1st Recon Marines in Fallujah 2004 | Eddie Wright | Ep. 338

And I said, they got too scared, aks, can I engage? And said what?

And I repeated myself, and then he relays it the.

Company as I couldn't talk company, just betune.

And while they're whatever they're figuring out, apparently my big mouth, I don't know.

These guys in the truck. They must have known the jig was up.

So yeah, they they lurched forward, but only like five or ten feet, so they're a little bit behind us. And then they all spilled out. And when they all spilled out, then all the vehicles behind us and everybody saw all the weapons, and as soon as that happened, it was on and the vehicle behind us just pink misted everybody with the main gun just just firing into them.

And then all hell broke loose.

Those other two vehicles got immediately destroyed, and we started pushing forward.

And then the whole battalion kept moving forward at a slow.

Pace, and we, I mean, everything with the heat signature got destroyed.

And our air officer called in the brevity for.

You know, to get all the available air on station, because we had spotted tanks.

They were moving some T.

Fifty fives or something, some tanks around trying to come.

In close enough to fire on us.

So then we got all the available air on station and it was just just incredible show of vast destruction. They, I mean, that union got wiped out. I think three or four hundred of them got killed and only we had some very slightly wounded, but nobody killed.

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Special Operations Coberts sp and I The Team House with your host Jack Burphy and David Park.

Hey, everyone, welcome to episode three hundred and thirty eight of The Teamhouse. I'm Jack Murphy. Tonight we are here with Eddie Wright. Eddie served in Marine recon and he was just telling me that this is the twenty first anniversary of his alive day since the attack that he was injured in overseas. So we're pumped about that. Pumped. Have you here and thank you for coming on the show tonight, Eddie.

Thanks Jack, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah.

So, you know, I start off asking most of our guests about their origin story. Tell us a little bit about where you grew up in what your path was that took you towards the Marine Corps.

I was born in Chicago. My mom was an imprint from Ireland. She met my dad. Nurse met my dad. He was a.

Resident at the University of Chicago Medical School.

My brother and my sister and I were all born in Chicago. We moved to.

California for a bit a year or two and then up to Washington State and my parents split. So my dad soldiers practice during the Air Force, so I became a military brad. So I jumped around a bit with that, but mostly, you know, I grew up with my mom and I'd say Seattle. Seattle would be what I considered my hometown outside of Chicago or where Texas, And so you wanted to know about how I got into what what drove me to get into the Marine Corps. When

Would just ride a bike.

And you know, like I said, So, there was a time when he was stationed at Blackland Air Force Base, and so we'd be, you know, up four am or so, and I'd be riding my bike, little kid, and then uh, you know, riding alongside my pops, and we used to run by the I guess they had the Marine Corps Canine Training school there.

And they'd be running information in the mornings. I don't know.

I was just a kid. I thought they were cool. And then, of course, uh at my age being influenced by all those awesome movies that came out in the eighties, you know, the cheesy ones like you know, like the Schwartz, Neigga Ones, Commando or Rambo or.

Uh yeah, even Heartbreak Ridge. I thought it was the endless movie, the kid walking, What's Happening?

Yeah, So, you know, my past of the Marine Corps was a little different than most people because I was an angry kid, uh, living with my mom in Seattle and in the early nineties. It was a little back then, and they had a thing that was like a forced integration where they'd send kids from one side of the city to the other side to go to school. And so I hated my schools forty five minute bus ride each direction, and.

I just started skipping school. So I got off to a rocky start.

And then, of course, who you're going to hang out with if you're skipping school, but other kids that are to know good I suppose. So, long story short, I ended up getting into a lot of fights, which got me in a lot of trouble. I actually, I guess not very many people know this, but I actually was like a white kid in a Simoan gang, you know, yeties, and.

So that you know, kind of escalated the trouble that I got into.

How'd I got to ask you, Eddie, how did that work? I mean, the Islanders are pretty insular normally, aren't they.

Yeah, But I'm an Islander too, am Irish, so I don't know, you know, And I was people like to fight.

I I just had a few of them as friends, and then you know, uh just started gradually, you know, hanging out with them. They got to know me, and I really didn't get too much respect from him until they saw me fighting, and and then, uh, you know, they knew that that that I would fight, so they kind of respected that, like I wouldn't back down.

You know.

There was a point where I was getting bullied and somewhere along the early part of my sophomore year, I just couldn't take it any and so I decided I would feel better being beat up than to live with myself and to just let these guys pump me out and treat me like this. So I stood up to the bully and I knocked out in front of our math teacher in Hallway West Yet High School.

I was shocked. You know. It was a lucky hit, I think, and as he fell, he hit his head on the locker, so he's done ski well. Word travels fast in school. So then I had to, you know.

I just started getting in a lot of fights because it felt so much better than the opposite of where I was just always getting picked on. And I went a little too far, and then I ended up getting jumped into the gang and then I had to fight one of them one on one, and and I knocked that dude down too, so I guess all the every day fighting with my brother, my little brother, who's you know, oally a year and a half apart, but he's bigger

Help when you get blown up by an IMPG. But so I had a lot of hard work to do. I ended up going to Juvi for twenty months, the best thing that could happen to me. Yeah, I.

So I I ended up in Juvi from all that nonsense. And the camp they sent me to was outside of the city. It was in western Washington, and and that's where I started to thrive. You know, I've noticed throughout my history of my life, if I was in a structured environment, be it unfortunately Juvi or maybe when I played rugby before the Marine Corps, and you know, of course the Marine Corps, I thrive. I do pretty well. I was just kind of lost. So being in Juvie

And so because I was on probation for my juvenile fighting and all that on my assault charges, I got that was a pellony to have a firearm. So here I am again. I set myself back, and I still.

Wanted to be a marine, but this really really put that goal farther out of reach.

So that took a couple of years to settle.

I ended up having to do a couple months in King County downtown in Seattle, and forgot community community service, and I was able to give my probation, transferred to Oklahoma, where my dad was.

Stationed at that time in the reserves.

With this private practice, and I just went immediately on the straight and narrow. I went to school, I would play rugby every chance I got. I connected with the marine recruiters. They told me what I had to do to Jordan, what I had to do to Jordan Marine Corps, which is quite a bit. I had to do, pay some restitution. I had to do almost three hundred dollars

It's foul stories.

You can tell I'd be speaking French probably, but yeah, I hear, it's really rough.

Yeah.

So and I made it to the Marine Corps and it was a lifelong dream and I always wanted to be a reconnaissance marine, so that that was something I was.

Of heartbreak ridge.

Now as I got older, I started to read all the books I could on Vietnam. It was really into Vietnam, and I was into I would read stories about green Breys, I'd read stories about Navy seals, Army ALURP units, and then something about the recon units, like being a reconnaissance green really really appealed to me and I thought the stories were great. And one book that I read it is called First reecond Second to None by Paul Young.

My my Charlie uniform was just baggy. You know.

That's the the tan khaki sugar, the blue paints with the n c O stripe. So, you know, it's weird how these things happened. And I'm ahe around full circle this story.

In my life.

That's surreal. So, uh, your dream of joining the Marine Corps comes true. You fought to get in harder than most people from everything he told me, literally, and figured.

Out a lot in my way. Yeah, but I knew.

I knew that if I didn't try everything that I could, And this was the same attitude I had when I was, you know, becoming a reconnaissance marine, when I was in the Marine Corps if I didn't, there was no excuse for me not to try as hard as I could and if and if I didn't, then I knew that I would look back and I would regret it, and that would be one of these guys that's always.

Said I was gonna Uh but yeah, yeah, there's as everywhere.

So you get into the Marine Corps. I take it you came in as what is it the Marines called as zero three eleven?

Yeah, I got guaranteed oh three, And uh I did well in boot camp.

I wasn't gone, uh you know, a guide or anything.

I think one of my dr instructors like me, put me in as a squad leader during boot camp. But as soon as another you know, the senior came in, that was out. Yeah, and uh I was glad. I didn't want any extra responsibility like that or pay somebody else's mistake at that time. And then at School of Infantry, Uh, you know, I got stuck with the three week guard duty in winter, standing outside on the ranges and gonna

So I picked a plan school right out of amazing sy I thought I was badass, I learned I wasn't anything. Yeah, like here you get to the fleet.

One of my n cels who picked me up, the three Marines came picked up three of us that went out to twenty nine Palms as an O three eleven riffleman. But we went to a unit called Third Light Armed Reconnaissance Third l R. I had no idea what third la R was. One of my n CEOs picked us up. He was you know, everybody's in their alphas and he's a lance corporal also, but he's only an Alliance COBO because he'd been bust it down from sergeant for hazing.

But you know, it was back in the day before nine to eleven. There was there was no It didn't stop him from continuing, you know.

So I got a good pick to the old school, old school hazing and one on Palms.

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Well, I remember when we got to twenty nine Palms. It was, you know, pitch black outside and all I could see were lights in the distance, and I had desolate. It was until the next morning when the sun came up, which we didn't get much sleep. Immediately, like the whole in every every boot or so so called boom, a new guy that had showed up.

That day to the unit. We were field day in.

The barracks and scrubbing the catwalks with two brushes and just nonsense for hours. And so the sun comes up and you know, I realized, well there's nothing out here, and okay, so.

We you know, I.

Got introduced to the fleet and all my n c O s and and just started getting with it. And I was lucky because our company H brought a company third l R. We were part of the UDP program that came up soon after I got to the fleet. I think I got to the fleet in March, our second of both one. And I, uh, you know, because I went to boot camp in two thousand and uh, I I think, yeah, we left, maybe it was July. I think we went on the udip'd Okanawa and.

So I love.

What's the UDP for those of us, I'm sorry, it's.

A unit deployment program.

So they have like a battalion landing team and marines will do a rotation every six months through oknow cool, and so you'll have marines of different moss but there's always an infantry infantry component and an L A R component and other units.

And so I was that to me was great. I was all about it. You know.

Now you know I'm traveling the world. That's exactly what I expected. And I was a boot and that's a new guy, you know. So as a boot, we all had to shave our heads back then, so we're all running around with bald heads so that we're known to all then. And there was a lot of cool training and hazing is hot in a way that was hotter than twenty nine pounds because of all the humidity. You know, by lunch, if you had time at lunchtime, you run back to the barracks and swap your skiv shirt out

They patrol the waters, they patrol the bush.

They they watch out for smuggling, you know, flora and fauna or drugs or illegal immigrants and things like that and that that was really fun and we got to do a survival course that was topped by the Aborigines with them, and so we had a classroom portion, went to the ranges, UH worked with some different units and we went out to the bush about five and a half hours deep into Kakadu National Park by land.

Rover over the roads and we.

Were starting our practical application part of the survival course and the sun came up. We slept into you know on the ground, you know, things biting us and whatever, and everybody's worried about saltwater crocs and things like that that you could hear sliding off into the rivers and from the banks and other weird noises and you know, like bush in Australia for the first time.

And when the sun came up, we were ready.

Uh you know, we were all ready to go, thinking that here we go, We're gonna probably have to strip down and throw our stuff in a pile and you know, run off into the bushes with the shoe stream one boot and the knife or something, and uh, you know, we heard them yelling for us.

OI.

You know, we heard them yelling OI, get all the Yanks and uh so like we get it. We gather around and they tell us that America has been attacked.

My mind, I'm.

Thinking, hey, this is part of the training. This must be part of the scenario training or something. They're like, no, seriously. And so that was nine to eleven. So I was in the middle of the bush, Australia when nine to eleven happened. So we had along, you know, the five and a half hours drive back to Darwin, just you know, no intail we didn't know what was going on. I just knew that America had been attacked. So we got to think about all these things like, well, we're in Okanawa.

Who attacked us?

And are we, you know, at the forefront of World War three or war? Then we're going to go in first?

And then you know, my mind, I'm calculating what about who the first guys into World War you know, first guys in to fight, Like how long do they last? One of the oddosite being there at the beginning to be there at the end of the war.

So not really understanding how kind of you know, would be you know, it was different, never haven't been and so these days it is.

But uh, you know, as you know, that was.

Two thousand and one September. It was something that I think is cool talking about synchronicity, is uh. The MW rolled in right before we went out to the bush to do the practical app or the survival course, and I think it was the fifteenth MEW and that's the MEW that rolled into Afghanistan first. Yeah, and so we had the hold town of Darwin to our to ourselves, which was great, but then the MW rolls in and now there's three thousand sailors and marines and all, yeah, oh,

You had a.

Giant jungle rucks and their fins hanging off the back, and you know, two of them got into a fist fight with each other and I don't know what.

Did I lose? You?

Yeah, we got we got you. It's just some bad internet connection.

Okay, So these these guys are fist fighting.

It's just like, you know, they stayed in like a hangar, and I thought to myself, damn, I need that's where I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be with Recomb. Well, ironically, when I got to Recom, that was the very platoon that I went to with some of the same.

Yeah.

So it's just a trip. So we go back to Kadeena three days later. We finally got a C one thirty. It's eight and a half hour trip. The whole entire playing in the back. The floorboards were covered in just cases and cases of beer, Australian beer, just full of beer. And looking back on and I think because it was the new marine.

Boot I I you know, and that we all were we didn't really have the guts, But nowadays I would have been like, yeah, drinking and what are they gonna say, you know?

So, Yeah, we came back to Kadina. We did some security for Kadina for a couple of weeks. That was really cool. A lot of adventures there and eventually we go back to We did a month in Fuji at the base of Mount Fuji.

That was that was cool, training with those guys on their base.

And then we went home to fun on Palms in January of two and then that whole year leading up until we deployed to Kuwait before the invasion in three was just a workup where we trained exclusively for combat in Iraq Armor I D learning how to id through the thermals you know, enemy vehicles. Yeah, I had picked up corporal. I took my marines down to e O D. Had e O D give us classes on uh land mines and IDs and things like that. Just to really put the fear of God in us about what we're

Or February early February of three.

And this was like your whole mew going over there at once, our whole battalion Okay, gotcha.

Yeah.

And then there was different regimental combat teams on different locations there and waded along the border.

So just the Marine Corps was there.

I mean it was I mean, we knew we were bringing all this stuff over here if we weren't going.

To go to war.

Well, well, I mean that's what I'd like to ask you. What your impression was like. Was there was there an OP order given to you guys? Like when you deployed, did you know what your mission was going to be or did you find that out later?

We had no idea what our mission was going to be. We I think the first thing we learned was which breach lane we were going up in only days before wow, like across the border. Yeah, and we didn't have we didn't even know.

I think, you know, at least at my level, I didn't know what any of.

Our first objectives were or anything, and we got really deep into Iraq before we got into our first firefight. We saw a lot of blown up vehicles from air strikes and artillery. We saw some oil and gas fires, and just weird things like can imagine an old school train just flying by, like at one hundred miles an hour, just you know, just things like that, or guys in the middle of nowhere just on a camel just booking it like a jockey, Like where's that guy?

You know, just things like that. And then.

It wasn't until the twenty third of March on the one eighth Northern that we got into like our big our first firefight, which was the biggest by far of any during the invasion.

Did you guys run into like the fetti yin or something like that.

I think they were fetti yen and regular army and conscripts, And I think they used these conscripts as bait because we gone we crossed the tigers that morning, and then we were by the time we got into that big firefight that was I think we were ten clicks ten kilometers farther north than any other marine unit. Because the LAV twenty five system they can go, they drive fat it was a perfect vehicle for the invasion, for that drain, and that at that time and that technology the way

So we we were seeing these.

Big groups of men standing here and there once in a while on the size of the road, but they weren't wearing uniforms. We didn't see any guns or anything in the middle of nowhere, so it's fishy. But nobody had fired a shot. Nothing had happened. And three vehicles came towards our you know, our battalion directly from the front down the road, which at this point was just a dard road, and there was three white pickup trucks.

My my was popped up out over here on the right side, and I had the calm helmet on, you know, in there, so I could hear the radio chatter, and they were saying, you know, nobody's As these three trucks approached us and the sun was setting its dark, you know, they had their headlights on.

We were running all blacked out, and for some reason they came right up to us, and two of them stopped before they entered into our column. But the first vehicle drove past the first two vehicles and stopped to the right of my vehicle, right next to us, like I could have spit on, you know. And I could still hear them saying, hold your fire, not showing any we don't see any weapons. And my MVG now on my helm had broken. So I'm holding my mvgs up like this with my left hand, and I'm looking over

He said what?

And I repeated myself, and then he relays it to company as I couldn't talk company, just platune. And while they're whatever, they're figuring out. Apparently my my big mouth, I don't know. These guys in the truck, they must have known the jig was up, so yeah, they they they lurched forward, but only like five or ten feet, so they're a little bit behind us. And then they

Brevity for.

You know, to get all the available air on station, because we had spotted tanks. They were moving some T fifty fives or something some tanks around trying to come in close enough to fire on us. So then we got all the available air on station and it was just just incredible show of this destruction. They, I mean, that union got wiped out. I think three or four hundred of them got killed and only we had some very slightly wounded, but nobody killed on our end.

That's so weird, man, Like you do you think those guys were like doing some sort of like reconnaissance because they weren't surrendering or like trying to defect. They were clearly trying to hide who they really were.

It looked like they they messed up, and you kind of see it in their faces, like, oh, hip, these are Americans. Like maybe they thought they were that these labs were bnps or BTRs or something.

I don't know, but.

They didn't have I think they didn't have any night vision, and so by the time they rolled up on us, it was just like they were like oops. Or they could have been just sent to probe us out, like they probably were told go do this or else. I mean, maybe they had no choice. Uh, but it seemed it seems very foolish to do that, and that may have just been to kick it off or to hold us in place or something while they moved around, moved those

Just seemed ridiculous.

It wasn't like they didn't they they had to have known we were coming up. The battalion was moving north and just kicking up just a cloud and dust like yeah, you know, for miles and and we didn't engage till the sun had set, so like right as the sun was like as low as set, like just going below the horizon and things got pretty dark. Is when these trucks showed them. So it was I don't know what they're doing it?

And how far north did your battalion push?

We are battalion. We went all the way up to Baghdad. We split into companies. Delta Company is the l A R company that rescued the it's their name Jessica Lynch, Jessica Lynch, and the other pow Dang I forget her name, Mere a few years ago, a nice guroup. But then we went let's see, we went to D one, We got into another, had a couple of close calls. Had a mortar drop like right outside my patuone commander's vehicle.

That was nuts. That was kind of cool.

We were the La V toe variant was shooting a tow missile at water tower that there was a couple hundred soldiers mustering under like getting ready to fight us, and we had stopped and I was watching that. I thought it was going to be. In my imagination, it's going to hit that water tower and it was going to explode, and it just rained down on top of everybody.

Guide wire hit that wire.

And it just detonated in the air before it hit the tower. And then all of a sudden, we started getting rained on with mortars, and you know, because we were at a at an intersection and we had just gone through an underpass, so we kind of yeah, that

And we we backed it up rapidly.

We all backed up and went under the bridge that was there, so you know, we had protection from the mortars raining down and we jumped out the back and then the scouts in the back of the vehicle in front of us jumped out and it was like a NASCAR pit crew tire change because they have you know, aar hos as you can run out the driver's hatch with the air guns, and every vehicle had two spare tires, so we we swapped out.

Those tires so fast and then that was the end of it. We split. We didn't ever go back to fight them. I don't know who went to go fight them. Wherever we go.

We went up to Dewanea, although we went to Nazabia right after the big Battle of Nazabrea, like twelve hours after something.

It was dead dudes everywhere.

We went to the two bridges by the little military base where they had a pretty heavy firefight all night. There were you know, unexploded ordnance mortars sticking out of the dirt and all kinds of like you just didn't want to mess with anything because you didn't you know, I actually kick something to blow yourself up, and that was an experience. But we didn't get into any gunfights there. We ended up going to Dewonea and then you know, the war, like most of the combat sort of fizzled

We did have a day where we.

Drove out to the southwestern border of Iraq and went to a cool it's like an ancient town. They did have some sort of factory there that we didn't go into, but we went into the town. There was a base there and it looked like like a medieval four like something from Lawrence of Arabia, because it had it was in a square shape. It had a walkway along the top where you could fire from, and it had parapets on each corner, and it had the thick stone walls.

And then they had.

A radio room in there that was cool because it was a fully operational Soviet radio equipment and old school like vacuum tubes, you know, vacuum tube, I mean just old and it worked. It all worked. It's crazy.

But the place was deserted, like they saw us coming and they split and uh so we stayed in that town. We drove around, we checked out another spot. We stayed maybe an hour. I did see the tru one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen in my life down there, the prettiest eyes. Like, you know, all you're seeing is the face.

It's funny on that stands out in your mind from the deployment.

Well, like I'm in the top of this giant fourteen ton vehicle and we drove past her house and there's maybe you know, an eight foot wall and she's in the yard and you know, she's covered but her face. You know, I could see your eyes and your face and she's looking up like what the what's you know?

And and you know, probably don't know same age as us, you know, eighteen nineteen twenty. I was like they called the granks because I was twenty five.

But yeah, but but yeah, like these are little things that you that stick out, so little adventures in between but no real they didn't have any gunfights. A lot of guys got sick. We used to call it the ship parts because they had us taken a doxy every day. Yeah, and then we had the two pam and the atropine. We we weread our mock gear for the invasion. H everything at first, and then we chucked the giant rubber

You just done zipped and you know.

It really locks in the flavor.

Yeah, we were marinating for sure, and those things. Uh so yeah, that was you know, like, uh, we stopped a lot. We had to wait for fuel a lot. That's how fast we moved. We had to wait for chow food. I lost a lot of weight.

I lost about twenty five pounds in one month because we were eating one MRI day and we had so.

You'd split it up.

You know, you didn't even save like the little creamer packets and stuff.

You dumped that in your mouth.

There's any calories you could get the humanitarian rations disappeared right away.

I feel cheated because I didn't.

That was you know, like we're not supposed to eat those I won't eat them, but looking back, I'm like, might as well have somebody ate them. And so I lost twenty five pounds. You know, we didn't get much sleep. Maybe I'm this is not exaggerating. Maybe two three hours total in the twenty four hour period, but like little cat naps.

It was kind of crazy. But you know, you get used to it. You know, you.

Don't want to fall asleep because you don't want to get snuck up on. So it was quite the experience.

Yeah, yeah, And then how did redeployment back to the United States go?

Well, uh, we went back down to Kuwait.

We drove back down to Kuwait, and when we got there, we had to turn in gear and do all that sort of stuff, and it went pretty fast. Joe Maddis came out, he was there. He's a two star at the time. It's the first time I met him, and he use he would say, I say, say good job, and you know, thanks, and you know, just say hi to all the units that were rotating back. So we we Uh, it didn't take long. I think we were back in the US. We were one of the early units to come back. I think it was back in

And then we.

Drove in buses back to twenty nine Palms and they had a girlfriend who.

I'd met when we were doing security at Caadena.

She used to fly air metabac for the Air Force and she had been transferred to Edward's Air Force Base. So we had been dating for the whole workup two to three and then she was there to see me get off the bus. And that was a strange feeling leaving my Marines, like you know, their families that they were there to see them, and then you know, we just we immediately get thirty days to leave and so

You know. It was weird adjustment.

It was so fast, like you know, like back in the day when the when the Marines from World War two or career or something, we'd get on a boat and you'd have a month or two right right then and then you know, take a train or whatever you did,

Six foot three. But now I wasn't fast enough to keep up at all, and so that was rough. Four weeks. That was like eat sleep study. That's it, Eat sleep study. And then.

You know, when you weren't getting thrashed, you know, all over the base all day long and all night long. I mean you just said it. You learn to just be miserable and focus on whatever the next thing you had to do was, rather than the whole picture.

Because there was.

Times I wanted to throw myself down the mountain, break my leg because I knew I could get a rest, But then I knew I'd have to go back through, so I did.

But this isn't the in doc, this isn't the selection. This is actually the basic Reconnaissance course.

Yeah, but they called it three Basic Reconnaissance. You passed this four weeks, then you're ready for the Basic Reconnaissance course down on Coronado at the time and Expeditionary Warfare Training Group Pacific. So you know, I think they've improved on the science of like training people up. But back then it was just a gig in tour felt like a haze fast smoke fest. Yeah. Man, it was rough, and but it did. It got you. We were ready.

So it was a lot of fun.

We had a little confrontation with the Buds class once our little friendly rivalry that we had going on, and I think some of the guys stole their hot One of the guys stole one of their hard hats from in front of the chow hall because they didn't have a gear guard, and the whole the whole class came up. I was we had maybe ten minutes before we had

I didn't know anything.

I had no idea that somebody had taken their heart at so we were just defending our territory, like you ain't coming in here. And then you know, there's a marine in there. He's like, dude, come on, we get fucked if we He was going through Buds and he's like, you know, this is kind of those they'll you know, just having you it back. And I'm like, well, hold on, don't come in here. And I go and I'm like,

Uh. And they gave it back to him. And that was that I feel. I feel bad because I had a lot of seal buddies like fuck, you know, but you know, no harm, no foul, And that was to me really exciting because I was doing I'm like, I'm really in recon.

Training, you know, yeah, like the stuff, the stuff you read about in the books.

Yeah, we're running up and down the strand, you know in Cornado, we're fitting like the buds classes are running by us with their boats.

We're we're running by with our F four seventy zodiacs.

Just I'm tall, so I was always like, keep on the man. You guys aren't like I got short guys in my team. I'm like, retire And it was fun. It was hard, but it was just you know, when you're doing something that you love, it takes that chore out of it.

And that's I loved it. It was just siver rewarding. I made it. Graduated.

So which recon platoon did you get assigned to?

I got assigned to second patuone in Bravo Company, First three com Battalion.

Is that that back at twenty nine poems No.

First three com Battalions at Camp Pendleton on the West Coastry, So all of our companies are out there too, and we so back at Margarita and it's the platoon that was on the MEU and it's also the platoon that during the invasion was featured in uh Evan Wright's book Generation Kill and then that HBO UH docu series and I haven't seen it. I can't watch it, Like I'm.

Like, come on, we don't look the best. Uh, But.

It was kind of cool. Rudy Ray has played himself. I didn't like him for a while when I was first at the unit, but like now we're just you know, he grows on your brothers.

Uh dude, Well we all evolved, you know, myself included, and you know that.

Uh, that unit at the time was real tight and I'm and and you know first Yukon still is. But we were a collection of guys that had time and peace to go to schools and to get in shape and to train and work together in jail as a unit for the most part. I mean there's people like me who just gets I just get to report. Let's see, I graduated BRC late November and I reported to the unit and they put me in a second between Bravo Company.

And they're the guys that.

You know that like all these guys in the cam Marines, they were in the invasion too, so myself and a lot of the guys had combat experience. But there were some guys that you know, knew to the unit who didn't have any combat experience, even guys senior to me, So that gave me a little bit of street credits. I didn't get messed with. And I had some buddies that went to boot camp with in School of Infantry who were at the unit, and I just they vouched

So we had just.

A short workup two months before we were back in Kuwait, and then that two months maybe, yeah, we were back in February, so that two and a half months or something like that. I was supposed to go to serial school after recon school, but I got into a little uh. I was trying to get these dudes off. We were at the gas lamp in downtown San Diego having a good time and we stayed till the bars closed because my buddy's wife worked at one of them and she

But I popped right back up. Uh you know, just down and back up. But I was a little like whoa and damn, and I go, what the fuck was that?

And those guys were like running away all together at that point. Uh, like they got one licking and ran off and as they're running off talking trash. They're like that, damn, you just got to suck a punch, and I'm like, well, no shit, that motherfucker got me good. So I had to go get staples in my head at Balboa and so don't harm, no foul back of the unit, back training, but I was supposed to report into see your school

Well, it's two I mean, it's been two weeks. You know.

I've been trying to eat soft food like I ate. I was like, damn, it, you know, because we were in the work up. We knew we were going to deploy again, and they said, well, they told me that at the aid station. So I went back and uh, I found my two sergeant. We were still in the field. I go up to him and I'm like, hey, gunny. Uh they told me my jaw is broken. And he looks at me and he says to me. He goes, well, can you still deploy? And I go yeah, he said all right, and we just went back to work.

That was it, and yeah, this Man's club, I fucking love it here.

This is right, But it healed up. I just said to be careful. So I didn't go to see your school because they would have snapped the begs out of me.

Yeah, that wouldn't have been good with your jaw.

They've ruptured one of my buddies that was in b r C with They've ruptured his ear drum. But I could see him being a mouthy guy, you know. I mean I was like, oh, I could see that. Why they might slap the bejeez out of that guy especially, So, yeah, they would have messed me up probably.

So they sent me to an Arabic linguist course. With some of the guys. So every day for a month straight, I just sat and learned Arabic. I actually enjoyed that because I realized how much it could help me because in the invasion it gave us these little cards with like English and Arabic, and you would show up to them and either they pretended they couldn't read, or they probably didn't.

Know how to read. A lot of these guys like in the middle of nowhere, but like our pronunciation was horrible. I realized after doing that course, I'm like, no, wonder they didn't understand what the hell I was trying to say, you know, like just must have sounded like gibberish.

So that was cool.

And then we immediately went back. I mean it felt just like I was. I'm like, I'm already back less than a year. Wow, yeah, quick turnaround. And so where did you get to ployed the second time? And what was the mission? Well, the second time, we went up to the end our province and we went up to Fallujah.

But so.

We took a walk and we went to the gun line, like the counter battery artillery and then the counter battery radars and the already gunline there on Camp Fallusia, and went to the counter the d our trailer you know, and the counter battery radar guys, and just introduced ourselves, said what's up. Said, we were marines with first recond. You know, we were wondering if you guys had any information or data you can share them where these guys are firing from.

And they're like, sure, come on in, and we combed into the back of the trailer. You know.

They had the screen like in real time, we'll pinpoint where the rocket or the mortar is launched from and then they can get on the horn and tell the gunline put in the right data and they would be firing rounds back within thirty seconds or less.

And they had maps.

They gave us some one and fifty thousands of maps, and we were like sweet, thank you sir. And they were out of there, like they were like, yep, here you go we're going home. They were stoked and they were real cool. They were nice to us and they and then when we were in the trailer was some rockets came into the base. So we got to see the thing in like live real time. You know, the

You know, they sometimes it's funny you can bring some in from nation to someone in the military and then uh it and they'll tell you it's classified. You're like, I'm the one that gave it to you. You know, that doesn't make any sense. That's just how it is. So anyway, we use those to do some planning, and they split our teams up into different areas, so you had a certain area of responsibility like X number of grid squares or you know, square kilometers along the euphrates.

At first, when I was there on the southwestern side, the south from Campaalojah all the way over to the Rock asp is where we were operating our teams. While I was there, that was pretty exciting. What was I gonna say, It'll come back to me. But so then I was really doing what I you know, what recom marines do. We would get inserted. We well, we get a frago a mission like this, this is where your team's gonna go.

This is your a. This is your area for you to be responsible for.

And so make your make your plans, find your hid sight you you know, mark out your patrol routes and get your pre planning fire positions and these different things like that, and uh, you know, rid yourselves out and get all ready. And then we'd get inserted. And that was an adventure that was I'm like, this is what I'm doing, recome doing It was it was pretty it was pretty cool, but it was dangerous. We got ah every day pretty much, and every night there was rockets

Were these going after like the water teams that were hitting the base.

Yeah, that's what we were trying to get, or people putting in IDs, and.

So there were there were times we got compromised.

H It's funny because we had to cross like a lot of flat ground and linear danger areas and there was just you know, we would only move when they turned the generators off at night, and then we try to be back at our hindsight by the time they turned them on at three four am, so you had a little window of opportunity to be out there. And we were also doing surveillance, reconnaissance and surveillance, so I mean that's sometimes that's tedious work.

I mean, you're writing down. If you see somebody, you're gonna write it down. Describe what were they doing, what were they wearing, what kind of vehicle did you see? Color? Like where when?

Why just just at anything because you don't know what's going to be valuable until later.

But just and then of course baking in the sun during the day, just roasting.

Yeah, we got compromised by a house full of women one night trying to cross through the little part of town, uh and get up to the banks of the Euphrates. And you know, I was I'm walking, I'm patrolling, and uh, we had we had some guys still in the hide sight.

So there's six of us, so split our team.

And so we were going through this danger area and I'm passing this house It's like fifty yards away and then start because they don't have street lights and stuff, but they had a little light at the front porch of that house.

And all of a sudden, a woman comes out, and I'm.

Like just like like I was just there was nowhere to hide, there was nothing to do. So I'm trying to like melt down slowly to a knee and just make myself into a little ball.

And she must have saw me. She must have.

Seen me or one of the other guys or something, because I heard her saying something. And then another girl comes out, and all of a sudden, there's like ten women looking and peering, and like they got the heavy genies and they went back inside and then so I was like skirted out. Yeah, they didn't have windows on

On the other guy. But I screwed up.

My safety was on, so in the time it took me to take my little parasol about fed five five six by the time that I hit took that safety off. That dude that I was going for was already like flat lowered the blade of grass and so I just mowed I mean like disappeared, So I, you know, I laid down some fire and mowed down like where he was. And we both got up and we both started moving and we come up on him and I come up.

Over this barn and there's the one guy.

So I I stitched him up, but he was the guy that my team leader already had hit.

And then we're like, where the fuck did that other guy go?

And we're looking and we got a I vision and we see him and he's just flat like terrified.

So we grab him.

We roll him up, and we call back to the rear and we're like, we need to get extracted, and we got one enemy k one bow. So the react comes and we ended up you know, loading those guys up. Oh,

He's like, I heard you, guys. I heard you.

Shwack somebody like yep. He's like, well, what did you guys do with the bodies? And like you're sitting on right now, Like we didn't bother to tell them.

Just the weird, the twisted humor of the guys that hunt then you know what I mean.

And so we immediately had a reputation in Flujiah, and of course our vehicles were distinct, so they hated us after that.

You could really see it in their eyes. And so that's why I think they targeted us specifically for the ambush on April seven, two thousand and four. They waited for us because they let a lot of people go through. That was the first time we corded off of the city of Bellujah, first Battle of Alesia. So you know they tried to get us on April seven.

So walk us through that how that transpired. And so you're saying they were targeting specifically the recon detachment out there, that's my opinion.

I didn't get any like intelligence said that, but but we had killed one of them and taken another prisoner, and we were right in their backyard like that. That pissed them off. And so uh and and they, I mean, they were trying to get a lot of people. But but we were just so active in the area that maybe we were the most prevalent unit that that, you know.

So we uh, we were tired.

We've been just back to back missions, like we barely have any time to reset. If we were back on the fob, if we were back on Camp Loosiah. A lot of times you can get back before the chow hall closed or would be about to close.

You run it, you'd be all dirty and people would tell you wouldn't care.

I was a pot food of them in the dirt for days and days, you know, being in my east.

And so.

We came back from him, you know, another mission, and then we got this order, you know, the the you know Flusia's cordoned off.

We do that, and they were gonna move us.

From Camp Fallujah, our company to a place called the Rock Asp which is in the old iraqi Ama supply point outside of Flujah, a mile or two south west

Uh later in the morning.

Then we originally planned and headed west out of the base, crossed over the Euphrates at this on the bridge they called the dam bridge because it's a dam literally dam so it's the dam bridge was what it's called. We took some fire and some motars crossing that. Uh. I think the motors like splashed into the water, like you know, pretty harmless, but we took a little bit of machine

You know, we we you know.

Just turned around like four of our vehicles or hum bees. We didn't have up armored hum bees at the time. And we're my own v Stopped across the ditch from me about fifty yards was a group of about fifteen men and a couple of cars, and they were pissed and looking dirty at us, but they didn't have weapons or anything. I just had my saw on them and I'm like, God, if anybody does anything, I'm just mowing everybody down. And because we were in the open, we were like,

We didn't see any cars and any people. So it was kind of this eerie feeling. You knew something was up and a car was coming down the road at a high rates speed towards us, and when they saw us, they just flipped a U turn and floorated away.

So I called that in. We stopped the convoy again just ten seconds. They said, you know, get going again and pick up your speed to whatever it was twenty five o'cloungers hour or something, so that I really knew it was on. So I took my apple box off the swing arm mount and I put it on my gun, and I spit my dip out because I didn't want to swallow my dip and we a couple hundred yards later, all hell broke lease and they had opened up on us with heavy machine gun guns borders RPGs. They had

And you know, when I when I when of when the shooting started.

Uh, I called in the contact in the direction and I just threw down that headset and I went to town with my saw and they were firing at us. From my perspective, you know, the first vehicle like basically our twelve o'clock all the way to you know, our three or four o'clock. And so from where I was, I was suppressing like the three four o'clock, like just

Back to them.

I didn't want to shoot it out of his hand, and and I was thinking I was gonna get shot in the face because of the amount of bullets that were just like coming behind my head and hitting the door.

And I didn't have a real door.

It was like cutting half a duct tape on so I'll find it because somebody just took a torch and cut it rough, you know, sand bags and full flat jackets glued to the floorboards and sand bags on top, just like ghetto. But but when I moved my gun back to start firing back to like around the three o'clock, you know, uh, that's when an RPG hit hit my saw. And so when I when I got hit, it was just just a boom that I can't really explain with words. Just I think I wrote it down once like a

I didn't want to be that guy.

Like that's what's running through your head in that moment.

Yeah, I just well, I just felt stupid for yelling it out, like I lost my cool, you know, like, uh, so I shut up, and I was and I thought to myself, Okay, well now I'll see what it's like to die.

I wonder if i'll brain damage.

I'll be you know, because I got shot in the face or I got shot in the brain.

And I thought briefly.

About, oh no, I missed people that I love or they'll miss me, and you know, they'll have to wait a lifetime until we see each other again.

And then I thought like, well, then it.

Was like I got this clearity and all this is happening, like I don't know, you know, how time slow. It is, like a second or two seconds or something like that. It seemed like it was probably a few but maybe but not long. And I've realized somehow, I'm like everything's gonna be all right, you know, it's all good, almost as if I knew there was no such thing as time, and I didn't need to worry about like not even a blink of an eye.

Even a blink of an eye is too big of a box to put around a section of time. It's kind of hard to explain, but just like an understanding. And the piece came on me that.

I've never had at before or since as strongly. And I when I thought that, then I thought, hell, hold on, man, you had all these thoughts. Maybe you didn't get shut maybe you know, like wait a minute, you're not gonna you just need to chill out, and you know, calm down, dude, you don't want to go into shock. And so I thought all these thoughts in just a couple of seconds, and you know, time had slowed when I thought that

I want to see that.

I lifted up and I'm like, mother, maybe you guys can bleep this out, and I'm like, motherfuck or both of them.

So both my hands are gone.

This is like shredded and bone fragments, like almost cauterized it, so it was just not like shooting blood out or anything. And then this was like my hand was off at the base of my palm and it looked like my hand all the bones had been blown out of it or something. It was just an empty glove. It was shredded like it you know, that went through garbage disposal

But we start to pick.

Up speed and our gunner is laid out on the roof and well before before we before we started moving, you know, the gunner was laid out on the roof and he was curled up in the ball like and our driver was telling us that, you know, hey, you know, he's not responding, blah blah blah. In my head, I'm not a jerk, but you have to prioritize, you know, needs, and if he's dead, he's dead. We can't do anything about it. We're still in the kill zone. We've got

So my.

Assistant radio operator he was he didn't get shot in the face, you know, but everybody got peppered with shrapnel and jacked up. A team leader was putting a tourniquet on his right arm. His gun had been blown out, like his r been blown out of his hands, and he had a big like silver dollar hole above his triceps with his bones were shattered, and he was with the turnicet on with his left and I managed to

So we stopped.

And it was a good spot because it got us out of the kill zone and it got us kind of around the corner where the enemy had to dislodge from wherever they were firing from and come up and try to get into another position to finish us off. And you can see them like trying to come and you know, so hurried up. We got with our like you know, I'm like get the radio. The radio was like the one nineteen fox trot in the back of

So it's like.

We got turned around and then we went you know, it's like make sure you're pressing over there and pressing over here. We're abing to get behind another hum be and uh get some cover.

And then.

My company first sergeant runs up Santiago. He says to you know, my team leader. He's like he got a jew Ok Quarto prico. You know, it's got that thick accent.

He's like, no, first time, we're all fucked up. It's like, don't worry, I take care of jew.

So, uh arc carman get to go to like the Army's uh eighteen delta, like this special Forces medic school, and they're squared away the sark, especially in babous Reconnaissance Corman. So my buddy Blake comes up and they slap a stretcher on the deck next to the vehicle. There's like diesel leaking and all around. I remember somebody saying, you know, oh, there's fuel on the ground and I'm and I'm like.

It's diesel. Don't worry about it. It's not going to catch on fire, I think.

And they pulled me out of the back seat and my leg in half like where the bone was fractured and out, and it hurt.

I was like, and Blair's like, I'm sorry, brother, I go no, no, it's cool.

It's cool like and and for me to stay alive and not going to shock eye was just a backseat driving like pictures are good and probably need some fluids or whatever. But I was still like full of adrenaline, so the pain of my injuries had fully I mean, it hurt like crazy, but it was I could disassociate from it because of the gravity of the situation.

So it got me out on a stretcher. It ran me over to.

An open back come V that had cover, and they hoisted me up and put me in the back of that thing. But from there I could still see our vehicle, and I could still see my buddy who had gotten up on the gun. You know, they got the wounded marine off the roof. He turned up to be okay, Uh, he just got jacked up a little, and you know, I had a corman, you know, like they got an IV and me and and then I had and so then my starck went off to go help some other wounded.

I didn't even answer. I go, do you have somebody looking over there with security or what? You know? And but then I humored him. I'm like, yeah, you know, I gotta grow up. But my mind was still on the battle, which was still going on. And at this point it was like a three hundred and sixty degree ambush, so it was pretty hectic and chaotic. I lifted my head up at one point and I saw my buddy on the fifty and I was like, get some And that exertion almost made me pass out, and I had

So it took like from the time I got hit from the time that helicopter came, it took about forty five minutes. We got one, we got one forty six and we got one one cobra. Later I found out it's just because it shit was popping off all over the city. It was just the air was just overwhelmed and busy. And so they got me on the bird that everybody else, you know, the walking wounded, got on. Then I see him bringing in my optoon. Commander kept him Brent Morrell.

And he's just white, like like just white, white as ghost and he's already white as a ghosts because it's redheads, you know, a great guy.

I'm like a fuck, you know, Captain Morrell. And they put him on the bird and so we had a short maybe five minute flight back to the ALTAKA don't know where we were going. I thought maybe we're going back to Camp Fellusia, but we landed out to Condom. I find out, you know, after after everything, and while we're in the air, I'm thinking, oh, I hope they don't classify me as expectant, you know, where you have

Come and grab us.

I've sat up real quick, and I startled ahead performed. Everybody grabbed me, you know, like I just wanted to let him know I wasn't dead. Good to go get me off this thing. Yeah, So he grabs me, Another guy grabs me, you know, on the east side, and they book it in like they run into the triage team.

So they get me in there and immediately they start working on me like they rolled me over. There comes over. He's like checking for internal bleeding. You know. The way they do that is they got to stick fingers up your ars. So I'm like.

Happy that I'm in this field hospital because I'm now I'm feeling like, okay, I made it.

Like all had to do is wait, get I needed turn kids.

At one point I got those, and I was like, okay, I need forman to get hold of me and get some fluids and or whatever. I got that, and then I'm like, I need to get meta backed out of here. Once I get to the field hospital, I should be good. Like then then I know I'm gonna make it. You know, as long as I don't get shot in the face when you know, or any a more injuries, I think I can be good. So I was in a pretty good mood when I got in there, and I felt

And uh so they get me stabilized and I'm laying there and a nurse comes by and I got her attention and I said to her. She leaned in really close, like to my face, and I go, hey, how many irishmen does it take to change the light bulb back?

And she got a real like a like a what like a confused look on her.

Face, and I was like, hey, fack it, well drank in the dark. And then she laughs and then they just everything. Then she ran off. She kept going, and that's when I was fully relaxed.

I finally, I think I was fully relaxed because the pain at that point, all of a sudden, I was just like, oh my god, I mean, it.

Hurt so bad.

That I think I passed out because the pain, or it could have been you know, any number of things. So I passed out and I woke up in Washington, d C. Wow, nine days later. I have a vague memory of my team leader talking to me on the one of the mattervac flights either from there the ballot or ballode to launch stool. But they eventually got me back to d C. Later I found out like they had to be suscitate me three times from that from Tacatam to d C. But I made it and I

I was like, clearly I'm in a hospital. I don't know where it is.

And they kept telling me I was at the National Naval Medical Center in.

Maryland, Like how did I get there?

And yeah, I must have looked.

I must have looked like I was, uh, maybe you had a traumatic brain injury or something, because rather than responding to what they were saying, I was trying to picture in my head where Bethesda, Maryland was, you know. I was like, I don't really know exactly where that.

Is, and.

Uh, they they ended up just putting me under again for a couple of days. There was another time I remember waking up a little bit and I forgot that I didn't have hands, and I was like trying to get the tube out.

You know, I was innovated.

Oh yeah, and uh so they put me back under there. But then they finally got me and they had me sitting up like kind of let you know. I was kind of back in the bed and they were all around me, and there was a female doctor.

I don't know if she was a speech pathologist or something. I don't know. She was asking me questions and I was like, water, I eat some water. I was dying thirst because I was innovated for nine days, you know, and I was just so thirsty more I've never been thirsty in my life.

And they like, I can't give you any water, and I went off. I was like, okay, you I was nuts. I was like, you know where I just came girl, Like I was cussing. I was out of it. That was on a lot of I mean, I was doped up and everything, so, uh, I feel kind of bad.

But anyway, that was That was a long.

I was in ICU for about three weeks. I was flat on my back. They were still debating on if they were going to keep my left leg. I had like saran wrap around all these open wounds, like my tabial, like my whole left leg basically, and then my right leg on my shin and then both arms, and I had tubes coming out of both arms, tubes coming out of both legs like these little JP bulbs, like you know, I was so puffed up and swollen. It was huge, like just just my body had been through a lot.

While I was in there, Corporal Jason Dunham was in ICU too, and he was on the other side of the ICU and I could see his room, you know, because we had glass walls.

And when they you know, he was worth the Medal of Honor, but uh, when the doctors declared him like clinically dead, you know, he was on life support or brain dead. I watched as his parents to calhi down everybody like whoever could be in ICU was there to pay respects. And I, you know, I'm in my bed, like I knew what they were doing. They told me that they had to unplugging.

I'm in like flat out in bed, and I see you trying to lay at the position of attention, you know, and it's pretty yeah, pretty emotional, said, but I have so many wonderful memories of beuf has to and Walter read in the staff to people.

I mean that that's got to be really tough. Not just when I talk to people. I mean sometimes it's interesting that they kind of minimize what they went through themselves, but they see their buddies that went through it, and it's almost worse, you know, to kind of like see that and to not be able to to help them, you know. I mean they were receiving help in that hospital, of course.

But yeah, I have some friends who who even in.

You know, even though I'm good to go, like, they still feel bad like for me, and I'm like, I'm good, dude, girl.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, how does it feel, you know, twenty one years to the day to kind of like recount that experience. Like, I'm just does the emotional and physical pain does it fade? Does it heal over time, or does it take you right back to that place all over again?

I think emotional and physical pain, of course fades or heels or morphs into something different, and it does take me right back to that day. But you know, I've talked about it a lot. I've thought about it every day. I've lived with it.

So as far as the emotional impact to be able to speak about it, I can speak freely. I've always been able to speak freely.

Sometimes, you know, I might get choked up, but but but I have just ah like pride, and I'm honored to have been part of that unit.

I'm I'm relieved that I didn't screw up, you know what I mean, and cause anybody to get hurt or killed by my inability, by an inability to do much out correctly. That I didn't let any of my boys down in that literal sense, and you know my brother's so that's good, you know what I mean.

And but yeah, I mean, life hasn't been the easiest since then. Sure it's been oneonderful, it's been terrible, you know.

But but you know, you know, I got.

My dream job ripped out from under my feet when I'm barely into it for a year and.

Not even a year. And but I got to do it. I got to live my dream. And that's a comfort to me. Yea. I did it. I wanted to do it my whole life. I did it.

I did it in spite of all these obstacles I put in front of myself. And you know, I have the respect of my teammates and my fellow recomornes and that means a lot.

That can you know.

And I have a brotherhood and I get there's times many times where I've had to call on my buddies just let it out, you know, and vice versa and so and a lot of times if I'm feeling bad for myself, if I'm having a hard day, you know, I have to do once in a while where you know, you run that risk it's starting to feel like you're a victim or feeling sorry for yourself or something.

Huh.

You know, I might get a call from somebody who needs advice from me, and just that act of caring about somebody else and thinking, you know, helping them get through whatever hard day they're going through immediately make me or anybody forget about their own personal problems. And so I've learned that that is a great way to not get caught up into self pity and also gratitude to be to find something to be grateful for when you when you just think life blows, it sucks. And sometimes

I'm kind of like I kind of.

Had a little bit of respect. It takes some balls to like, you know, get surrounded by the Marine Corps and be like, guys, we're going to fight to the death.

You know.

I don't respect like whatever their reasons might be. But ually, you know, like I got to at least give him the respect, dude, like you had the guts to stand there, like they had the guts to stand toe to toe. Though I'll mention that twenty six of them are guys. We smoked twenty six of them that we counted that day, and unfortunately they killed my attuned commander.

One of the nicest guys you could ever meet, Captain Brent Merle.

I went through recon school with him, you know, as a captain. He didn't have to, but he knew that he you know, he would respect himself and us recover where he would respect him more if he did. And so we were good. We were good friends, you know, to the extent that we could be, you know, him being an officer and me being the corporal at the time. He was a really nice guy. He loved his wife

He's like, he's just like a good man Tennessee. You know.

So that's a bummer, Like good people get killed, and I haven't always been the best person in my life. I'm still going, so I guess I got I'm not you know, good Lord ain't done with me yet for whatever the hell reason.

And uh, well, before we move on, d do we have any questions for Eddie. We have a couple of viewer questions for you. Oh cool from Shane. Did you ever get to play rugby in Australia?

No, I didn't get to play when I was there, but I did get to play. My first introduction was as a kid in Ireland. My mom used to bring us back. But I did get to play in Japan when I was on the six month UDP and that was cool. Like when when I was around and we weren't training, I played for the All Services team and that was super fun because we didn't play Japanese teams

So it was It really was fun. It was exciting. Yeah, it was a good time.

Kay Jam says another twenty nine Palm survivor, shout out awesome.

I greely love it, saying I want to live there again, but you know, good training.

One more from Aaron ever try getting in touch with Audrey McDade Navy Cross the shipping with the hell of a story, not to mention the actions here that earned him that award.

That might be a question for us rather than it might be that but he put they put it okay.

No, i've not met Audrey McDade. No, maybe though, And when I do, well, Beck, I've heard of you.

So Eddie, tell us a little bit about like life today. What is life like for you nowadays? What are you up to?

I have a part time gig with the seberfi in America's fund, an organization I really love. I've known them for twenty years since they started. I mean very part time. I do some public speaking on their behalf or sometimes other organizations. And I rent the house here in Texas on a golf course, so I just got a new set of clubs.

I'm trying to mess around and figure out how to golf. I have a daughter. She's wonderful. She's very intelligent, tall, pretty smart, kind. I'm super proud of her. Just a good girl, athletic, very talented artists, dancer, tennis player. So my life is mostly just being a dad to her. And I've had some jobs, some cool jobs. Sometimes I wish I was still doing it, but I'm glad I'm not really working full time right now. I love to travel. I travel. I've done the whole let's go to the

So my life now, I I try to focus on becoming the best person that I can be, and that means that the things that I may not like about myself, the habits or the thoughts, or that maybe sometimes the down days that I will have every once in a while, I really focus on, Okay, what's going on, what's behind the scenes, and why am.

I feeling like this? And what can I do to mitigate or ameliorate or to heal and move through And so that that's a big part of my journey. I've been able to try all kinds of different modalities and I've learned a lot. But what I've basically learned is any any one treatment that you know, and this is to include things like ayahuasca or a psilocybin or stellic ganglion block or hyperbarics or or counseling or anything is is an immediate goal.

You want to get to a place that you can think about things in process things without having you know your biderflight, your Amigdala attached to to that thought process which which gives you like a fog of war where you can't really do it right. These things will get you to a place where you can put it into your prefrontal core takes without the emotion that is that is distracting you and making it very very hard. And

You can heal from trauma.

You can, you know, instead of getting triggered and going to a bad place, you get triggered and recognize it and just have no associated negative feeling with it anymore. But it takes takes time and work. So so I'd say what I do now mostly is because I want to evolve so I can be present in my life and my daughter's life. Is like I've been focusing on that, you know, and trying to do positive things for myself and my family, and and I guess for the environment around me, because whether I like.

It or not, I'm visible when I walk around.

People know I have no you know, I'm missing hands, you know, and I'll wear you know, like what should I go out with the old becom jack on my shirt or something? You know, people will thank me for my service. So I'm also put in a position for

You know that I can be confident, and I can be a man, and I canna have a great life in spite of it because whether I like it or not, I have a position that I can inspire people or I can you know, I have them feeling pity for me, and I do.

I don't want that, you know. I don't like when you know. I like when people care and they say how are you doing? You know, But a lot of the times when somebody's asked me how am I doing, I'm thinking in my head, like how are you doing? Because I understand, like everybody goes through shiit. You don't have to have a physical wound. The physical wounds are easier to deal with than than the emotional or the mental trauma that you've gone through in life.

Where can people go to find you?

Eddie?

And you mentioned I think it was a Simper five fund? Where can people go to find them?

The fund dot org and the Simple five funds wonderful organization. It started by two by a few volunteers. There's spouses

Yeah, that's awesome. Any any final thoughts, any like questions that you wish I had asked that I didn't before we get going tonight.

I'd like to say I'd like to mention up Tune Commander Captain Brian Morrell.

I already mentioned he was such a good guy. He uh.

I still keep in touch with his mom and dad and his wife at the time, and sometimes I feel they were able to move on or or process it faster than me, you know, Like but I call him, I don't call and you know, but break into tears and you know, feeling terrible.

You know, We've we've gone through all that together, you know. Ah, but.

You know, Kevin Roe was post posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his actions on the battlefield that day, and a friend of mine, Mike Mendoza as well, and uh there was another Navy Cross that day, an opportune and some silver stars, bronze stars, like we acquitted ourselves very well on the battlefield, very proud to be part of Air Street Commeaalion and now our Portune one of the most highly decorated recomflatoons in our history from any single engagement.

There's something nailment. Life is an over. I climbed out and kill them. The jar with my team leader with the raging hangover made it. That's another story. Uh. And then, uh, you know, I've my my last year in the Marine Corps actually went back to work.

I healed up, and I worked at the Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, teaching the Marine Corps Martial Arts program out there and structor trainer school house the Martial Arts Center of Excellence. So that was a cool way to go out. So you know, I don't try to let injuries define me. And and I think, you know, it's probably good advice for a lot of people.

I can get into my head and that can be like everybody looks at me and I'm a dude with no hands. But a lot of times that's just me thinking because a lot of people don't even notice.

And then most of a lot of times I forget. And so life's good, you know, And and then on it's not. Don't worry. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other. We all got to stick together. We still keep losing a lot of veterans to suicide. And a lot of times it's the one you would never expect. I know these guys and I'm like, what the hell, where did that come from? You know, and families are left behind and it's terrible. So like, if

But more than anything, just keep putting one foot.

In front of the other, because no matter you know, like, you know, guy, these guys who I know who have it's way too many.

It's crazy, who have killed themselves.

I know that maybe if they would have waited one more day, they've been feeling better. Yeah, you know, just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I call somebody. There's resources too.

It's awesome advice.

Eddie.

Thank you for sharing your story tonight.

M thank you actually being patient with me.

I guess you know you've got a version of my story that I haven't been. I haven't been that detailed and telling my story in a long time. Honestly, I used to tell it like that, but last few years people have been getting a shortened version, so understandably it excuse me. So anyway, Yeah, I really appreciate it.

Yeah you too, Eddie. I mean, I know it's not always an easy thing to recount, even though you seem to have processed, you know, the event pretty well at this place at this point, but it still sucks. But for folks out there, we'll have some links down the description for simplify and appreciate you guys joining us tonight, and we'll see all of you out there next time. And thank you again, Eddie, Thanks, thank you very much. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for

Thank you.