion, like Charlie took like the brunt of it. A Japanese division on one company.

And literally bodies, like stacked bodies, like guys were, Marines were behind japanese bodies engaging and in the morning after the battle somebody took a piece of japanese silk from a parachute and wrote wrote suicide on it i think they spelt it wrong too they did they spelled it incorrectly suicide charlie was stolen crossbones and and and they put the flag up and to this day it's the only company in the marine corps that's authorized to guidons

because of that action absolutely that's i don't know do you did you remember you remember sergeant sultis Absolutely. Absolutely. I talk to him all the time on Facebook. Yeah. So I do too. I remember, I think it was your company, a kid from, I don't remember if it was Animal or Baker, tried to steal the guidon in Kuwait. That was my company. That was Lance Corporal Doughty. We talk about that. Oh my God. He stole the guidon, jackass.

I almost killed him. I almost killed him. I go, Soltis, someone's stealing the guidon.

Think salt this is like pushed me out of the way and caught the kid i got there and i'm like i think like then saltus was probably going to kill him because saltus was was charlie company through and through without a doubt like he if you cut if he would bleed charlie company and but i think like i think if i hadn't showed up the kid would have been dead yes i think they were ready to kill him when i showed up i'm like i i literally was like okay i'm out

of here this this is an enlisted thing i'm gonna let them take care of it hey do you know what i did though sir is i made him give the guy to him back but then i made him learn the history of charlie company and then i made him go over to charlie company and give him a class on history charlie yeah i think and sultus was sultus motherfucker sultus respected the kid for that after that because he's like and then because i think he like

sultus then corrected him too on some of the history and stuff so yeah yeah hey he still talks about it to this day he's a big old biker dude now big old beard big old harley david i remember he was small like and stuff like that that yeah he was a little shit too his, face when saltus caught him like he was he was a white kid he was white as a ghost he literally was probably shitting in his pants.

Yeah when i joined the marine corps i weighed like 129 pounds you know so i mean i'm like a 180. 175 180 right now so i'm like 50 pounds heavier than i when i joined yeah so i don't think i've been it didn't take long to put on weight though i don't think i've been 120 pounds since i was in sixth grade so i've always been that i don't know that i would have made it well a lot of weight i was a fighter so the lower your weight is the better yeah no

for sure and all the running and rucking and all the stuff you guys do yeah adam i know you got a hard out and this is what i'm saying i knew we were going to do this and we're going to you've got more episodes but i want to i want to kind of end it with this if it's okay sergeant major because you've got you guys have both kind of talked about it back and forth and i'll try to phrase the question correctly what what makes i want to say what makes a good marine as opposed to somebody

who you're like this guy's fucking done or girl whatever however it works out what what would what would you have to see a Marine to say, this person's worth my time. This person can fuck off. Because like the guy who spent 30 minutes explaining parachutes to you instead of eight minutes, again, rightfully so, but there's something that they have to, that you, and I'm referring to you, Sergeant Major, what did you see? What did you have to see to be like, this person's worth my time?

Even if they were fucked up when you got ahold of them. Well, actually I'm going to steal what an officer told me when I was a young Marine. He said, there's no such thing as a fucked up Marine. There's just Marines in bad jobs. And what he meant by that is, you could take an infantry guy and put him in supply and he'd love his job. And then you could take that guy that hates supply and put him in a grunt and he'd love his job.

So we would never do this, but I'd always thought that what we should do is the Marine Corps should take, everybody should be infantry for two years for one deployment. Oh, that'd be great. And then you should send them to the MOS that they, that you, so you the staff and COs and the officers get together and say, this guy should be admin, he should be that. But you should send some recruiter deciding what your MOS is. You should have to earn an MOS, I think.

Who the hell am I? Go ahead, sir. No, you finish Sergeant Major. I'm sorry. No, but I just want to say, Tyler, that I had multiple cases where Marines were considered bags of shit. I'll give you one example. I'm a Sergeant Major. Another Sergeant Major says, I'm sending a gunny to you. Do whatever you want with this piece of shit. He's not in your rolls. He's not in your numbers. Make a pic of cigarette butts in this parking lot. The next morning,

this gunny shows up, this grunt, in his outfits. He's stacked. He's a badass. and I go, Gunny, what the fuck is going on? He goes, I pissed off the wrong people. I says, okay, Gunny, we got two choices. Sergeant Major, I won't say his name, said to have you pick up cigarette butts. That's fine. Or I need a first sergeant over at Mark's training company. What do you want to do? He goes, I'll be the first sergeant. I says, good. Go introduce yourself. I didn't introduce him.

I was going to go over there. That guy went over and just took over. That's the freaking first sergeant I ever had in that company in three and a half years.

But he a piece of shit from another company so yeah but there are there are shit bags there's always gonna be yeah it doesn't matter i guarantee you even in the secret service oh yeah you had your 10 oh yeah but uh you know i i actually shot next time when i went through a high-risk personnel course the dude next to me was secret service and he was shooting out this is back in the 90s and he was shooting a 357 sig yep and oh my god we were shooting at these like rubber targets the call cost,

the 357 was destroying all the targets. The damn instructor's like, what the hell, Secret Service? You're killing us. Because the nine miles would go right through. But no, the 357 was just tearing the rubber to pieces. Yeah, it was. That's what I started yelling. I got to say one to add to the Sergeant Major about that. Remember, Sergeant Major, when you had OOD and staff duty, you would have the restriction Marines come in. Remember they had a sign-in every hour on the weekends? Absolutely,

yeah. So, and yeah, the majority of the Marines on restrictions were like, I don't know if they were the shit. They were just like, you know, they were the problem. But they weren't. They got in trouble. Yeah, they got in trouble. And you would always have like a couple stellar NCOs that got caught. And they were, even though they were on restriction and stuff, they were still some of the best. But my big thing was, is I hate it when the Marines would all like trickle in.

I said to the, I said to like, I remember I had a couple of like corporal and sergeant. I said, this is what we're going to do. I go get everybody down here all at one time. They line up outside. They come in and sign. I'm not going to do it. So I want to make sure that I get everybody you may. And, and, and this is, and they're like, Roger that.

So they started doing that. And then I said, because the restriction Marines had to come in camis on the weekends, I said, you guys are going to the gym. They're like, yeah, maybe I go, well, the uniform for the gym is green on green. Correct. Or like, well, no, you go. I got, they're like, well, sir, you can wear some, I go, it's green on green.

So if you're at the gym and you need to come to do, you know, to come back and do your restriction, that's fine so i let the marines come in green on green as long as like didn't hall have to be in camis or green like if they were pt because guys were like thank you sir i wanted to pt but i remember i got going back to super squad sergeant i remember so when we got back from okie i i asked to take leave at a different time than the battalion because my brother was getting married so

they're like yeah but they're like you're going to be one of the few officers back so you got to oic a super squad i'm like okay so i had to go out to the field with them like i didn't care But I had the restriction Marines as my logistics Marines. I'll tell you this, the restriction Marines were on time every time. I never had a single problem from anybody. And I did like something that you would have been proud of. When we went out

there with the staff, I forgot who the staffs were. I made sure we had enough ammo so they could shoot too. Because I said to them, I go, last time I checked, you guys are Marines too. And you need to shoot and stuff like that. And I remember because some of the super squad Marines were late.

And I go, and I remember, I go, how come I got guys that are on restriction that are supposed to be the shit bags and you're supposed to be the elite of the elite of the battalion and they're here ready to go. And you're late in this and that, like, you know, but, and that's, that's the thing you, you, you have to work with what you have. And like Sergeant Major said, you have the 10% that like, no matter what you do, there's still going to be shit bags.

And Sergeant Major will tell you this, that like, they may be a grunt, but maybe they're really good with like land nav. So you make them in your platoon teaching land nav because some guys are like, I love doing this. Lance Corporal Macalusa was always a pan in the ass, but he's our land nav guru. He's got everybody teaching. That's what you do. You just give someone a job that they like doing and that they're decent at.

No one, and sorry, correct me if I'm wrong, like being a 300 PFT-er and double expert and all this stuff doesn't make you like to make you the best Marine in the world. I tell you that. You might be the worst, actually. Exactly. I told Tyler's story.

I had a company commander that when I was in 29, we hiked every Friday, every, he, I was the ex, he's, he, I, he was the only one who knew how far we were going. He didn't even tell me how far we were going. And, and he was a PT machine, 300, you know, like he, I watched him do 37 dead hang pull-ups. I remember. And he promoted a kid to corporal. And I said, I said, Hey, sir, can I talk to you? He's like, yeah, sure. What's up, Mac?

I go, you, you put a promoted so-and-so to corporal, like, you know, he, he was like a low first class PF tier. Like, and I, I go, I go, sir. I, I thought you were like, like he goes, I thought that was like your thing. You like PT. He goes, no, no, no, no, no. I go, I'll tell you why I promoted him. He told me, he goes, I came in on a Saturday one time and I saw him up there by the East gym running and doing pull-ups. And he goes, that kid was taking the time to make himself better.

I'm going to promote him. so and i i that's another thing i learned so yeah adam adam what time's your heart out i got i got a jet now so all right same time tomorrow gents 1700 or so earlier again if we can do earlier that's great and then tomorrow sergeant major i'd like to talk about marine corps culture a company culture and then leadership and then we can get into your training is if that's okay sir absolutely awesome you want awesome i knew

this was gonna go i knew it that's why i was like we to do multiple. I told you, bro. Listen, I find good people, great people. Sergeant Major, it's awesome talking to you. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Tyler, text me later, all right? Yep. Thank you, guys. Good night, Jen. Adios, sir. Thank you, sir. Bye-bye. Music.