Lessons From War with Sean Parnell

And shouldn't we also reflect on mistakes that we've made as a country and things we could change moving forward, and being more judicious with the lives of our military men and women. Shouldn't the people in charge shouldn't their sole duty with our military men and women be to avoid casualties, avoid sending them to unnecessary wars, so that we have less men and women who have to pay the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of freedom. So that's

why I wanted to do this Memorial Day. Not only honor the fallen and honor their bravery, and honor the people who give everything for this country that they love and that we love, but also take a time to reflect. And one of those wars is Afghanistan. You know, it was the longest war in American history twenty years lost, so many service members, so many service men and women in Afghanistan. So what are the lessons we could learn there?

What should we take from that and do differently moving forward? And who better to talk to you than Sean Parnell. He has a former US Army Airborne ranger who served in the legendary tenth Mountain Division for six years, retiring as a captain. He received two Bronze Stars, one for valor and a Purple Heart as well. He wrote the New York Times best selling book Outline Platoon, and he also wrote Man Award Outlaw Platoon details his sixteen months

in combat and Afghanistan. Sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan, well, he was there. His platoon repeatedly was outnumbered, repeatedly outgunned, and they displayed such tremendous bravery to the that over of his platoon received Purple Hearts for wounds that they incurred in battle. Sean was also injured in battle, day in and day out, fighting for freedom in the mountains

of Afghanistan. He was twenty four at the time. Can you imagine being twenty four and leading a platoon in the mounds of Afghanistan, day in, day out, out numbered out, gun fighting bravely and fearlessly next to your your brothers in the military and in the army. So we're gonna get Sean Parnell's take on what lessons we should learn from Afghanistan, what we could be doing different moving forward, and how we can truly honor, to the best of our abilities, the men and women who have paid the

ultimate sacrifice and the pursuit of freedom. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. He's an absolute hero, and he's an absolute badass, Sean Parnell. Sean Carnell, you are such a badass and such an American hero. It's an honor just to have you on the show. So I really appreciate you taking this time. Oh well, thanks, Lisa. I don't know if i'd call myself a badass, but I was. I was in the Army for a time and I was surrounded by badasses every day, so I guess I

was pretty lucky. I'll call you badass, so I'll be the one. I'll do it because you can be humble. I will take the humility out of it for you. Um, you know we're recording this before. But this is gonna err on Memorial Day and obviously a day to honor the individuals and so many who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of defending freedom, defending this great

country that we love. But shouldn't we also take this time to learn lessons from you know, wars like Afghanistan, and also using it as a time to be more judicious in sending our military men and women to war.

I think so, I mean, you know, I think I think it speaks directly to the importance of you know, warriors coming back, you know, American men and women who fight our wars coming back and being involved with regards to where our country goes and the decisions that we make pertaining to the future of America and the wars that we get ourselves involved in. Um. You know, after I spent time in Afghanistan back in in two thousand six and two thousand and seven. UM, we were there

for what like twenty years. You know, it's a long long time that I think most America, most of America, America, it's difficult to wrap your mind around that length of time, you know. And so I feel like, you look at what happened in Afghanistan and all the blood, the treasure that we spent there, right after twenty years there, Um, you look now and it's like, well, what do you have to show for it? You know? And look, I would know you this, like, I'm proud of my time

in Afghanistan. I don't regret it for a second. I joined after after September eleven. One of one of the best experiences of my life was serving this country. So I am not a victim in any way. I'm a volunteer and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

And I'm proud of what we did in Afghanistan, you know. Um. But and critics, critics would say, you know, when I would say, well, what will we have to show forward, critics would say, well, look, I mean, you know, look at what you do, what you built for the Afghans, you wells and villages. You know, little girls know how to read, and you know, boys are part of the economy now and they understand what what freedom, freedom is, even if it was just for a brief time. And

I just say to that, yes, that is all true. Um, but I would rather have my friends alive, you know. Um, And you look at what's happening today and the Afghan you know things, and in Afghanistan just collapsed what like less than a year ago, Lisa, right, like August two

thousand and twenty one. And it seems like you have members of Congress on both sides of the Aisle, in the House and in the Senate that are clamoring to go right back into the fight in Ukraine, which from a geopolitical standpoint is just it's far more complicated than than Afghanistan. Um without even taking a breath after the

Afghan warrant, saying, wait, is this really worth it? Should we like take time to hit the reset button as a country and figure out if, if this fight is worth Americans dying for, because that that's the question that American moms and dads need to ask themselves. Lisa's like, is Ukraine so important that you're willing to sacrifice your son or daughter for that? If the answer to that question is no, then we shouldn't be doing anything for Ukraine.

And and look, Lisa, I feel bad for the people there. My heart aches for the civilians and children who are caught in the middle. Like this is not me saying like we should ignore it completely, Like nobody, like a few people in this country understand that the humanitarian disaster and people stuck in the middle of the fight that the me. I get that. But but again I would say I would rather have American sons and daughters alive. You know, I think we need to take care of

ourselves here at home a little bit. First. We just see politicians, you know, beating the drums of war with Ukraine. Udu Biden said something today about Taiwan about you know, you should take a military action. But you just hear these politicians and it almost there's a callousness to it, to be honest, because it doesn't take into account that, as you pointed out, it's it's would they send their

son or daughter? You know, it just it doesn't take an account like I just lives or American people should be the most important to us. That lives the precious lives, or military men and one should be the most important to us, And it just doesn't. It doesn't seem to be the case, and it makes me sad. Look, you're right, Lisa, I mean, you're right, it's it's well, I think part of the problem is that you only have point four percent of the people in this country who have served

this country. During Iraq and Afghanistan's twenty years of war, so longest period of war in American history, only point four percent of the country actually experienced what it means to protect and defend freedom. And so I think as a result, you have, you know, most of American of America who enjoyed freedom on a day to day basis in this country, and you have less than half of one percent who protected. So there's there's a there's a

significant gap between those two groups. And I think that's part of the reason why, you know, you have politicians who really never served anything but themselves for the majority of their lives talk so callously about sending American sons and daughters into the fight because the reality is they don't have any understanding of what that means for American

families who are actually doing the fighting. Like for for example, when I got back from Afghanistan, sixteen month combat deployment, sixteen months, like four five days, It's like if you had a kid, it's like, have a good first grade year, have a good second grade year, I'll see you on your way to third grade. That's crazy, you know, And you know, we got back, we hit the reset button. You know, most of we weren't even back for a couple of weeks. We already had to go right back

down to Fort Polk, Louisiana. So we got back home. Hugger families went back to do training down at Fort Polk, Louisiana and prep for another combat deployment to Afghanistan that was nine months later. I mean, it's an incredibly heavy burden that we that we place on a very very small percentage of Americans, and most of the time our

politicians are unaffected by that. But I guess it sounds cool when you're up there at the podium, uh, you know, hey, of China invades Taiwan, like We're gonna get involved militarily, with no real understanding in the geopolitical consequences or the fall lot for the American people or how that would affect people who serve. I mean, it's it's just irresponsible, especially Lisa, when you consider just how much suffering there

is here within our own borders at home. I think a lot of our a lot of our attention should

be focused on well. And I think President Trump really changed at least my thinking on foreign policy because what he was able to show us is that you can be strong, you can flex muscle, you can deter the bad guys without sending troops, without invading, without beating the you know, the the drum beat for war, and you can do it like he did when he was sitting with President She you know, having chocolate cake, telling him he's sending Tomah health missiles. Right, it's such a fall

or striking these peace deals on the Abrahambichords. It just changed the way, you know, I thought about things because he just showed us a different path. He really opened my eyes too. You know there there is a different way you know there and and when you're in Washington, I mean really when whether you're a Democrat or Republican there there is the group sink right where everyone sort of thinks the same way, um about a lot of things.

And I think that's why you hear a lot of people talk about the uniparty, you know, where you have you know, people like you know, as ideologically different as Adam Kinzinger and Ted Cruz both talking about the importance of defending Ukraine, to even certain Democrats talking about the importance of defending our ally Ukraine, even though they're not an ally um um. You know, it's like you see, you see these certain groups of people that think alike Lisa.

And what I always admired about President Trump is it takes an unbelievable amount of mental toughness to resist that type of pressure and group think, right. And and in Washington, President Trump was I mean, gosh, any given at any given moment. Uh in d C. In the White House, both Republicans and Democrats were fired up in angry at President Trump for different reasons. And that's what I admired

about him the most. And that's ultimately why I think the American people sent him there, Because there is a level of dissatisfaction in this country that if people just got outside the Beltway or New York City or l A and they took a stroll through you know, Middle America, they would feel that sense of discontent about the direction

of our country. And President Trump tapped into that. And you look at what he was able to accomplish in four years and in the face of I mean, so what that man faced in the White House was criminal. It was criminal. I mean, now we're learning of what what Hillary Clinton did. It was like make legitimately criminal, I don't know. But but the things that he was able to accomplish in four short years I never thought possible, and you know, the Abraham Accords and peace in the

Middle East. Never thought that was possible, but he did it. And yeah, like you said, it really opened my eyes to a new way of being and that you know, um, we don't have to deploy and get locked down, and like it's almost become cliche now in these in these forever wars, but that's really what they are. I mean, twenty freaking years in Afghanistan is a long time. I mean twenty years. I mean think about it like this, Like I'm forty years old. That's half of my life.

We were in Afghanistan, like half of my life. The only professor, the only thing that I've known is war in Afghanistan. Lost thirty five plus friends there. I mean, that's a long time. And I think what President Trump showed us was that it doesn't have to be that way. We can still have peace, um, as long as we're focused on the right stuff, um, and focusing on ourselves at home. And unfortunately, a year and a half of

Joe Biden, he's unraveling that pretty quickly. I mean, I never thought it could get this bad, this fact us. I mean, it's just it's really sad. But I but I honestly think I think the turning point for him was because you know, people thought he would restore order, he do all these things that obviously people like us knew he wasn't going to do and he wasn't capable of it. But his ratings really started to take a

nosedive after Afghanistan. And it was the disastrous exit, the abandoning, like the back Roum airfield before getting her people out, getting thirteen service members killed, leaving Americans behind, And I think that was the turning point. And when that all was going down, you tweeted out that the Afghana baccles on the suits, not the boots. Talk about that disconnect in the military between the suits and the boots and how that played out with Afghanistan so disastrously. It was

so frustrating to me. And part of what I do like coming back home after I got back from Afghanistan, was was realizing very quickly that a lot there are a lot of men and women here who served this country that needed help, and you know, there's a way

in which you come back from war. War changes you, um and some pretty deep and fundamental ways, and you could you know, you come back and you meet and talk to your family and you feel like your family doesn't know you because you've changed, and you talk to your best friends. And there was a moment for me like where I'm from Pittsburgh and so like the first thing I do when I get back from Afghanistan is like text my buddies, you know, who I went to

college with and stuff. And like I opened up my like little flip phone and text them and they text me back their address and like look at it. Read the address. I'm like, oh my gosh, Like these dudes are still living in the same address they've been living at for ten years, and I just got back from Afghanistan. Feel like a totally different person show up at there.

I show up at their apartment. I walk in and like they're like all sitting in the same spots on the couch, like drinking the same Iron City beer, talking about the same girl problems. And I'm like Simpson's posters on the wall and family Guy magnets on the fridge, and I'm thinking to myself, like oh my god, like nothing has changed here at home, but I'm different person in every way. And so if I was feeling like that,

there are probably millions of Americans feeling like that. You come home from more and just feel like they're different, and maybe they feel like exiles in their own country. And so I started doing everything I could to make sure that, like the war is really what I'm I guess I'm getting to Lisa, is that the war for a lot of veterans really starts when you get home.

And I wanted to just help veterans come home in the most productive way possible and not just survive on a day to day basis, but but really, but but thrive, you know. And when I tweeted that about Afghanistan about it being on the suits and not the boots, was really it was in that spirit, because I knew there would be a lot of veterans thinking like, what the hell was all this for? You know, why the hell did I Why did I lose my friend in this country?

Why did I go to this country and and sacrifice a piece of myself there? You know? Why do we do all of this just to have some moron in the White House throw it all away, uh, because I mean, quite honestly, he's a bumbling idiot. Leadership matters, and he's a commander in chief, so that the term commander predisposes chief his job at first and foremost an obligation to our American military. And it was a it was a dereliction of duty of the highest order of what he

did in Afghanistan. And it's not just it's not just leaving Americans behind, which is horrific, horrific enough, right, I can't even believe I have to say this, but the sacrifice that twenty years of Americans bled the ground red in Afghanistan just to seed it back to the Taliban in a few weeks. I mean, that's a that's a crime. It's a crime, and it's it's gonna do unbelievable moral damage to people who served there that the ramisifications of

which I don't think we fully understand yet. Um. And so it's just like unbelievable to have to witness the fall of Afghanistan and the speed at which it fell here in America after having been there for twenty years. Um. And again, never ever, ever, ever would have happened under President Trump or really any American president. They could speak in coherent sentences without having to read off a sheet

of paper. I mean, just unbelievable, and you can't help but think you cannot help, but think, like I used to joke around in the campaign trail when I was running for the House and the Senate um well mostly when I was running for the Senate, but like about like just to utter incompetence. But I don't think it's incompetence. I think it's I think it's intentional. I think that

this is you can't be this good. I mean, he's Joe Biden, and in his administration a bunch of Obama appointees two point over right back in the White House, some of which are sermon in the same cabinet positions. It it's like they're unbelievably efficient, ruthlessly efficient at destroying almost every pillar in this country, I mean every pillar strengthening country. It's unbelievable that they the level of which they're failing. And I think Afghanistan was just one of

those pillars. Well, I think we all just felt such an amount of shame with the way that we exited. Just the loss of military men and women are sort of the thirteen service members and just leaving Americans behind. Quick Commercial break Back with Sean Parnell on the other side, talked about sort of you know, the challenge with coming home when you've been at war like that. I'll say one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had in my career was doing an honor air flight for Vietnam

war vets from Wisconsin for Fox and Friends. And I went on this trip with them, and I'll tell you it was just such a moving experience talking to these like big, strong guys who were just brought to tears of just feeling the honor of having served because they didn't get the welcome they deserved when they came home. And so just doing the interviews with them and seeing these you know, grown men and you know cry and just it was just incredibly moving, uh And I learned

a lot from it. It It was just a really you know, humbling and just incredible experience, you know, spending time with them and just being able to bless them and being part of this with the trip. Yeah, well, Vietnam vets are I mean, we owe them so much. And obviously, because as you mentioned, they didn't have the welcome home

that that we did. And so much of the reason why my generation was welcomed home was because after like what these Vietnam what the Vietnam era went through, they made themselves a promise to never allow another generation of veteran to experience what they did. And because of that, like we had by and large, a very positive homecoming, you know. And I when I talk about feeling like an exile in your own country, I should say, like almost everybody that you talked to you says thank you

for your service. I am not again, like we're lucky to live in a country like like America and come home to people that that appreciate you. And that that is because of Vietnam veterans who went through hell when they came back, went through hell, and combat through hell, and they came back and then but didn't give in. And they they made a promise to you know, subsequent generations of Americans when they came home from the fight, and and and that promise was to never allow what

they went through to happen again. And I mean, really my generation is standing on the shoulders of giants with with them and and World War Two veterans and career veterans before them. UM, so yeah, we're we're lucky. We're lucky to live in this country. But there's still a lot of work to do, that's for sure. I can't imagine how it doesn't change you, particularly some of this stuff that you endured. You know, I know you very humbly.

You know, didn't take me saying that you're, you know, a complete badass and a hero, but you really are. I mean, you've retired at highly decorated captain. You're awarded two Bronze Stars, one for valor and a purple Heart. You wrote the New York Times best selling book, Outlaw Platoon. It's about your time serving as commanding the Army's tenth Mountain Division in Afghanistan. As you mentioned, you served in combat for sixteen months. You guys were repeatedly out in

our ber, repeatedly outgun. Yeah, your platoon killed over three fifty enemy fighters. Why do you think your platoon was able to be so effective in the face of so much? Um, it's a great question. I think when you look at the things that the American military can bring to the fight, you know, like we've got lots of cool and sexy technology, like we've got great guns and weapons, and we've got air superiority helicopter and fixed wing aircraft and all that.

Believe me when I tell you all that really really helps. But I think really are our secret weapon was the the love and brotherhood that we shared for one another. Um. You know, we we spent a lot of time training UM leading up to our deployment in Afghanistan. And I feel like I was very blessed um to lead one

of the most diverse platoons that you can imagine. And it's funny when you hear a lot of these politicians talking about diversity in America being a strength, and it's like, well, of course diversity is a strength, but not in it of itself. What what makes America so truly exceptional is that we unify beyond like our many differences, Right, It's not just diversity for diversity's sake. And really, my platoon

was a microcosm of that strength. Like we had black next white Christians next to atheists, Democrats next to Republican, rich, next to poor, young, next to old. We were like as wildly different as you can imagine, Yet there were no real hyper there were no hyphenative Americans out there

in Afghanistan patrol on those those mountains. Um. And it was the very fact that I think we were able to put aside all of our differences and unify beyond them and the one cohesive fighting force that that that was what allowed us to to go through sixteen months of absolute hell, sixteen months of heavy combat, and and make it you know, um, you know, we made ourselves

a promise. I think what drove us every day on the battlefield, Lisa was was the fear of of of not the enemy, but the fear of letting each other down. You know. Um. I would have soldiers that would get that would get shot in the head, a soldier that got shot through his helmet, his helmet slowed the round down enough where it penetrated his skin but not his skull, and skirted around the side of his all and back

out the other end. And that guy went back to the base, wrapped his head up, and was back out

of patrol twenty four hours later. So when you're when you're serving with men or Americans that have that much like that, the level of toughness and tenacity and dedication to duty that someone that that someone like that has how do you fail somebody like that, Like if you twist an anc or you you take some shrapnel or you get maybe a shot, but it's a grazing wound, Like how do you how do you how do you how do you not saddle up when you're surrounded by

men like I just described. And so it was the fact that we were able to really to unify beyond our many differences in fear of letting each other down, that really drove us to accomplish I think extraordinary things and and really I mean it, like my platoon really just accomplished. It was just one unbelievable triumph of the human spirit after the next. I mean, we were not like Navy seals or anything. You know, we were light infantrymen.

So we're in the tenth Mountain Division. We were light infantry. I mean, we were real well trained and stuff. Don't get me wrong, but you know, we weren't special forces. You know, the most of the jobs that a lot of these kids had, like prior to carrying a machine gun in the mountains of Afghanistan, the job prior to the military is like high school shortstop. Yet these these kids were just accomplished unbelievable things. And I think it's because we were led on one another and that's what's

what allowed us to get through it all. And you're twenty four at the beginning right of this painting. I mean, how do you do that at and be responsible for all these brave men that you just talked about. I mean, what an incredible amount of responsibility. I was an idiot. Yeah, but how do you know? I don't know, I don't know.

You just you know. I I um had a conversation with my mom when I got back from Afghanistan and maybe a couple of years after, and my youngest brother, I'm the oldest of four, and so my youngest brother was like like helping my middle brother moved down to Texas or something like that or and my mom was like, oh, I'm nervous that your younger brother and he's gonna have to drive drive, you know, his brother's car all the

way down to Texas. And I'm like thinking, like my and he's twenty three years old, Like I think he'll be all right. I was leading people in Afghanistan at twenty three years old, you know, So I don't I don't know, you know, Yeah, I was just like it

was just something that we were laughing at about it. Um, you know, I don't after so I think part of that Lisa's like I was a sophomore in college when nine eleven happened, Um, and that that hit me that like like it did some millions of other Americans, you know. And I think if you live through nine eleven, you can probably tell me exactly where you were and what you were doing and what you had plans to do

that day. Um. And I the only thing, like I was kind of like a I was kind of a screw up as a kid, Like my grades were okay, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do as an elementary education major. But again as a sophomore in college, and I must have changed my major a few times, like um, but when nine eleven happened, I knew that I wanted to to join the army, going the infantry, go to airborne school, go to ranger school, like be on the front lines of our collective response.

And you know, I just knew. I knew it, um, in my heart of hearts, that that was that was the path that God intended me to walk at that specific moment, in my life. And that's I think. I think this is my faith in God and that that was my purpose. I think that that's how I was able to do it. And you know, years old, when you when I just feel like when you know what path you're meant to walk, and you know that like, no matter how bad things get, this is where you're

supposed to be. I've got no regrets, um, I just think it gives you a sense of clarity, you know, about what you're supposed to do and and and in my case, it was lead troops in Afghanistan a years old, you know, um. And as horrible as that combat was, I mean seriously, like we we like an you think back to two thousand and six. You I don't, I don't know if you're doing stuff at Fox back then,

I sure as hell wasn't. I mean, I'm trying to I think it was like working on Capitol Hill doing you know, like nothing of nothing like you were doing. It wasn't of no, I'll tell you that much. You know, I don't know. I mean we're probably we're probably the same age, you know, so I'm a little I'm a little older than you, but you know, I'll take those a couple of years. But you know, I don't know.

I feel like it was the path I was I was meant to walk, you know, and you know, get back and you see, I was able to take a company command and then did a b a time were detachment command, and so at the age of eight years old end up being in charge of like eighteen or nineteen hundred uh like people, where I was in charge of training young soldiers to go to war and taking care of the wounded when they came home, and then looking after the families who were left back at home,

and then ultimately doing the capture notification, which was ten times worse than than combat. So I've seen both sides of the fight. I've seen I've seen combat up close and personal, um and I've seen the fallout here at home.

And when I was saying earlier, is it like no one expected Michael Tune or or are experience in Afghanistan leads to be like what it was like if you think back to two thousand and six and if you're a congressional staffer, are working on the hill or something like that back then, then you know, the talk back then was the Iraq War and whether or not there are weapons of mass destruction there? Or should we should George W. Bush send more troops to the surge in

Iraq or not? Should we even be there or not. At the time, Afghanistan was just a stability and support operation. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, and man, like we just got thrown into the meat ground. Were an eastern Afghanistan about five clicks five kilometers from the Pakistan border. Our mission was like about as simple as you can. You can get phind Osama bin laden close with and destroy the enemy, that's it. And man,

we just got attacked every single day. We were outnumbered every single day. I mean my my base, my base m hmm probably took four thousand rockets and four five days, four thousand, you know, hundreds of direct fire engagements, and we just sort of just like got thrown in there, you know, were the so much of the focus of this nation was on Iraq that we couldn't even get up armored humb beast because all that was going to Iraq.

Like before, we were supposed to come home after after a year, Um, we got extended for four more months, sixteen months. Why because the soldiers that were supposed to replace US in Afghanistan got sent to Iraq and supported the surge, just so we were sort of like an afterthought and we went through absolute hell. And ultimately Lisa that that's why I wrote the book, because I thought to myself, like, oh my God, like nobody knows in this country, and nobody knew how bad Afghanistan was way

back in two thousand and six. Nobody, And I just felt like it was my job as the leader of that platoon to make sure that the legacy of my soldiers that was kept alive. And you know, even if Outlaw Betune ended up being a word document on my computer that I emailed all of my troops that like maybe once every ten years we read through and drank beers or whatever like that would be that's worth it. At least their experiences on the page preserved forever. I

didn't know that. I didn't know that it would take off and become a bestseller in his first week, and I was I feel like I was also lucky. It was all sort of maybe it was a state Um when Outlaw Betune came out. Do you remember that story way back in a day where UM soldiers at bog where I'm got in trouble for like burning a Koran or something like that, and that was like all over

the news. Um, it was like headline news for like a week Outlaw Betune came out at that exact time, and I was like the young kid with an Afghanis with a new Afghanistan book. Then you know how that goes on Fox Dudes and stuff like that. Like I was a dude guy with a book, so I was able to go on there and promote it and the rest is history. I was just it was just it was just a blessing to be able to have that opportunity. You tell, tell the story of my troops. You have

talked about. You know, obviously we had superior you know, equipment, being the US, but you're on their terrain and you're in the mountains. How difficult is it to try to navigate that when you know you're you're on their home base, right, you're in their mountains. That is a good That's another

great question. It was. It was ridiculous. I mean, it's another thing about Afghanistan, like do you want to go back to a time where Jesus Christ walk the earth at the a k forty seven like the icoon walkie talkie type radio at a pickup truck, and you've got

Afghanistan there. When we were there, there was like one paved road in the entire country, no running water, no electricity, no economy, all all finding age males would do all the men and in the villages that we were around would cut down wood all summer and prep for the winter. And that was it. That's all like there was nothing, nothing, and it's just all tribal. And so when we were where we were in Burmel, like Burmel District, was that we were in the valley, our base was in the valley.

But fighting up in the mountains, I mean we're probably at fourteen fifteen thousand feet there, you know, in the Hindu Kush mountains. And so if you if you're like a football fan, that's like playing a football game at Marahei Stadium times three. And the enemy that we faced over there again, like you hear the media talk about and you certainly saw this during the collapse of Afghanistan, but but the media talks about the Taliban as if

they're in monolithic force and they are not. I mean, you have so many different enemy factions that you face over there on a day to day basis, whether it's the Hakkani network or hak Matier or al Qaeda or Taliban, or just crimes that happened on a day to day basis like any other country. That like any other country

in the world. And as a young leader you've got to like navigate all that somehow and be almost like you know, an ambassador, an American ambassador with a gun, you know, ready on a moment's notice to either you know, fire your weapon in defense of of your troops or cradle a baby in a village where you're doing a humanitarian distribution. I mean, it was one of the most complex,

rugged environments that I certainly have ever been in. And you know, you add to that the fact that all of those enemy factions that that I just told you about, like most of those most of the the enemy that we face in Afghanistan cut their teeth against the Russians in the eighties and then thought in the Afghan Civil War in the nineties and then against us in a

post nine eleven era. And you know, the the average Afghan that we were fighting had ten years combat experience on eighteen year old American private you know, Um, this was not a group of farmers with with pitchforks or some sort of rag tag insurgency that they just mustered up at the last second. Now, the people that we fought there, the level of tactical acumen that they displayed on the battlefield on a day to day basis was

just as good, if not better than us. And they weren't weighed down with a hundred pounds of gear like we were, and they knew the terrain better better than we did, at least initially, because what you know, as obviously being in Afghanistan for sixteen months sucked something fierce.

It was horrible. But um, what was interesting as this, I don't mean to sound crass, but we killed so many of them over there that that we were getting intel in May of two thousand and seven that Pakistan families were sick and tired of sending their sons into the fight. They were they were no longer going to commit male fighters to the war in Afghanistan. And what we saw that a lot of the new fighters that had replaced the older ones that we had killed didn't

know the terrain as good as us. So it was a real odd dynamic where at first they were better than us, they were faster than us, they knew the terrain, but slowly over time because we never broke contact, we never surrendered, We we always pressed the enemy. We would never give them that moral victory on the battlefield. We just slowly whittled away at their force and killed them one by one, to the point where at the end of sixteen months we knew the terrain better than they did.

And and all of this culminated in an attack, um, probably in January. It was early January of two thousand and seven. We had built my pet tune had built or my company had built, the first combat outpost. And I'm sure you've seen like you know, uh, I can't remember some of the movies names that the movie where you see in Afghanistan a combat outpost getting overrun. Um, probably every year after I was Afghanistan a combat outpost

had been overrun. Lisa and and and like I was highly critical of that strategy because like all, they would be manned with almost no combat power, with like a squad and all they would David just be simply relegated

to a defensive position. There and all along the border of Afghanistan, you had like a main base with what they call cops like combat outposts, and it almost looked like a modern day version of imagine O line thinking like, well, if we have all these bases along the border, there's no way the enemy will be able to get bias

and that's complete bs um. So anyway, like they tried to attack this base that we had built and we ended up killing, killing, I think like two hundred plus fighters just in that one engagement decisively because we caught

them just prior to them kicking off the attack. And I mean I I would wager to say that that from a strategic and tactical standpoint, back in two thousand six and two thousand seven, we had we had decisively won the fight in Afghanistan, and then we shifted from a counter terror mission, which the basic premise of a counter terror mission is going after and killing the enemy, and through killing the enemy you secure the people UH

to counterinsurgency mission, like after the surge in Iraq. And you know, I think there are there are the strategists that would say the surgeon Iraq was successful. I think I would tend to tend to agree, at least in the moment back then, it was pretty successful. While they tried to implement that exact same strategy in Afghanistan, which is an entirely different country, and once we shifted to counterinsurgency,

we lost the initiative and Afghanistan went slowly downhill. From there, We're going to take a quick break and then more on Sean's time at Afghanistan on the other side. Take us back to you June tenth, two thousand six. Your your platoon was outnumbered by almost tend to one, ended up leaving you with injuries. You know, talk about that day and what happened. So June tenth, um we had been tasked, we're tasked with finding a high value target, and we had been out for a week up until

that point. And we sat up and in and what we call an observation post, and we were just watching infiltration routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan. And we knew that this al Qaeda leader was using a cave complex to navigate from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which is how he was avoiding like our intelligence and reconnaissance and surveillance drones. So we perched up on the hill, we we laid our sites in on this cave site, which we what she thought he was using. UM, and set in for the night.

Woke up the next morning, UM, and all throughout the night I had plotted target reference points and confirmed them with our base at A target reference point is like when you've got artillery at your base. UM. You want to be able to Artillery is basically like big guns, and you want to be able to get those guns into the fight as fast as humanly possible should you

make contact with the enemy. And best way to do that is not like trying to plot it in the middle of a fight, right, I think is the best military commanders would look at a map and pick key terrain and say, okay, this hilltop here is key terrain. If the enemy takes this hilltop, they'll be able to attack if you're easily. So I'm gonna plot this hill it's target reference point one. And then you can coordinate with the with the guns and say, look, this is

my target reference point one. When I say fired t RP one, this is what I mean, and you just you set in target reference point one through ten. UM. Prior to even leaving, and so I had been I

had studied those throughout the night. The sun crested the hill of the next morning, and I remember walking out and looking at some mountaintops to directly to our east that were a lot higher than the one that we were on, and I just thought to myself, that's not a good tactical position to be in, and so I don't have the manpower to occupy those hills with troops. In a perfect world, you would just occupy terrain it was higher than yours with boots, but I didn't have that.

I just had one platoon. So I figured I'd occupy those hilltops by fire, and if the enemy was watching us, they would think twice about setting in there because I know that I have this position styled in. And so I fired those target reference points with my forward observer, watched those, watched the rounds land um on point and

on target. Remember walking back to my truck and and it's just like somebody threw a veil over my entire world, and I remember, I don't remember much, but I do remember waking up in in a smoldering hole about twenty ft from where I had been standing, laying flat on my back, and I couldn't see. I couldn't really hear, but I could feel this stinging on my face and it just felt like like like I was someone was

slapping me. And as I have blinked blinked my eyes open, I sid one of my team leaders, Tim Stalter, slapping me um and trying to get me to wake up. And I finally wake up, open my eyes. I look at him. He's got this big smile on his face, and I'm like, what are you smiling at? What's going on? He sir, He's like, you got blown the f up? And he started laughing, like what the hell is he

laughing at? And I remember just like looking beyond him at these trees, because we had these big, huge trees up on the hilltop with us that a lot of my men were taking cover behind, and the tops of these trees that looked like they hadn't been touched since the prehistoric era. Um, they were just getting blown to

smithereens like just crazy. And I remember looking to my left hand, which was shaking, and it's just like kind of lane in the Afghan dust, and I could see rounds landing between my fingers, like like the level of fire that that we were being hit with was like nothing i've ever seen before felt before like it. Like I felt like laying there on the ground with one of my soldiers on top, Like if I moved even one centimeter to the left of the right, I get shot.

I And that's how heavy the fire was. Remember looking to my left and I see my platoon sergeant Greg Greason, and his back is like covered in blood and he's pointing to himself like saying that he's hit. And all around my perimeter, I had five gun trucks on the hilltop that day, and I had twenty four soldiers on the ground along with one interpreter. But all along the perimeter, at every one of my trucks, almost everybody was hit. Like my platoon sergeant was head he's my number two

and chain of command. UM squadly or Phil Baldwin was shot in the leg. Um. He wasn't really trying to deal with that injury, but he was trying to furiously stop the bleeding of his team leader, Bennett Garvin, who was shot in the arm. I watched Mike Emrick up on the gun, up on his fifth the caliber machine gun, up on his truck. He got shot in the head, fell on the truck, popped back up without his helmet on. Um.

I mean it was all hell was breaking loose. Within within sixty seconds of getting attacked that day, almost every key meter in my opportune had been hit, including myself. And as I sat up, like the stalter of the kid that had like brought me back stat me up straight, and I remember feeling it's like clear liquid leaking out of my nose and my ears. And I didn't know it at the time, but it ended up being like

strebral spinal fluid. I had fractured my skull very slightly um after getting blown up, and I just remember thinking, well, okay, I'm not bleeding, I must be something else, and got up and got back into the fight. And I'm trying to figure out at this point, like how many people are injured, how many of my trucks can drive, what weapons systems are up versus down? How many rounds of ammunition that we have left, Like I've got to get the artillery at the base firing back on these guys.

I should be calling for air support. I got to get back to my truck to do it. All. Um, looking at those hilltops that I had called for fire on. Lisa the enemy had emplaced, uh, three machine gun nests on each hilltop that I called for fire on. So they had six machine guns dialed in on our position, and they were firing in in what was like an X, like if you had to draw an X over my hilltop, My hilltop was right where that where the X intersected.

So they had us in a wicked crossfire. And they were at an elevated position, so they were hitting us with what's called plunging fire. So they were arching the rounds down on top of us. Um. The reason why people do that is because if you're like taking cover behind a rock or something, you want to be able to like drop the round in on top of them. So it just minimizes minimizes your an enemy's ability to

take cover. And I'm watching them hit us with plunging fire and thinking like, holy hell, like how the hell do they know how to do that, you know, And I'm watching the guns, the support by fire positions that they had, the two separate ones. They weren't just firing all at the same time. One gun would fire and stop, the next gun would fire and stop, the next one,

you know, and so on and so forth. And the reason why they did that is because if they fired those guns on like a cyclic rate, their barrels would melt. So they were firing and letting their barrels cool. It's like all the way up and down the line again, never fought like that. That's what we do, Lisa, that that's how we fight. And so the enemy had hit my position with air burst mortars to keep the head keep our heads down, while they simultaneously in placed two

separate support by fire positions. And the next step is I'm trying to like unpack everything that's happening. And really, like when you're in a moment like that, it's like remember like you ever looked through like a kaleidoscope when you're a kid, and you turn the kaleidoscope and you see all those colors move around like that, it's all sort of happening at once. That's like that. It's like

being like that. It's like combat is like that, a million different things happening all around you all at once. And I'm trying to figure out what they're gonna do, and I'm thinking, oh my god, like a viour them, I'd attack and no sooner did I did? I think that they did from both of those hill tops. Two platoon sized elements like forty men plus so rushing down those hill tops and up to our position. But it

wasn't just like a human wave attack. Again. They were one fire team moving, the other one shooting, and they were bounding and with squad leader like giving fire team commands. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. So I ended up get into my truck and calling for fire. I called for fire danger close on our position, which

essentially means like right on top of us, ourselves. The whole intent of that is to just try to keep them off of us and give our give give my men some time to react, reload, consolidate, reorganized, flight back. And I'm watching these rounds land with ruthless efficiency and like vaporized like these guys as they that they they bound towards us. And it didn't matter how many rounds landed,

they had people to replace them. It's just it was just an unrelenting assault in our position, and they got so close to us that that we had to blow claim more minds, like we put claim more minds and around our positions just in case, like we're about to be overrun. So we're like blow and claim more minds, like people. All my squad leaders are saying they're going black on ammunition. Every member of my comple tune is hurt.

I've got all these casualties out there stranded. You know, I'm watching my medic try to carry one of my one of my squad leaders back to the casualty collection point. He lifts up this guy. I watched him get shot in the face. He falls down. Um, I think my medic is dad. He's just Jose Panto has this kid from Mexico. It came to America because he loved He loved the country and wanted to serve the country. And I remember he got shot in the face. Wasn't even

a citizen of the country. Who's supposed to get a citizenship July four, a month later, I'm like, my god, he just got shot before he came to become a US citizen. And but he got back up. The entire left side of his face was was completely destroyed. But he got one of my squad leaders to the casualty collection point. Um, that was the kind of day it was. Lisa and we That fight took probably eight at least

eight hours. We dropped probably eleven two thousand pound bombs and at the end had to bring in a B one Strategic Lancer, a B one bomber to drop like probably ten more. And what had ended up happening, Lisa, was that I called for fire on those target reference points earlier. But it looked what we had come to learn that the enemy at night had planned to attack us, and I had hit him just before they were going to attack, And so it was like hitting a hornet's

nest with a baseball bat or something. They were already in position ready to attack at us. I just hit him before they hit us, which I guess the hindsight being, I'm glad that I did, because it would have probably not gone as as good for us as it did, as even though it wasn't I mean, all things considered, it wasn't good, but I would have much I was glad that we attacked first, you know, and every one

of my trucks was was destroyed. They had to be towed off the hill top uh um that and got back to the base uh that day after like that long long firefight. And I think like every member of my platoons, I treated we took another platoons trucks and went right back out after the enemy, like after we after we got back, went right back out after them to hunt them down. Um. And we said in that night, and we did. We hunted them all down and we

and we got them. We killed probably oh man, I probably killed probably killed like a hundred people that day, like bad guys trying to attack us and so um. But that's the out of deployment. That the kind of deployment that we had, it was absolutely hell. You know, I look back on it, like you asked me, how did you do it? And the answers, I have no

freaking clue. I can't believe I lived through it. I can't believe I made it through all that, you know, Shota, as we recount this and as you you look back and and you know, talk about those times, and you know, we talked about Ukraine going on now, you know, Taiwan. What should our lessons what lessons should we learn from Afghanistan as a society. What do you hope that politicians learned? What do you hope the country learns from our time

in Afghanistan? Just be more careful with America's sons and daughters. You know, I I know, I know that freedom is worth fighting for, freedom is worth dying for. America. My god, if we were attacked, I'd be the first in line, ready to ready to fight back. Um, but we should not be getting ourselves locked down in the fights that take forty years, costs tens of thousands of American lives or or wounded Americans, people whose lives are changed forever.

You know, if you lose a love one in Afghanistan, the ripple effect from that is profound. You have family members, moms, dad's, sisters, brothers, spouses that will never see that person again. And the whole that that leaves in in people's hearts and the void that it leaves in their lives is something that it lasts forever, like every second of every day and and again, please don't misunderstand me. This is not like

a poor me thing. Again. I would do this again in a second, but every second of every day the war in Afghanistan is with me. Doesn't mean that I'm broken, has nothing. You know, I'm fine, I can handle it. I do it all again. But it's like it's like spy wear on your computer. It runs without you even knowing, you know, UM, like my troops that I lost that Afghanistan first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about when I go

to sleep. And over twenty years in that fight, lost so many people in that country that I wish we're still here. UM. And I think, what's even more tragic than that is that And however many combat deployments that my men went on, and and they there are some of my soldiers even went on combat deployments after the one that I took them on. UM. I mean, we probably we've lost in my small unit, we've lost more

people to suicide than we have to combat. What does that tell you about the way in which we take care of our soldiers. There are our men and women who serve this country here at home. Not not that the v A isn't amazing, Like I'm I'm grateful and glad that we have the v A. UM, but the problems that we face here are far greater than you know, maybe going to see a doctor or you know, being given some drugs in a in a paper bag and hey sent on your way, you know, on behalf of

a grateful nation. The problems that veterans face here at home are largely existential problems, cultural problems that I think America as a country needs to face. Um. And so what I'd like I'd like to see is that I'd like to see our politicians be more careful with America's sons and daughters. Number one, Um, I'd also like to

see America like our country as a whole. And that means like these little communities that we all live in, like do everything that we can to recognize for men and women and serve and that, and I think it needs to we need to go beyond like thank you

for your service. Like I think we need to to bring these people like into a high school gymnasium and have them tell their story if they're willing, in front of a bunch of high school students, so that those kids not only learn about what it means to defend freedom, uh, the legacy of that soldier and the people that that person lost lives on in the and and the people to hear that story. Like as I think as a society, we need to do more with regards to bringing our

our men and women home. And so yeah, be more careful with America's sons and daughters in American society getting in the fight from a cultural standpoint to appreciate and

love our bets. Well, that's why I really wanted to have this conversation with you, you know, one not only to just you know, obviously to honor that you know, those who have served and have lost their lives serving this country and defending this country, but really just sort of bringing awareness to what it takes and what you guys go through, and why we should be judicials and why we should be careful with our our people's lives.

And I think our you know, our lives are the or military men and women or our own people, like their lives, that's the most important thing, right that's a most cherished asset, Like we off the bunch of weapons whatever beyond in Afghanistan. Obviously that's a challenge, but it's the lives, it's our people that we should cherish and be careful with. And so, you know, that's why I really wanted to have this conversation with you about that.

And again, your your petun was sober received purple hearts for wounds they incurred in battle, and I wanted to get you on this real quick before we go. You talked about sort of that that brotherhood that brought you guys together day in and day out, didn't matter what you're facing. You know, you looked beyond. It wasn't about looking at you know, race or religion or any of these other things. You just saw him as you know,

your brother, more or less. Right. And now it's like we're sort of injecting all these things in the military, whether it's critical race theory, whether it's things like you know, gender pronouns, and what kind of impact does that have on on our military? It's devastating. It's devastating because again it's not like the military is not about diversity, Okay, like it, I'm grateful to have intellectual diversity in my platoon I'm in, or in my units that I commanded.

I'm grateful to have racial diversity or people from a lot of different backgrounds, like that makes us better. But the problem with a lot like critical race theory being injected into the military or some of these other like I got these people with their pronouns and their bios and stuff and all this other stuff, and like, hey,

do what you wanna do. But the military is about unifying beyond those differences, not celebrating them so any times, Like the whole point of going through basic training, right, the whole point of it, Lisa, is you go in there an individual. You know that you come out a

member of a collective team. The whole point, the reason why you have drill sergeants screaming in your face and yelling at you the whole time is to whittle down, break down your sense of individual self and teach you in a very like rubber meets the road kind of way that the individual doesn't matter here anymore. What matters is the collective and you're only as fast as your slowest person. And going to Afghanistan the way that we

did and experiencing the things that we did. If if that, if our dedication to our team and our unit wasn't first and foremost, we would have not survived. Guarantee you, we would have not survived. And so this focus on oh, like, oh, look how diverse we are, because this is a strength. Yeah it is, but it's only a strength, and in a military, if you unify beyond it, that's where the strength is. And so I think it's I think it's dangerous. I think it's real dangerous is there anything else you

want to leave us with before we go. A lot of people you're gonna see a lot of people on Memorial Day talk about like, well it isn't for barbecuing, you know, And I would just say, like, you celebrate Memorial Day the way that you want, because is you know, I feel like my soldiers who haven't been a who you know, who didn't make it back, they don't get to celebrate at all, you know, And I think it's

incumbent upon all of us. I think it's really our duty and responsibility to live freely and and and enjoy the freedom that they sacrifice themselves to protect. I mean, of course, you know, if you get a minute, like you know, if you're drinking a beer, or walking on the beach, or reading the book, or just sitting on your deck or watching your kids play, like just stay a sign in prayer and just for for the men

and women who didn't come home. But you celebrate the way that you want in America because that's what the men and women who sign up and volunteer to serve this country, that's what they gave their lives to do. So just just don't forget, never forget them and and have a have a good Memorial Day. Sean, It's an

honor to have you on the show. You are a hero, and I think you so much for your service or and just sharing you know, what you went through in Afghanistan and the bravery of your platoon with my audience and me, And thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Lisa, Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I think I was one of the most fascinating conversations I've

ever had with anyone in my entire life. And I just think it's so helpful towere it's left back with Sean about what you went through with his platoon and what show many people went through in places like Afghanistan

during a time of work. You know, we're either disconnected from it, you know, when we're here in America and we're living her everyday lives and they're out there on the battlefield, you're fighting for freedom, fighting for their own lives and the lives of the rest of their platoons. So I think what better way to honor at the fall and than talk to someone like Sean for now. I hope you enjoyed it. I loved it. I want to thank you guys were listening. I hope you enjoyed

the podcast. Tell your friends, tell your family, you know, share on social media. We'd really appreciate it. And I also just think anyone who's listening who has served, or who was a family member who has served, and if you have a family member whos paid the ultimate sacrifice, I'm so sorry if you're lost, and I'm praying for you today. Uh And be sure to listen every Monday and Thursday. The Truth with Lisa Booth