Alan Cooper - CIA Contractor / Green Beret / Marine Recon | SRS #014

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only soldiers can talk of war and the adrenaline  and the fear and what it's like to know that the. enemy is all around you and maybe coming at you  in a moment some marines are going to tell us. about that serving as scouts they got caught up  in the battle for the saudi arabian town of kafji. nobody expected that coffee to happen nobody.

the battle for kafki was won partly because of  what two small u.s reconnaissance teams did they. were in kafji as spotters to report on enemy troop  movements and to call in air and artillery strikes. but they became trapped behind enemy lines for  two days the whole time it was going out you know. first time this is my first time  everybody kind of guys being 21. uh yeah.

well what's the contingency if we get overrun  he's like well and he had a star cluster he goes. i'm gonna take this star cluster i'm  gonna walk up in that yard and i'm. gonna pop it up and everything around here  is gonna light up like the fourth of july. so there's six of you guys and a small sf team in  this city and that's before dawn friday scattered. bands of iraqi snipers still roamed the town  they were all that was left with the force of.

at least one battalion that had attacked  kafji the saudis claimed the iraqis lost. hundreds of dead and wounded while allied forces  supposedly took only four dead and eight wounded. all kinds of stuff going through your  mind you know remember you got a mission. complete your mission let's do your job basically.

ladies and gentlemen welcome back to srs as  always i want to kick things off and say thank you. to all the patrons who've given us a tremendous  amount of support those of you who have been here. since the beginning have noticed the production  value just continues to get better every episode. i also want to talk about our new youtube channel  sean ryan clips sometimes these episodes are long.

and they can be kind of hard to digest in one  sitting so what we've done is we've broken up. all the previous episodes and we're releasing  them on the youtube channel sean ryan clips so. go check that out and lastly if you can't support  us on patreon we would love to get a review from. you on itunes click the link below please leave  us a review on itunes all we want is just one. word if that's all you have time for that's  perfect thank you let's get on with the show.

and now for our next guest zero one four he  was a reconnaissance marine a green beret. and a cia contractor he also served in desert  storm which was a war in the middle east over. 30 years ago ladies and gentlemen please  welcome my very good friend mr alan cooper.

coop what's up welcome to the uh the show thank  you you're the only one that's been up here. before we actually interview you yeah the only  one am i what's up yeah what's it feel like. sitting in that chair now that we're not running  around the hot seat man i'm itching nervous i get. nervous every time too but uh yeah you know you  built that bar over there that nice uh live edge.

tabletop which i turned into a photo which is nice  i like that yeah i would have went that route to. myself you would have yeah nice i didn't care for  them legs but i do like it hanging on the wall. and you did the v you pretty much built half the  damn studio up here oh looks like you beat up the. v a little bit but you know well i i broke it  but i glued about together when i was putting.

it up you told me i would i mean you knew what  well we'll talk about that okay yeah offline. but uh i got you a little present so go ahead  it's in the box over there present yeah yeah. almost everybody gets a present i didn't get the  last couple guys a present because the subject. matter was so cool oh look at that man desert  storm yeah well i'm you are the only person i know.

served in desert storm yeah is that  a fat yeah i got some gummy bears. i do like your gummy bears. and work how many bears wow man what do we  got here yeah you know what that is oh yeah. i know what that is it's just a couple  of fat pills oh yeah oh my goodness dude. wow yeah this is my favorite and he knows it  this is my kryptonite what is that that's a.

peanut butter bucket that's a peanut butter bucket  yeah you know there's nothing usually i get like. articles or podcasts or youtube videos or news  or something to research the guests so there's. nothing to research on you so i had to uh get in  touch with laura your wife yeah my wife and uh she. told you my kryptonite she did she did where'd you  get these i think i found them at an antique store.

i used to be addicted to antiquing and then i  wound up with a house full of [ __ ] no i've. actually got stacks of these dude really my dad  collected them wow isn't that so are do you are. you in one of those i don't believe you don't  have a trading card no i don't you didn't make. the cut no didn't make the cut this one that's  too bad oh well you probably should have that's. great man appreciate it thanks yeah yeah but  um man i've been trying to get you up here for.

i don't know how long and you kept putting  it off and putting it off and you live like. 10 miles down the road well so let's just go ahead  and address the elephant in the room the elephant. in the room the reason why i was putting it off  is as you can see i'm missing my front tooth. you got it back and then you yeah i did i got  i've had two failed implants in that tooth i've. been dealing with this tooth for 42 years i  got it knocked out in a fight with one of the.

neighbor kids back in the 70s when i was nine i  think it was nine he knocked it out with an axe. with a little serious [ __ ] going on well  we played we played roof back then apparently. there was no you know he's going for the jugular  right hell yeah so yeah i've been dealing with it. and uh just what two months three months ago it  failed again so i had to get it taken out and now.

i gotta get a whole bridge which means i gotta  shave all them teeth down like a hockey player. and stick it up in there nice so we didn't  want to wait for any longer so we decided. to do it without the tooth yeah we said the  hell with it yeah we'll just uh address the. the elephant in the room heck with it it was  like pulling teeth trying to get you in yeah. literally yeah but uh now i kind of want to just  talk about you know like i said i don't know.

anybody or know of anybody that was in desert  storm and uh i think i was eight years old that. kicked off from what 90. yes and uh yeah so i was  eight years old when that kicked off i remember. buying all those damn trading cards and yeah oh  yeah those are like first grade i think but um. so i want to talk a lot about that i know you  know you had a major part of that war and uh. and uh got some decorations from it and  you're also one of the only people i know.

maybe the only one that was a you  know marine reconnaissance marine. special operations then at some point you moved  over to green beret army green beret another. branch of special operations and then we wound up  meeting at uh cia contracting so uh and um yeah so.

you got three pretty badass titles cia green beret  marine recon right am i missing anything here or. no that's pretty much it do you can that's it  you're not an overachiever or anything are you no. no uh nope just was blessed fell in place for me  you know and another reason i wanted to get you.

on is because most of people that come on the show  as you know that they have something that they're. trying to promote whether it's a non-profit or  they have uh they just want to get their story. out but like i said it you know no pun intended it  was like pulling teeth trying to get you in here. and uh and i want to say that i i can't speak  for the entire community obviously but i. think that you are a good representation of the  majority of the special operations community.

you don't like talking about what you did you  don't like letting people know what you did you. don't like talking about transition and all the  challenges that you faced and um and uh as if as i. can imagine you're extremely uncomfortable in that  chair right now oh yeah my heart's going like this. you're absolutely correct on all that we don't  like talking about it yeah just it's not doesn't.

feel normal to talk about it especially you know  if me and you were sitting here one-on-one nobody. else was in a room yeah we could sit there and rap  all day but i know it's going out on the waves you. know the airways so yeah yeah it's unusual it'll  be good though you know your kids will hear it. your family will hear it your wife your parents  siblings and uh you know we're documenting history.

here so it's pretty cool and the history  books yeah hopefully they don't rewrite it. but you grew up in new york yeah i grew up in a  town up in upstate new york called alien new york. um if you own a remington shotgun or rifle look  at the barrel and they'll have alien new york. stamp to it my dad worked at remington arms  for 38 years so that's when i've been raised.

around guns my entire life small town it was a  village actually called a village when i lived. there because it was so small but it's since  growing up a little bit now it's called a uh. a town um i went to the school uh the  town next door which was called mohawk. alien but yeah that's where i  grew that's in central new york.

what made you want to join the marine corps i  knew i was going to join the military when i was. eight as soon as i figured out what the military  was i would actually when i was a kid i would. get out you used to be able  to get a magazine there'd be a. recruitment ad in the magazines and i  would pull them out and fill them all. out and send them in and it was you know an  invitation for a recruiter to give you a call.

but i was looking for the free headbands and free  wristbands and signs and stuff like that and they. were calling me up when i was like 10 years old  going hey we're going to talk to alan cooper. my mother would answer the phone and she'd go yeah  you're going to have to wait for about another. 10 years before he's old enough to go he's only  10. you know so but i was looking to get the the. free stuff but i knew i was going in the military  at a young age it was absolutely no question.

what was it what inspired you it was a family  history or no it wasn't family history i was. actually for my immediate family i was  the first one that ever went in my dad. worked in a factory his whole life you  know but uh you know i was i come from uh. i don't want to say poor but we were low  medium class family we uh you know my mom. used to shop for my clothes at the goodwill  and stuff like that i mean we were by rich and.

by no means i can remember my dad telling me  yeah we used to go down there and buy uh french. fries at mcdonald's for 10 cents you know every  thursday it was french fry night and still today. i still eat mcdonald's french fries but there  were 10 cents back then and my dad's like well. i made two dollars and 10 cents an hour back then  too you know so they were kind of pricey but uh. the thing that made me want to come  in i think was just i liked that war.

type thing you know war they depict you  know this is what vietnam war was going on. it was a g.i joe at that time you know we're  all gi joes running around and it's just. the country you couldn't turn tv on without  seeing a marine corps you know commercial. and stuff like that or the army um and it was  just very appealing to me very appealing so how.

how young were you when you joined i actually  joined the delayed entry program which was uh. well i wanted to join when i was 18 or 17 but  my mother wouldn't sign the paperwork for me. to go in because i was underage so i actually  had to wait until i was 18 before i could sign. her philosophy behind that was i'm not going  to sign you into something and then have you. hate it and then come back and blame me for it so  but i actually my last year my senior year in high.

school i was actually enlisted ready to go what  year was that that would have been 87 because in. 88 i left 88 you left 1988 august of 88 i actually  left two days before my 19th birthday damn. paris island what uh was your job description  in the marine corps yeah well i started out.

i started out as a tow gunner and the  funny thing is is the way i got there was. the marine corps had started a new  program called mct marine combat training. and i was one of the first dudes to go  through this entire program and it was. basically set up for to teach every marine  regardless of whatever mos you were to be. to be a rifleman or no combat operation type stuff  and uh i went through that and it seemed like it.

was like months but i'm sure it was only like 30  days or something like that but there was a road. march on that thing and i got the biggest freaking  blisters on my my heels i'm talking they were deep. and when it came to picking out mosses they go  what mos do you want i go i want whatever mos. where i drive in that humvee and i don't  have to walk and it was a tow gunner it.

was actually a toe gunner when i enlisted in  the marine corps okay that's kind of part of. the infantry infantry's broke up into a machine  gunner mortar men basic infantryman and then a. toe gunner so i chose the toe gunner because i  didn't want to walk no more i was tired of it. right on how long were you doing that before i  was a tow gunner for approximately i think about. eight months i got stationed in hawaii oh okay  so i went through tow gunner training right and.

then i got stationed over into hawaii i was in  hawaii in a tow gun toe gunner platoon for i mean. like three three four months maybe and they  came in and they said we need you guys to. take a swimming test so they threw us all  in the pool gave us this extensive swim test. and only eight of us came up out of the water  basically passed and they set out a you ate right. here are no longer in toga toe gunners or toe  platoon you're now in a special training section.

and that's how my career started progressing  it was pretty cool right off the bat you didn't. even they didn't even give you a choice it was  going into special operations now you're going. your special training section what it was  was it was uh there was only eight of us. and then one dude was in charge of it and  uh they took us and they sent us to coronado.

and coronado they taught us over the horizon  navigation you ever hear the there was a course. out there called coxswain course so i went through  that coxswain course it was five weeks long in. coronado well real quick just for the audience  because i don't know what that is over the horizon. is those little zodiac those rubber boats and  basically what you're doing is you're navigating. right that little boat in the middle of the  ocean over the horizon meaning you know past.

where the eye can see yep it was the uh the f-470  zodiac and the boston whaler which had uh twin. twin seventies on it so small craft um but yeah  you're exactly right we did it over the horizon. navigation we did well deck launches out  of a chip and some scout swimming type. stuff like that but the main thing was uh  over the horizon to do amphibious landings.

so they sent us there and we did that and then  they made us all repel masters then we they made. us all high-speed cast and recovery masters and i  don't know if they even do that anymore do they do. that anymore uh they did it but it was more out of  tradition when i did that they weren't it was kind. of i don't want to say worthless training but it  is you know we're never going to do it i thought. i was worthless back then i'm like why don't you  just stop the damn boat let them get in you know.

but basically for those of you that don't know  it's you took an f-470 zodiac or a rubber rubber. craft and you mounted it onto a larger craft a  larger boat and then you would have swimmers out. the whole concept behind it was is you're  basically too far out or you're too too. close to shoreline for a ship to get in to pick  you up so you had your scout swimmers that did.

the mission came out went out swam out to a depth  which this boat could pick you up and they would. hold a lasso out basically and flip you up into  the back of the boat and then go out to the ship. so we learned that and then we did spy  rigging they made us all spy masters. so once everybody was qualified in all this these  uh disciplines we went ahead and started training.

the line units on amphibious landings scout  swimming techniques and stuff like that did you. did you know that this was special  operations when you were doing it. was no we didn't look at it like that you gotta  remember back in 19 this would have been what 1990. 1989 the marine corps had no special operations  they didn't recognize anything as being special. operations they didn't even consider  reconnaissance force recon or battalion. recon as being special ops it was just the  marine corps period okay so you know you got.

your little designations and other branches where  in the marine corps you're just a marine period. you know it's like hey he's sf or he's  a combat controller in the air force or. this or that navy seal in the marine corps  you're just marine back then i don't know. what it's like now that's probably for the better  yeah it was you know so we did that and then uh.

we basically taught amphibious landings  and did a lot of operations with uh. we trained a lot of brits on it too and malaysians  i remember doing some malaysians we did a lot of. malaysians cross-type training can you give a  brief description on what a scout swimmer is. scout swimmer is uh basically an individual  who launches either from a small boat so what.

what we used to do is and this is a one of the  pictures i showed you there it's uh with the subs. back in the 90s early 90s they were determining  on whether or not to get rid of this different. class a submarine they felt that the use for it  was no longer at least this was my understanding. so they use the marine corps they use recon  to go ahead and show that there is still. uh application for this sub we could still use  it so what we would do is we would get on a sub.

and we would do dry deck and wet deck launches off  the sub we would take the little zodes that 470. within um 500 about 500 meters from the  coastline and then deploy scout swimmers. so the skull swimmer what you would do is  deploy you get in the water with your fins on. all your gear your weapon and you would finn  all the way into into a certain uh distance from.

the coast from the actual hinterland you know  the coastline and you would do a series of uh. events you know you would also recon the coast  go up and down the coast prescribed distance. like we're gonna go a thousand or not a thousand  a hundred uh 100 yards this way then we're gonna. go 100 yards this way recounting the coast seeing  if there's anywhere anybody on the coast itself.

then we would come in a little bit further a  little bit further come up on the coast sneaky you. know sneaky sons of [ __ ] and get up on up on the  land and then do a series of zigzags looking for. a suitable place to hide a boat once a suitable  place to hide the boat was found we would go ahead. and signal the boat radio or whatever type of  light we had bring the boats in they have 470s.

the zodiacs bring them up in take the motors off  and we would silently take them all up into the. hinterland the hampton land being where uh the  vegetation starts on a beach hide it go off do. your mission once your mission was complete come  back recover the boats and then launch back out. we would take the zod's out to a certain  distance or a location where the sub was. loitering the sub would come in periscope would  go up and we would stretch a line between our.

our zodes the periscope would grab us and  then pull us out to a suitable distance where. it would then surface and then  we would get back down in the sub. just for the it's a lot yeah just for the audience  when you hear in special operations first ones in. you know that's basically that's one of the  ways what they're what they're saying is.

a beach insertion like that hydro reconnaissance  sometimes you're calling in you're looking for a. place where more forces can get in right or you're  just going to do an operation yeah get in real. quick do your thing right and get right back out  but this this is one of the ways how right we as. special operators get in uh to a target before  anybody else before conventional forces so that. yeah you're right that's one run raising another  reason we did it was to do hydrographic surveys.

and uh we actually did a few hydrographic surveys  for elkhacks to come in well really yeah yep. all interesting very interesting fun good time  we had a good time i had a good time in the core. you liked that i loved it man i was not a fan of  hydro recons i loved it dude but um when did you. move into so when did you was there a graduation  for from training when you got your did you get.

the designation for sts there was nothing this was  just something they stood up and that was it man. so that you're like the very first very  first recon marine well i even had a i had a. boston whaler one of the boston  whalers with my name on it. we all had our names on it it was cool no [ __  ] so you're like for forced reconnaissance no.

this was for sts okay special training section  how i got the recon was through these guys okay. so what happened was the gulf war kicked off well  it started in i want to say august of 90. yeah. sometime like that around there and uh the eight  of us sts guys were what they had done is because.

nobody wanted us anymore as far as paperwork goes  they didn't want to take care of us paper wise. so they kind of just folded us into recon  said you guys aren't recon but paper wise. you fall into recon because nobody else wants  you we're like the bastard children right. so we're sitting in a chow hall all eight  of us sitting there eating and we're like. the war just kicked off and we're like the hell  are they gonna use us for i mean there's no.

boats in the desert yeah i remember we  were only we were 19 years old 20 year. old dudes man we didn't know nothing yeah we're  sitting there eating and it was funny because. the minute we got done eating and we walked over  they the recon guy the uh i believe he's a first. sergeant came up to us and said go get your [ __  ] together get your [ __ ] packed you're now recon. we're going to war we were like you got to be  kidding me were you excited was i excited um.

tell you truth i don't remember whether  i was excited or not i was more like. flabbergasted as to what the hell am i going  to do because recon you know there's a lot of. training involved in becoming a reconnaissance  we they they didn't even make us do the damn. indoctrination wow they were like based off  of what you guys do and you've been doing it.

you're basically doing a lot of the  marine corps or recon mission now. so you just recon now damn i would think you  would be excited i mean eight years old you're. mailing in oh yeah snippets to the recruiters  and having access with your buddies yeah remember. i'm 52 years old i can't remember everything  but yeah we were all uh we're all like in awe. basically wow we're gonna we're going to  combat we're going to a war zone you know.

and uh the gulf war was the first substantial you  know war since vietnam i mean you had a little. conflicts like down in grenada and panama  and stuff like that but nothing at this level. and and we had enough time to sit there because  we didn't deploy until september to hear all the. news and the horror stories i don't know if you  guys have ever heard them but they were predicting.

there was going to be like 10 000 u.s soldiers  killed in the first freaking hour the wave because. saddam hussein had enough time to build up a first  defensive belt which was mine fields and we can. talk about that but minefields all throughout  the entire border of saudi arabia in iraq. well before we get into that let's take a quick  break and then uh just want to give a quick.

history lesson to the audience because that was  so long ago okay all right operation desert storm. or the gulf war happened over 30 years ago so  let's do a quick recap on what happened on august. 2nd 1990 saddam hussein the prime minister of  iraq sent his army into kuwait to basically take. it over now kuwait was a major oil supplier to  the united states the eight years prior to this.

iraq was at war with iran and the u.s actually  backed iraq we actually turned them in to the. fourth largest military in the world at that time  now we have to back kuwait because they posed. a great threat to saudi arabia also another major  oil producer so if they would have taken kuwait. if iraq would have taken kuwait then iraq would  have turned itself into the fifth largest oil.

producing country in the world so we had to  step in now let's just go over a couple of key. facts with the war now george bush sent over  500 000 u.s troops to operation desert shield. on january 17 1991 operation desert shield became  operation desert storm after all diplomacy that. we tried to do failed desert storm became  the largest air campaign at the time since.

the war in southeast asia vietnam the u.s and 40  allied nations flew 18 000 combat missions over. 116 000 air sortie missions and dropped 88 500  tons of ordnance in that war the air attacks. during this war lasted for a total of six weeks  while the ground war actually only lasted for 100.

hours iraq tried to split up the u.s coalition  by launching stud missiles at israel however. israel did not respond thanks to its allied  partnership with the united states desert storm. was the first time that we saw the mim-104 charlie  missile system used in combat which is basically a. missile system used to intercept the scud missiles  that were launched from iraq it is also the first.

war where the u.s air force utilized space  technology and stealth technology in the war. in total about 697 000 us troops took part  in that war with 299 losing their lives. let's get back to the show now the rest  of the story yeah so you're now recon.

and you're packing your [ __ ] you're going to war  i'm now recon they said you're going to kuwait or. we're going to saudi arabia because kuwait was  overtaken by iraq we were like where's kuwait. i didn't know where kuwait was like  like them guys in vietnam were vietnam. all right so where's kuwait so we looked up we  found out where quaid was so we actually got our.

gear ready they gave us started giving us classes  on how to do call for fire and stuff like that. um it wasn't really much time to do patrolling  type stuff and and you know first of all there. wasn't even a second or third platoon there was  only two platoons in recon at the time and when. they integrated us in there they stood up a third  platoon and split us up with a bunch of new guys. that were coming in so we called ourselves third  herd is you know whenever your third platoon.

your third herd so we got in there we set up we  got ready we started uh packing checking gear. repacking i mean you know the loadout it's just  horrendous inspection inspect this and whatnot. uh i mean the rules and you had the rules you  can't take any porn with you you can't take any. booze with your any personal firearms because  we went all we all went out and actually bought.

our own pistols oh really yeah we all went out and  bought our own pistols thinking we're gonna take. take our own pistols over there and they're like  no you're not so they squashed that but good. thing though because i bought a taurus and the  damn thing broke like the first freaking time i. used it but that's what you won bought a tourist  yeah that's all i could afford i was an e3 man. so yeah we got it all ready to go everything  was ready to go i think we left in september.

some somewhere around september from what  i remember now we flew there uh i believe. it was a they don't have them anymore it was a  c-141 i believe we flew over there on a c-141. and landed somewhere in uh saudi arabia well how  long when they told you pack your [ __ ] you're. going to war did they give you a time estimate  of how long it was going to be before you were. actually they did but it kept getting kicked  back get getting kicked back we were actually on.

lockdown we couldn't go anywhere and uh we had to  stay in the barracks and whatnot but it was like. okay we're going and then we went how how long was  it uh from the time we got the word until the time. we left about three weeks that's it yeah so you  did call for fire classes yeah and and whatever. other classes they want you got to remember  we didn't have all the technology we got i had.

a prick 77 dude yeah that's a 104 it's true you  know prick 77 a harder you use i mean you're just. correcting not you're you know you're live um  nowadays that's like a we had no gps's we had. a compass we got a gps and uh when we got over  there though it wasn't actually a gps out of a. helicopter and there was only one dude that knew  how to use it it was a team leader nobody else.

knew how to use it you use it you know uh night  vision goggles were uh crappy at best but uh no. body armor all we had was a flak jacket and that  we call lbe at the time canteens and a butt pack. real low key low no tech so there wasn't much to  call for fire man yeah and as a reconnaissance. element you're not involved in you know direct  action and stuff like that so room clearing.

you know basic room clearing was all  we needed to know and i think that was. just more or less common sense it wasn't  an official class or anything like that. we were very in comparison to what i've done  into nsf and in the agency this was like. grade school like elementary school level type  training really really yeah it was just gut man.

gut let's go let's do it we're marines was was  it were you going to an urban environment or we. didn't know what environment we were going in  you know it was just going to be desert urban. nothing nothing we didn't know anything about  it we weren't told anything about it we were. just knew we were going improvised overcoming  debt that's a whole marine corps motto you know. and we lived our lives like that we  didn't care he was like let's go so.

you got there so we got there and it was hot as  [ __ ] in september you know we got in there the. gulf within the gulf and i remember they put us  in these big warehouses on cots and it was just. blistering hot man no way seeing no nothing we  sat there on cots for a good probably two weeks. drinking warm coke i remember they go hey  you want some coke yeah sure we put it open.

it up and it turned into foam as soon as it hit  your mouth it was just all warm [ __ ] you know. but they had like i said they bring in them global  pre-positioning ships i had all the equipment on. it and they started offloading that and we started  getting getting that equipment you know as a. as a lance corporal or even a sergeant in the  marine corps we were all sitting around and it. was basically the higher ups were doing all the  logistics stuff and then bringing that logistics.

to us and only a few people were involved in that  and that wasn't team guys so to speak you know so. we just sat around until they figured out where  we were going initially they took us to uh like. a military compound i couldn't even remember  where it was it was actually rooms with ac. stuck us in there we stayed there for a little  bit just to acclimatize and adapt to the. area we continue to go over training you know like  uh the 50 cal now we had 50 kills so we did the.

timing on uh headspace and timing  for the 50 cals and stuff like that. we we went to a few ranges i believe um one thing  they had nissel played later on is they had at4s. but they only had the nine millimeter  practice stuff oh we never shot an at4 before. all we shot was in practice nine millimeters  a little tracer around yeah but anyway we.

did a little training on that we got vehicles  at this time no up armor nothing just soft skin. no doors on half of them uh humvees or uh  humvees that were somehow they got painted desert. some of them did anyway desert colors you know  we stayed there for a while and uh we did a. lot of card playing poker and then we got the  word we were going to a place called monifa bay.

which is on the eastern side of saudi arabia in  the gulf area right up through there i believe. yeah and then uh we went to menifa bay and that's  when we sat down and we started digging holes they. said we were protecting the border and stuff like  that but uh we're just loitering there basically. is that that's what these pictures are yeah  they're they're kind of in the same area living. and uh living in holes for the most part then  they've set up a tent city and we went to a tet.

city and hung out there i can remember getting  hit by uh multiple rocket launchers it was funny. because you can see them on the on the  horizon they look like roman candles. and that was the first time we got hit. rockets went up over us and they ended up hitting  a guard shack for mp shack but they had played. that chemical weapon warfare stuff so high so much  that everybody was extremely paranoid over that.

and we all had gas masks and mop level you know  mop level suits on us and i swear the first. time that thing went off i had done and cleared  that entire mop suit in about 30 seconds yeah. it was like because they had different alarms  and the mop level alarm went off and we're. like holy [ __ ] man putting that thing on  down and clear and then you just sit there.

and then you start hyperventilating did i do i  got any gas did i get gassed what's happening. and then i get the all clear and it's  like wow man and that's you know that's. that's got an effect on you as a kid you know 20  years 21 a lot of guys have gone in durham say. if you went into afghanistan joined the military  in like 2014 you've already heard about combat. for the last what 14 years here we hear nothing  about it you know it was the mindset wasn't there.

at all it was you know yeah it is what it is  but uh yeah the first time we got hit was like. oh [ __ ] then after that they kept  heading us and hitting us and pretty. soon it's like okay the alarm went off and  you're sitting there and you're right going. yeah right whatever yeah whatever  did they ever wind up using chemicals.

no they didn't well they claimed they did after  the fact and they tried to roll it into the. gulf war syndrome stuff but if i don't think  officially they've ever said that they did. use chemical war i mean i'm sure the government  would never lie to us right hell no man yeah. i think the big scare was with that we had our uh  our uh artillery unit actually had tactical nukes.

and if they used any of that they were gonna nuke  them a little bit oh just you know a little bit. nice but it never came down just a little bit huh  yeah just a little nuke just a little new nuclear. warner chemical but yeah that was it was that this  was pretty much like what i refers to the admin. phase just so i was trying to get used to what  the surroundings and whatnot and people trying.

to figure out the higher-ups trying to figure out  how this is all going to unfold we just did a lot. of standing around sitting around um and like  i told people i said combat isn't always boom. boom boom boom you're not always going there's a  lot of down time we did have a lot of down time. then we started moving up a little bit more north  towards kafki towards the border uh kuwait and. saudi arabia and then we started doing more legit  type stuff you know like okay now we're getting.

up here we got a purpose and we're here now to uh  re do reconnaissance how many guys were there we. had on my particular team we had six six how  many of you guys were moving towards kafki. just six yeah oh [ __ ] we operated just  in a six-man element so you were conducting.

reconnaissance and surveillance for yeah we were  definitely not joining units we were doing the. reconnaissance mission for the whole front for  the 600 000 deployed it well no because it was. all spread out along iraq all through there just  for our corridor which was mainly marine corps. uh third marines i believe  our first marine division. and uh just our little slice of the ao [  __ ] nobody expected that kofchi to happen.

nobody they didn't think they would i  don't believe they anybody thought that. saddam would have the nuts to come down  through there into another country saudi arabia. so so we started getting missions to go  up into kafji and recon that area and uh. actually they had hit an oil platform up there  or oil facility you know refined gas refinery.

so that place was smoking we went up there and  investigated that and kind of went through the. city the whole city was abandoned and the day  it abandoned was the day they started the air. campaign why was it abandoned did the the  population just evacuate the population just. beat him out they all got out of there and it  was it was quite the sight because as soon as. that uh air campaign started there was nothing  but tail lights going south getting out of there.

damn i mean they said they dropped what 88 500  tons of ordnance they saw living daylights out. of them they were nuts they pounded the  the will the fight out of them people. because none of them really wanted to fight i got  pictures of pows we had so many pows coming south. we couldn't take them all they were just  like hey keep going keep walking damn.

so we got up in the cafe and we started  uh you know final locations to set up. all our uh our uh equipment you  remember back then we had the 104.

and we had to set up an actual antenna full  wave dipole or v different types of antennas to. set tucked back to the rear so we hadn't  have enough space in order to do this so. we find suitable locations to go ahead and do  this usually on rooftops and stuff like that. um we had been operating up there in coptic for  a couple weeks before the actual event happened.

so what were you looking for were you just  were you just reporting any activity that. was happening just any activity that was going on  okay there was some stuff going on there that we. weren't aware of there was a a joint i believe  it was a joint operation element that was just. right on the border just north of where we  were operating on kauchi and what it was was. it was a combination of there was a few seals  up there army special forces a lot of radio.

battalion type guys you know nerds on radios  and uh they're all sitting up there in a little. up in this little house up there and we came in we  found an sf team in kopchi just rolled up on him. didn't nobody talked to nobody we didn't know who  the heck anybody was or if there was even anybody. up there we had talked to them it was funny i  remember we had been eating mres for like a month.

and they had like these big pans of nice lasagna  and all kinds of stuff man we're like the freak. man we're over here eating [ __ ] and eating  good we ain't take a bath in like a month. man they were all cleanly bathed so we were  like where are you coming from they're like we. got a safe house just north of here that we're  operating on so we thought you know is there.

was absolutely no guidance you can do go and do  whatever the heck you wanted to you know yeah so. we actually went up to that safe house and it was  like there was a commander sitting in there right. he's sitting on a couch and i remember typical  hodgy house you know it was just concrete with. some rugs and stuff on the ground and uh he's  sitting in this couch and the tv's playing. and the movie that was playing was  tom cruise and cocktails and dreams.

and he's sitting there he looks at us and he  goes what kind of weapons you got we're like. we got 84s at 50k he goes you  got a tripod for that 50 cal. no but we got a 60 and we got a tripod for  that and you know m16s and stuff like that. grenades and claymores he's like well he goes  i want you to get that 60. i want you to get. it up on the roof put a guy up there with him i  want you you got 10 minutes to get on the radio.

call back to your rear and tell them you're  done you're not talking to him for the rest. of the night because we've been df'd and we're  gonna get overrun tonight we're like i was like. i was like what so you it was funny because  he was sitting there like chilled out watching. cocktails and dreams yeah my team leader was uh  he was a corporal e4 but the thing is is he was.

a 35 year old e4 oh and and uh lentz was his name  but lance is like all right so he told the radio. guy to go out there and get contact with these  back to the rear and tell him we were going to. be off the line for a while and uh we got  the 60 up on top and lynch lentz was like. what's the contingency if we get overrun he's  like well and he had a star cluster he goes.

i'm going to take this star cluster i'm  gonna walk up in that yard and i'm gonna. pop it up and everything around here is  gonna light up like the fourth of july. it's like this crap's you can't make this crap off. i guess he had air support yeah and it was all  stacked up ready at his bidding of course we. didn't know any of that you know so that was the  longest freaking night in my life and we sat there. and we got one round that came in and hit like  in the front yard and as soon as the sun came.

up lynch is like get your stuff together we're  out of here and we got it the heck out of there. and we went back down to the city so that night we  positioned ourselves in the city and i remember we. got in one place were you still with the sf team  nope we left we separated ourselves from them okay. because we thought that you know they're going to  bring the heat we don't want to be we don't want.

to be we only got six dudes remember yeah we don't  need no too much heat so we went down to do our. job again re-establish calms with the rear and  set up in this other place another house and i. remember sitting there it was that at night and i  was sitting up there and you know we pulled ships. over watching the city and whatnot and that was  my shift and i looked over and we had a call. sign if we ever saw multiple rocket launchers  going off and you know what they are they're.

the ones with the big box on the back of the  truck yeah they just and uh we had a call sign. or a code word mail call meaning this thing's  coming down south then it's going to hit you. and i'm sitting up on the roof you know  thinking doing whatever i looked off in. the horizon i can see that thing just  going you can't hear it but it's like. and and i was looking at them and they were  coming up and they were coming right at us.

i was like you got to be kidding me so you  know i watched the first like three of them hit. the biggest freaking fireballs i've ever seen  in my life and they were kind of walking in. to where we were and i ran downstairs yelling  you know mail call mail call we got incoming. so we all bunkered down and everything  and uh that was it about three or four. rockets hit like right there in front of us  the building we're in coming down the with.

the we call the main msr the main there was two  msrs that came down out of kuwait and they split. one came down on the east side of  the city and one on the towards. or the west side or the east side by the the ocean  and then one came a little bit more inland on the. on the uh east western side of the city and i  was like wow but anyway that happened that night.

so we called up and told them you know this is  what happened we reported all that and then we. just moved location because we didn't know if  there was an fo in the city or what not people. watching us yeah so we just moved the new location  we sat up and that night is this still the. abandoned city yep so what's it like watching and  i mean was there nobody was there nobody was there. you're just watching nothing we're going in and  out of people's houses damn dude we had nothing. to do that's eerie no really no rule other than  to go up and recon and walk around and survey this.

city yeah we were up there we went into the bank  they had cleaned the bank out did they rate it or. i mean were they no i think the people  took it yeah the people took it that left. you could find we found a little bit of cash  laying around a little bit this or that but. pretty much they took everything out of their  houses and packed it up on their car and left. damn anything of value what's the population of  the city i mean oh i have no idea but it was i was.

looking at it on google maps and uh it's a pretty  good sized city yeah yeah it's pretty good size. and uh there was nobody there damn that's eerie  all there was there was cats cats and dogs. yep and we had full rain we had a we  had a pair of uh bolt cutters that we. referred to as the keys of the city so if we  wanted to get anywhere that was bolt we just.

so there's six of you guys in a small sf team  in this city and that's it pretty much the sf. team was kind of up out of the city okay  and i can show you that on the map we had. another recon team in there but they were kind  of separated from us and this is when it started. so another six people so there's 12 how many sf  guys were there they were totally out of pitcher.

so there's 12 people in this entire damn city  yep 12 americans well what happened was is we had. small arms fire that night a lot of illumination  going up boom boom everything was lit up and. this was just north of the city and we were like  the team leader our co in the back could hear it. i mean they were that close where they could  kind of hear this stuff going on and uh we're. like well we got a lot of illumination going  off we got a lot of small arms fire going.

it's uh we're gonna stay and see what happens  so the team leader said we're going to stay. and then we watched that whole group that was  just north of us all under five tons and they all. evacuated they actually got in a little bit of  a fire fight with them and then evacuated and. left totally out of the city went all the way  down north let's say we're staying so we stayed.

the night went through the whole night a little  bit of small arms fire and i don't know what they. were doing up there you know how arabs like to  shoot up in the air when they win something or. you know whatever they could have very  well been doing that they get excited. yeah you know a couple clips or a couple mags  but anyway so the next morning once again i'm on. i'm on watch again it's 0-6 in  the morning and i hear this noise.

grinding i'm like what the heck i'm like what  the heck so i got the binos up and i'm watching. and i started seeing people walking down  the msr the main msr that came down in. front of us or right to the side of us and  they had a rpg packs on and then i looked. over and i heard more grinding i looked over  to the the east and i started seeing them m1. 111s i believe they are armored personnel carriers  oh [ __ ] i was like dude they're all packed down.

here like gypsies and uh i ran down and let let  you know team leader know and they started getting. on the radio and started reporting and doing all  these reports so how it worked was this lentz. the team leader and the rto would stay down at  the bottom we would observe and then give them. the reports and they were just all reports going  out how many people we had t-55s come down there.

that's an old tank from you know 55 1955. t-55s  come down i think i counted like six of them. then uh we had uh the t-72s come down and then  more and more people came down so after it was. all said and done it was like they they said  there was around 750 to a thousand iraqis in. the city overtook the city and we were in the  middle of it how many about a thousand 750 they.

think they were the six of you well six of us plus  six of us so about 12 of us total and there was uh. uh they believe it was the uh iraqi republican  guard that was coming down through there. to the fight these guys ain't caring  about nothing man they're pretty cool. chilled you know they were just walking down  there of course you know they've been in combat.

too they just got done with fighting iran yeah  you know so it kind of emboldens you a little. bit yeah so they overtook the city and we're  sitting in that building just reporting and uh. once we reported back that the city was overtaken. that's when they started ramping up  the coalition force to come retake it. they weren't going to let any marines come  in there they tried to portray it as a rescue.

mission for us but it's not a rescue mission  if you choose to be there we're not we chose to. stay there to report it wasn't a rescue mission  it was hey let's get these guys the hell out of. here yeah okay they're not supposed to be here so  as they were working their plan up they developed. they put this coalition uh together it  was uh qataris and saudis qataris were.

there because they had tanks and saudis had armor  personnel carriers and stuff like that like labs. and with guns on them and everything like that the  reason the marines weren't allowed in the city and. the marines basically set up all around the city  on the outskirts of it and you know provided fire. but they weren't going to let them in because they  didn't want to level the city they let the marines.

they wanted to they wanted to keep the collateral  damage to a minimum is what they really wanted to. do because if you let the moraine go in their  marines clear buildings with grenades yeah you. know and they would have leveled the whole damn  building there's not going to be any city left. but uh they they uh. they set up this coalition coalition force and  it was mainly guitarist and a couple tanks and uh.

we had cobra helicopters flying around  we had a couple harriers come in. i remember the harriers came in and dropped the  load and then a sagar missile was fired at him. as soon as that are missing this is the  difference as soon as that sagger missile. was fired at a harrier they stopped all  air no more air came in then it just. then it was just cobra sitting on the outskirts  with tow missiles and hellfires and uh.

that was pretty much it for as far as support well  we had artillery and uh 12th marines artillery was. supporting that whole number too herreras never  came back because they shot a sacred missile. i guess they didn't want to lose one i don't  understand that but that's what it was told to me. so i got this fiasco of a coalition together  and my buddy who was in the rear they actually.

put a team together to come up to try to get  us you know to meet us as we were coming out. and it was funny because they get they got  in this line it was the qataris and the tanks. the saudis and the uh lavs or the yeah lebs and  then our guys in the chaplain's humvee because. that's all they could get and their spearhead  in this freaking attack up the freaking road.

the msr atari tank got hit boom blew the freaking  top off it and everybody else went like this and. they were in the momentum and my buddy was spear  spearheading the attack and the chaplain's humvee. with nothing and they actually got up  in the city dude and then dismounted. and started moving starting their fighting yeah  they started moving shooting and communicating. and getting in the city well  the coal issue four said whoa.

and it was kind of comical because  you hear all this over the radio. i remember my buddy somebody come across the  radio and uh the coalition was actually being. led by an sf guy who i still remember his call  sign was coyote and it was a major an sf major. was orchestrating these coalition folks to get  up there and clear the city and his name was.

coyote and somebody got on the radio and said  hey coyote is it okay if i throw this grenade. coyote come across you hear this  on the radio and he goes i don't. give a [ __ ] what you do do whatever you want. but off in the distance you  could hear that grenade go off. and it all hell broke loose oh [ __ ].

it was it was funny and then they were like hey  where the hell are you you can hear him moving and. communicating they're like on the radio and he's  like one of the guys goes what's your location man. we need to know where you are where your  location is and he's he's looking around he's. you hear him on the radio and you can just  visualize this and he says he goes i don't. know where the hell i am but it looks like  every cat and kafty took a [ __ ] in here. and then all hell breaks loose you know  because somebody throws another grenade and.

they're just moving moving towards us but  they never they finally got stopped and. they never got to us but just the comical  crap that was happening during this whole. yeah this whole endeavor it was funny but  they finally got the coalition together. a couple things that happened during this whole  process the other team that was more to the.

western side of that the city actually  called an artillery strike on top of us. and if you ever heard an artillery round go off  over your damn head it's probably the loudest. thing i've ever heard in my life it was time  fused so it you know exploded in the air and then. through machete rounds or whatever it was all  over and you know just for personnel basically. well that happened that popped all the tires  in our vehicles and a couple holes in the gas.

tanks and stuff like that so we're screwed there  kind of sorta and uh we had one guy and i don't. know why he never said anything but there was one  dude that was sitting in the building next to us. and he was actually shooting at us but  he never told anybody else it was weird. you know what do you mean you mean one guy  i saw an iraqi shooting at you we saw him.

in the building next to us and he was just like  peeking and he would shoot and that would be it. then a little later he would  shoot and then he would go down. and we don't come figure that one  out well did you did you shoot him no. we didn't we didn't do it we didn't respond to  him because we didn't want anybody to know us we. had a btr-50 oh you didn't know if he actually saw  you or not you thought he was well he was shooting.

at us so yeah the thing the the weird part is is  why didn't he call in reinforcements and give him. a location away he never did but we had it and  here's that at4 comes in play we had a uh btr50. roll right in front of our paws  right in front of our position. and they're all sitting up out of the turrets  and everything they were close enough we can. see their faces and everything and me and my  buddy were sitting up in this small little room.

with that at4 locked and cocked safety pin out  getting ready to put this round through if they. had saw us and they drove right by never once  looked up in there and today i even think about. it i'm glad we didn't shoot that thing because  it would have blew our freaking eardrums out. of our our heads because after later in  life i've gotten a chance to shoot an at4. and uh you don't want to shoot an at4 off with  no earring protections and a little concrete room.

it would have we would have come out of  there bleeding put it that way you know. but uh for some reason this guy never shot so as  it progressed we met we were in there for 40 hours. roughly about 40 hours behind totally surrounded  by the iraqis and uh finally the coalition had. made it a corridor in which we were able to  drive out and i got pictures of that vehicle but.

all our tires were blown out no doors all  soft-skinned vehicles and we drove out. right around all these iraqis and they never  shot at us never saw us and we went right out. popped right out and that was that damn and that  was there was 40 hours of that [ __ ] 40 hours.

what about the other team the  other team had a little bit. more closer call they actually one of the  guys brown as his name got hit friendly fire. got some shrapnel in his leg he  actually got a purple heart out of it um. i don't know if you knew sterling sterling was  over there and uh he was the rto but they had. people iraqis actually in the building same  building as they were in and they could hear them.

coming up they actually burnt all their crypto  yeah back then we had cac sheets and everything. crypto wise yeah and they burned it all  destroyed it all and they're ready to go. you know fist the cuffs but they never happened  you know this guy over here when we when we pulled. out we shot a saw and about uh two 203 grenades up  into that building to cover our our uh expo there.

and uh nothing ever happened we don't know whether  he we got he we got him or what it just went away. yeah well i mean that happens a lot you know  you get an engagement you don't go you don't. go looking don't always go back to uh check and  see how many bodies are laying there but you know. or if any at all it was quite the event about  40 hours worth and uh our contingency was if.

we didn't get out that night we were gonna walk  out because we were relying on saudis you know. so we're gonna the contingency was hey listen  if we don't if they don't make a corridor for. us to get out of here tonight we're just gonna go  ahead and drop this stuff and uh we're gonna walk. out through the wadi and uh sneak out because  you know we owned the night we had the mvgs. we had was was crap but yeah it was better than  what they had they didn't have nothing you know.

crap to compare to you know what we have now but  oh yeah what was it was it like the two to ones. it was a a box and i think they finally gave us  we started out with the box ones with two two uh. uh lenses and then they they  finally got us to one lens. but it was the first generation yeah  and that first generation you can. see nothing man there's nothing i've never looked  through them yeah i don't have that wall but.

you know we've been up there working and like i  said the reason i got on cnn after we got back to. the rear had some launch was the weeks prior that  we were up in there we actually had a wireman on. our team and he wired a bunch of phones up on this  abandoned city and we all made collect calls home.

so my mom knew i was in that city oh [ __ ] and  then the next thing she sees is the city's overrun. you know and back then it was sma snail mail you  had to write a letter and she might have got it. in two months yeah you know so the quickest way i  could get the word back that i was all right and. she was going nuts by the way both my parents  were going nuts so you called your parents and. your your radio men wired the phone so that  you could make a collect call back to new york.

to tell them hey we're in kafki we're in  kopchi and they flipped the news on and. kafki's being overrun by the iraqi army which is  the fourth largest army in the world at that time. holy [ __ ] yeah so the quickest way to  get the news to her that i was all right. was to get on this tv guy which happened to be cnn  damn and let him all know that i was still alive.

we focus first on the battle for the saudi border  town of kochi it was captured by the iraqis. on tuesday and retaken by a combination  of arab and american units early today. some fighting continues on  the outskirts of the town.

located near the saudi arabian border with kuwait  we get a pool report filed today by brad willis. it is shortly after eight o'clock friday morning. february the first although the saudis claimed  overnight that they have reclaimed the city. we are seeing a number of armored personnel  carriers and saudi tanks rolling into the city. we have heard some loud explosions and sporadic  small weapons fire clearly there is still some.

resistance some sniper fire and some heavy  iraqi weapons still doing battle in kochi. and during the height of the battle these  marines were trapped for 48 hours inside. kochi on a reconnaissance mission  today they feel lucky to be alive. tell me what it was like for you being pinned  down for two days during the battle precaution.

yeah pretty scary didn't know  whether i'd make it or not. uh all kinds of stuff going through your  mind you know what to do try to keep your. head keep a level head you know remember  you got a mission complete permission. do your job basically what  kind of fire did you come under. a heavy machine gun a lot  of tone missiles going by uh.

that's heavy small arm sniper fire  yeah we took a sniper fire yesterday. or not this morning was there a time you  thought that you were going to lose your life. oh yeah pandemonium damn well  let's take a quick break okay.

so. all right we're back from the break we  had one more up i call it the last stop.

but you this opt helped end the war pretty much i  think in my opinion it did um so there's this big. stink during the entire war about these defensive  belts right where were they they were mine fields. that were laid out and saddam hussein was trying  to prevent anybody from rolling up in there. so what they did was is they sent  up b-52s and they did arc like. daisy cutters it's a big huge bomb  that they roll out the back end of it.

and it kind of creates a crater so to speak a  lane so they wanted to know where these lanes were. they didn't know exactly where they were so they  sent us this is our pretty much i guess our last. our last mission in the whole war and  uh it was like a 15 click movement. patrol on foot we went up on foot we carried  rucksacks or probably weighed about a hundred.

pounds burlap we were going to go up on the first  defensive belt recon it find the hole that this. daisy cutter made and then go ahead and mark it  and then bring the troops up there so they could. all go through it same six guys you're welcome  six guys we got up there there was actually two. teams again except this was another team besides  the one that was in kofti so we got up there we. it was a patrol from hell man because i was a  point man we had them crappy nods we had found.

earlier a cachet of uh tow poppers you know  tow popper is a small mine like this is for. for a guy to step on and blow his foot off yeah  they spread them things all over the place too. so we had found a cache of that earlier and  so we were real leery about this taupe hopper. so as we're walking up patrolling i'm the  point man looking for these things plus. scanning the horizon and everything and we had  to do a lot of stopping and the reason being is.

they like to crush their coke cans and then leave  them out in the desert and they're about that big. oh man and they look like toe poppers so it's  like we got something up here and this just. kept on going and going so we finally got  up there just before the sun was coming up. and the whole plan was to take this burlap that  we just carried for 15 plus whatever clicks to dig.

holes hide sites put the burlap over and uh hide  and just sit there and observe and recount the. the horizon and once it got dark we're  gonna go up there and recount for this. uh breaking the defensive belt well we got up  there and started digging holes and guess what. when you turn sand over that's been hot and cold  hot and cold it starts to turn colors so it wasn't. the same damn color as when we dug it up and we  would all stick like stuck out like sore thumbs.

yeah so we just happened to find a bomb crater  and i got a picture of that for you over there. a bomb crater probably about 15 feet deep dude  and we all got down in this bomb crater with. our burlap over us and we hugged the sides of  this this bomb crater and just put one dude. up and paint paint over the top you know  and did the pulled security i guess and uh. later that night we went out we found  the first defensive belt we found the.

minefields and we found the the cut to the. and the belt and uh annotated that and everything  was going pretty smooth everything no problem. we were to the point where we were like relaxing  now so we're all in this bomb crater sleeping. you know hanging out eating mres or whatnot you  know just hanging out well a fast mover came in.

for some reason dropped a 500 pound bomb a bomb on  us right over next to us and the shrapnel went all. along the edge of that freaking bomb crater dude  i had it landing like right here next to my head. yeah and it was someone or nobody got killed i  mean it was like what in the world well the rear. heard that and freaked out so they freaked out  they came up they pulled us out of there we got.

back team showed him on the map where the cut was  they said all right they passed that to the rear. everybody got on trucks and went through that that  cut and the defensive belt the next thing we know. we were in kuwait international damn and that was  it i'd like to highlight what coupe just told us. because it's a significant event and his humility  didn't do this event any justice so basically.

kuwait and saudi arabia the border was one huge  minefield with only a few routes in and out which. nobody knew the routes basically what happened  is the mission that coop was on with his unit. they found one of the only routes into kuwait  from the saudi border which in turn as soon as. they found that route u.s troops were able to take  that route and get into kuwait which basically led. to the end of the war so what i'm telling you is  the mission success that his unit and him found.

led to the end of the war that's pretty  significant now let's get back to the show. yep that was it for us everything they were  all pushed out iraq or kuwait international was. completely a ghost town no iraqis no nothing dude  wow it was that was it that quick we went through. the all-white oil fields you know where all the  burning is burning oil fields were going on the.

iraqis were actually lighting them on fire as they  were retreating and we went through all that stuff. we got up to kuwait international and that was  it damn we stayed there like for two days two. or three days and uh got on trucks and went  back south and staged and got ready to leave. it went that quick i think the reason the war  went that quick is because it was well planned.

and well organized really schwarzkopf had it  had his [ __ ] together as far as i'm concerned. yeah you can get there with all your critics and  whatnot but the damn thing was over in 100 hours. we bombed the living daylights out of them so bad  that they didn't want to fight man the the they. bombed the fight out of them they wanted to go  home they didn't want anything to do with this and. then pows were coming down like 50 100 150 at  you know little sections with your white flags.

who was considered a pow was that the iraqis  iraqi army they were just i quit they were quit. threw their guns down had white flags and they  were going south there were so many of them we. couldn't even we couldn't take any of them  we just tell them to keep walking south man. yeah no room for them so it was it was good it was  over i guess it makes sense i mean it's you know. they said when i was researching the war it said  uh you know 88 500 tons of ordinance got dropped.

and yeah 18 000 air missions we sat there in tents  for like a month i think before we even went out. yeah and why they when you can hear them  bomb the living daylights out of them. arc lights all over the horizon at night all you  saw was boom boom boom boom this went out for. what a month maybe more yeah before we were even  actually moved out to go do anything well do you.

know what were they bombing all their sights their  bot their uh tanks and all that it was along the. border they had a big trench line up there on  the border too yeah okay they're just hitting. all their key spots and hitting their  tanks there were some tank battles up. up on the eastern side i believe the army was  actually engaged in tanks and stuff like that. they had an entire fleet out in the ocean out in  the gulf and my buddy was on there he was in the.

marine corps he was a toe gunner but he sat on  that ship the entire time and at the end of the. war schwartzkopf said i never planned on using  them they were nothing more than a diversion. you know how'd you like that sit out  there forever and just be a diversion. yeah that would suck true grit wood designs  is a culmination of taking wood and art. and combine them together to make functional art.

we make various items we make cutting boards we  would make butcher black boards we make serving. trays we enhance things with epoxy and laser  engraving to personalize it for you we also. use various types of woods in conjunction  together to make you a beautiful product. you came back from from operation desert  storm and you left the marine corps yep i.

did about three more years in the marine corps  i did a six total of six years in the marine. corps continued on in recon did some great  stuff you know i went to the island at tonga. the country it's actually the country of tonga we  helped them set up their military they used to be. the tongan national guard but they changed it to  the tonga marine corps we helped them set up their. little operation out there i went to dive school  jump school mountain leaders course you know went.

to a bunch of schools had a good time and whatnot  why'd you leave oh you know i got disgruntled. my i think the problem my problem for leaving  out of the marine corps i would stayed in. if i had left hawaii i did the whole five  and a half years basically in hawaii yeah. i think if i left i probably would have stayed in. but i got a little disgruntled it happens and  i said okay i'm out yeah i get it i mean um.

so he left i actually talked to your dad  a little bit did some research he started. working for remington arms for like six months  he couldn't handle it you couldn't handle that. transition you said i got to get the hell out  of here and then you joined the army did you. know you wanted to be a green beret when you  joined the army or well yep this is the thing. when i was out of the marine corps about a month  i knew i made a mistake i was like damn it man.

you know it's been in me since i was a kid so  once i got out i was like this is a big mistake. so i actually lived in montana for a  while because uh uh ex-wife of mine i. lived out there with her but anyway i called  it the navy i said hey i want to go navy seal. i said we're not taking any prior uh military  what year was this that would have been 90 94.

there's they weren't taking any prior military  so i said all right damn it they go well we can. put you on a list but i said how long is the  list going to be they said about two years. i said i can't wait two years so i called up the  air force i said hey i want to go pj i want to be. a pararescue guy they said we're not taking any  prior military at all period and i was like well. i know the army will take anybody.

now keep in mind i was i'm still got the  marine mindset and marine hated the army. back then so i was like all right the army  will take anybody but i had a lot of buddies. that transitioned from the marine corps and went  straight sf because they had a program called the. sf baby program i forgot what the designation  was but they were going that route so i said. i'll do that i called him up and i said hey i  want to go join the army he said come on down.

sign the paperwork i said i want to go sf he  said you can't i said well my buddies did he. said well they did away with that program i  said okay so what are you going to give me. they go we're going to give you the infantry 11  bravo i said all right what's that infantry okay. then he goes you can choose where you want  to go you can go to korea italy or fort bragg. north carolina i said where's sf at they said  fort bragg i said i'm going there i'll go there.

i've never been in a line unit dude i heard horror  stories about him i'm like you got to be kidding. so i was dreading this [ __ ] so i got down there  they got a thing called replacement so you go. there you get placed to what unit and i showed  up dude i had long hair no uniforms no nothing. that guy looked at me and i gave him my folder  my stuff and he looked at it and he goes.

you want to go to lurce which is a long-range  surveillance basically recon because i had trained. some nurse guys from hawaii on him on uh scout  swimming techniques and stuff and i was like damn. yeah i want to go to lars he took me over there  introduced me to the commander commander goes. you want to go to ranger school i said nope  he looked at me he goes well you ain't coming. here if you don't want to go to ranger school  i said well i guess i'm going to ranger school.

he goes go get a haircut and get some uniforms  and report back so that got me out of that line. unit crap so lurce long-range surveillance  is considered a stepping stone for sf okay. i had to do a couple years in regular army  before they would allow me to go sf so what. better place to go to lures lurch worked out great  i went to ranger school i went to halo school.

um and some other stupid schools and once  i gave him the time back for halo school. i said i'm going sf and i  went to selection in 1999. sf selection how did sf selection compare to  in the training and the training compared to uh. what you're doing sf selection believe it or not  was the hardest thing i ever did really yup i.

went totally unprepared out of shape i said this  is what i'm doing this is why i came in the army. said i'm gonna do it and i went and did it and  it was and it was the old selection process i. don't know what the new one they had a new one  after i a few years after i was in and they keep. changing it up but it was definitely an ass  kicker man when they said this song you know. 100 men will train today and only three will  win the green beret it's true i watched dudes.

follow the wayside how did how did it kick off  well first thing it's 21 days the first the first. few days is admin days they give you classes and  whatnot what they're doing is in my opinion was. they're trying to wear you out because  you only got a couple hours of sleep. you know let me uh i just want to explain  something to the audience sf training.

is not 21 days you go through selection  to be picked to go to sf training. that's what's 21 days 21 days so it's  a three week course ass kicker course. in hopes that you get selected to then go to the  next to training to become a green beret right. okay i just wanted to clarify that so what  they do is they give you a bunch of classes. they give you classes on land navigation land  navigation back when i went through i don't.

know if it is yet i can't speak for the guys  now but was real heavy so you got to figure. the way they run it is you got a 65 pound rock  sack on your back the entire time that's minus. water and food you go everywhere with it every  event is done with it everything and you do this. land navigation course which is called the star  course basic land nap and i believe if you coma.

if you added all the distance up you did you do  night and day it's probably about 12 miles a day. in distances and you do that i think for like  five days five six days we were doing that. and then you know they break it up with obstacle  courses and other stuff like that during out the. process and then you have what you call  team week which is pretty much the last.

during the last week and that's basically problem  solving you working as a team they do different. events every day is a new event and once again you  got that 65-pound rucksack on you and you're doing. like they'll give you a jeep with tires  missing on it you have to move it 12 clicks. oh [ __ ] so they give you a jeep with missing  tires and a couple poles and some lashings. you guys figure it out and you're pretty much  picking a damn thing up and walking 12 clicks.

with it that's one event another event was like  sand babies so they had this i believe it was like. an old rifle range but they had berms all the way  down through it so it was like this and uh you had. to get so many sandbags down there like they had  100 sandbags you got to fill the sandbags put them. on your 65 pound rucksack carrying 300 yards or  300 meters over drop them off come back get more.

and it's an event you got to do i don't know  whether i don't remember if it was timed or not. but holy cow you want to talk about your back  doing this dude i wonder i can't walk yeah i. got back problems you know so that was one and  then they had a bunch of different events like. the sandman they had a sea bag full of sand  and they gave you steel pipes that were solid. they're almost solid steel pipes that were like 12  foot long that probably weighed 150 pounds within.

themselves so you figure a 500 pound sea bag with  all these there was like four and plus you got. your 65 pound rucksack you got it sitting on the  back and you're walking 12 clicks with this thing. you got that and pales of pain pills of  pain they give you pails with holes in them. they got two versions of it ones with sand ones  with water we got the joy of having one with water.

so you know pals with holes in them don't hold  water for long yeah so you have to carry this. fill these paddles up at the bottom of this hill  with straight in the stream and then walk up this. freaking you know 75 yard straight up freaking  hill and then dump them in this bucket you got to. fill this freaking 50 gallon brown up with holes  in you got to do it all fast the thing i remember. that that sucked for me bad because i don't have  a big gate long gate and they put the they grabbed.

the tallest dude he was like six something and put  him up front and you gotta stay with him and he's. they tell him to set the pace and they're up  there whispering in this here the whole time going. you better you better go faster we're going  to drop if you don't start moving out and he's. moving out now that smart individual  would say i'm going as fast as i can. and that buddy [ __ ] up behind him but this  dude didn't dude about about kill me but.

anyway there was a bunch of events in the last  event the whole process is a 26 mile road march. fourth time of course they don't tell you what the  time is on it you just go do it and it's with that. 65 pound rock sack plus you got to  put all your water and your food to. last you however long it does so i did this 26  miles i seen i seen dudes dude with broken feet.

yeah i'm trying to get do this all this is a gut  check they just want to see how you're going to do. if you're going to fail if you're going to whine  or whatever i think i did it like seven hours but. this dude had broken feet they just pulled him out  he made it because they just wanted to check they. got a little bit of compassion over there you know  but he made it so i finished that it was 26 miles. um then they sit out there and start playing more  mind games with you and they put you in this group.

and they call your names off and tell you all to  go over here everybody i call your name you go. over here and you know typical mind games and then  they made this crew go all the way over here so. we can hear them and they're making it seem like  we're the failures but we were actually the guys. that made it so out of a literally i'm telling  you hundreds of dudes there 60 something made it.

and uh unbelievable it was hard training  hard hard good trick dirt gut check for me. let's take a quick break and uh when we  come back we'll talk about what you're. doing when you got your team and and uh what  those asian deployments were like all right.

so we just wrapped up selection would it after  selection you show up to your team right nope. no no after selection you now start your mos  training okay so i was an 18 bravo weapon sergeant. so that's that training was a few months uh let's  see we started in april and ended in november.

so whatever that is did you know what team you  were going to i knew a group i was going to go. to i know i was going to first group you find  that out after after you graduate i graduated on. the november 20th 2000 is when i graduated the  course the bravo course after the bravo course.

you now go into a language school in  language school depending on your language. is between four and six months my language was  indonesian um so you do the four months of that. there was a four-month training of everyday uh  language school after that you go to seer school. and get your ass kicked so that was three  weeks long i believe it was three weeks yeah. three two or yeah three weeks long three weeks  to see your school which is an excellent school.

it sucks all the way up and it's  not excellent until the last day. the last day is when you figure out sir  school and everything that happens uh. how everything works you know i never i never went  to see her school no so let's let's go into that. real quick so senior school stout starts out with  the first week is class work and how to survive.

um you go over uh history on individuals like  nick rowe necro was a green brewery in vietnam. that was in uh a pow for like five years you go  over his stuff you go over different techniques of. how to tell a story and how to  manipulate and try to get them off of. what you're actually doing so you got that for  the first week the second week is like survival.

stuff like how to kill a rabbit how to skin it  uh stuff like that third week you go on a mission. so your mission is blah blah blah whatever you're  going to go out and do it they break you up into. like a 12-man team you go out and do it you  end up becoming into a survival situation so. they don't feed you or nothing during this entire  week you're basically living off the land whatever. you can find like we found a deer head and ate it  and then we found snakes and rabbits and ate them.

we robbed somebody's garden with green  tomatoes and we fried them up and had fried. fried green tomatoes we ate those you know some  guys got lucky and got came across a pig farm and. pulled a pig out of there and ate that so the like  i forget how many days was surviving off the land. and then they put you on an any corridor so you're  e in now d e is uh escape innovation escaping.

so the enemy is on your ass so you're gonna get  caught so we got caught they put hoods over our. heads threw us on the freaking uh truck took us  to a compound uh stripped us down naked everything. goes there they do not give to you think oh they  ain't gonna do that [ __ ] they're gonna do it. they smack the living they laid daylights  out of me you standing there naked. and they got a girl down there they don't  give two craps man you're sitting there with.

your schlong hanging out and she's right  there looking at it even making fun of you. yeah they don't care you think  they're gonna pull punches they ain't. racism they don't care they'll  call you any name if you're that. you're that you know they call you  that whatever they just constantly. trying to manipulate you and get you all to  fight amongst each other is what they're doing.

and that's about three days so you don't eat  you don't sleep you're a pow in a in a jail cell. they let you out to do yard work and chores  and stuff like that and during this whole. process of while you're doing that they'll  pull individuals out and put them in a cell. to interrogate so during the interrogation this  is where you're trying to do the things that you.

learned in the first week how to you know you deny  everything you know you make counter accusations. you admit to nothing you come up with a  story that kind of goes along and you fight. it and they are allowed to hit you i never  been smacked by a woman so hard in my life. for laughing i smiled and  she just kicked a little crap. because one of the guys was in a cell and  one of the instructors you know they talk.

and they're like hey you you the you mr  green beret you go over there and get me. captain we had one captain they know who you are  they go he goes i want pilot captain because there. are some aviation guys in there and uh i went over  there and i knew who the captain was and i go hey. he wants a captain they're all looking at me  smiling because there was a few captains over. there but there was only one pilot and i go  he wants a pilot and the dude's face dropped.

and i started laughing nude she saw me laughing  she come the hell out of there and just smack the. living daylights out of me but anyway they will  smack the [ __ ] out of you they will give you a. black eye and uh it ain't no joke so that's like  three days of ass beatens they got light cells. and heart cells and you have to pass these a light  cell is a guy going welcome welcome sit down relax.

take it easy would you like some cookies you  ain't eating in you know four or five days. would you like some food a lot of guys will  say i ain't eating that because they think. their buddies are starving so they're all a team  so he's going to start well they don't teach it. if they offer you food eat it it's better than  you than it is being wasted so that's a soft sell. and then the hard sell is i get you in there they  tie you up and they smack you around a little bit.

they punch in the gut a little bit and stuff  like that and they try to get you to answer the. question the hardest cell to defeat the  hardest interrogator is a soft cell guy. there was a guy in world war ii a german i believe  he was a german interrogator he could get anything. out of every anybody and he never once hit him  or mistreated them no [ __ ] because once you. establish rapport with that individual and you're  nice they loosen up and they're willing to talk.

now it may take time but if you're continually  nice to that individual they'll tell you anything. and everything you want to know so the soft  cell is the one you want to you don't learn. this until after the course so the soft cell  is the hardest one that's why you're going to. interrogation i've been to an interrogation school  that the cops go to and you got to be nice you got.

to get all off and nice and sympathize with  the individual and become part of their world. you know and just don't worry i understand why  you murdered and raped in three women you know. they were they were definitely in the wrong and  you just start talking to them like that and. the next thing you know this dude's opening up  here you know so they teach you all this stuff. and uh you have to pass they're in there  actually grading you and if you don't pass.

you keep going in you keep going in and i  was a little bit thick headed on the softs. on the hard cell and he goes listen dude and  he stopped for a minute and he goes listen dude. you need to put more fake  in it or something like that. so i was like oh and i started acting like i  was being beat and stuff and they took me out. they got a pond out there they call it the  people's pond and he drugged me out there. and started dunking me under the water  and this and that and you know it was.

and uh we got through that it was but the thing  is is the school is very informative it teaches. you how to do that to uh avoid answering questions  how to come up like my my deal was i had a marine. corps tattoo so i was automatically a private  a truck driver from the marine corps and i knew. absolutely nothing and they bought it they went  with it because that's the only pretty much the. only tattoos i had at the time and they they ran  with it and they they actually see they don't know.

everything about you but they do know mostly  about you and he actually thought i was in a. marine corps at the time and i was just there  going through training and on his mind but i. was actually an sf guy would and what not some  guys break down i've seen guys break down and. they went loopy and the guy had to pull out stop  the training pull out his card and say i'm staff. sergeant so and so you're in the united states  army and you're here do you know who i am oh. [ __ ] yeah it'll get to some dudes one guy gave  up everything he says yep he's an sf dude he's.

he's an e uh e6 he's an 18 bravo and he speaks  this language needless to say that dude didn't. wasn't very well liked after he did yeah even. even when the instructors they were pissed  off at him for breaking that fast but uh. after the whole thing's done with that's  when you sit back and you look at it and you. and you learn from it it was just phenomenal  and the things you see the unfortunate thing is.

these terrorists aren't gonna give a [ __ ]  yeah you know you're you're going down there. with your head locked off yeah conventional  forces like the iraq fighting saddam hussein. you got a chance and we did have prisoners of war  during that if you remember bravo 2-0 they got out. they finally got out they invaded they all died of  cancer i think from drinking some chemical water. but they all made it through there um there was  a female girl that became a terror or became.

pow that we actually think we saw them put her  in a armor-personal carrier and take her north. it was the one female if you researched  that you'll see it happened sometime during. the battle of kapchi and we believe we  did witness that taking her up there. um that stuff will work she came back  you know you go up there of course they. weren't sear trained but you have a chance of  surviving when you're dealing with that type of.

force these animals now and these savages no  they ain't gonna care man so is it obsolete. maybe maybe not they're looking to make an  example out of us now oh yeah you know they. want the press they want they want it as graphic  as possible yep but but yeah well so once your. school's over with then you uh pop over to  your group whatever group it is you go to. and you get assigned a team so you went to first  group first group and then you started deploying.

yep you deployed primarily to asia southeast asia  yep my first team i was on what was considered an. asot team an advance special operation technique  team it's basically secret scroll stuff like. we did in the agency or the case officers do  kind of sort of like that you set up sdrs drops. stuff like that they teach you all that  and uh my first trip was to nepal kathmandu.

and uh we were there training a  military decision-making process. because at that time kathmandu or nepal was  having issues with a terrorist organization. called the maoists yep the maoist  and uh this was during after 9 11 so.

every country that had issues with  somebody else labeled them as a terrorist. they got u.s funding to fight those terrorists  and with that u.s funding comes united states. special forces and we go in there and we  train them so we went my first trip was nepal.

we went ahead and trained the nepalese army  on military decision making process on how to. locate the mouse and plan attacks and stuff like  that that was that was about five weeks every. trip we did was about five weeks long  oh no kidding so you would deploy for. oh yeah we were there for a month and then you  were back home yep what's the deployment cycle. then it's what's that that's different than normal  isn't it i mean oh yeah in the seal teams it's.

six months nine months you know we did like jsets  are referred to as jsets joint operation training. with joint countries or friendly  countries i forget what the. actual acronym stands for but basically  jsets we went on and they were roughly. between three and five weeks okay and uh you  go out there it took a signature from the uh.

rumsfeld was at the time when i was going so the  secretary of defense he signs off on it and then. we punch out into it so real world stuff it's  just not combat yeah yeah where where else did. you do so i've been there i've been to thailand  thailand we go to thailand we we were doing a lot. of training with the uh fbi dea border patrol type  people and what we were doing is they had a uh.

trouble with narcotics coming across the border  out of burma so what kind of narcotics uh. opium opium it was opium coming up out of  burma and the golden triangle up there and. everybody knows that narcotics is a one of  the money makers for terrorist organizations. so we were up there we trained them i would train  them tactics and shooting skills and stuff like.

that and medical they always wanted medical and  tactics um working we worked a little alongside. with the american dea because the american  dea is over there also to assist them in in. trying to stop the flow of narcotics coming into  thailand some countries over there are like here. as far as uh tolerance for narcotics malaysia and  thailand you get caught with narcotics you're dead.

malaysia was publicly hanging yet no [ __ ]  yeah is it still like that to this day probably. they don't mess around what year  was that uh 94 being 90 93 94 when i. or not not 2003 2004 time frame  wrong decade yeah no kidding. somewhere around there 2004 or  five i've been up there 2006.

um thailand i've been to thailand probably about  five times we actually did one mission there that. lasted three months oh really yeah and that was  working with the border patrol cats and you went. to the pi too we've been to the pi i've been to  minnie now minnie now is a prominently muslim. island in the philippines and uh we were working  with the dea their equivalent dea and fbi on. uh once again terrorists counter-terrorist  operations because we have philippines got.

j.i coming up out of indonesia and the milf which  is more of a anti-government type organization or. they were and i'm talking back then i don't  know what current events is right now on that. but at that time that's what we were doing we were  training them to handle them and we've had teams. even go further down into the pi at holo which  is an island even further closer to indonesian.

where they were actively the philippines were  actually actively engaged with these terrorists. so they would fight them at night and they had  some pretty good fire fights from what i heard. philippines is actually a third area  of the global war on terror so you had. iraq afghanistan and a lot of people  don't know that we had the philippines. that's the number three number three it's not as  bad as iraq and afghanistan but it it is still.

matter of fact a lot of these terrorists  out of afghanistan they found in thailand. so we were there basically to help  them we actually had a guy killed. in minden now we had a there was a small cafe  outside the little base that we stayed on. that uh a motorcycle dude on a motorcycle had it  packed full of explosives parked outside of that. little cafe and touched it off and killed  one of our guys and wounded the captain.

yeah came back yeah so there was there was a  little activity down there and it's a joint. joint effort down there too the marine corps  is down there and the navy is down there too. i don't know what group seal group it was but  yeah yeah they're down there too everybody's. operating you know the west coast guys uh  work that area i don't remember which team. but you know it's the west coast yeah it was over  there although that's all changed now everybody.

yeah once the war kicked off they kind of uh  restructured everything and uh all the specific. areas that different teams went  to kind of just it all went away. but yeah yeah so philippines hot we  actually have been to uh sri lanka. sri lanka is a big island huge island  matter of fact right off the coast of india.

and their issue they were having problems  with an organization called the tamel tigers. smell tigers have since been demolished  killed but we were there doing a medcap. teaching them how to keep their people uh alive  until they could get to the hospital because it. was a jungle warfare they'd have a wounded guy  they couldn't get the guy back to the hospital. for like three or four days so the whole con the  whole idea was for us to go there and teach them.

you know we did live tissue and stuff like that  to teach them how to keep an individual alive. for at least three to four days so they can get  them to a hospital get them the proper treatment. that was actually a pretty good trip live  have you ever done live tissue training yeah. several times yeah it's excellent training  i think i've done like three or four times. but it's very beneficial especially if you're  working in that type of job i mean you kind of.

made it's awesome yeah well i really enjoyed it  yeah i know i mean it's you know it's as real. as it gets without actually doing the real  thing yeah and you learn a lot i mean a lot. we had a guy there he was a uh sri lankan and we  were given a class about for the chess tube right. we're like simulating we have a you know a  guy pretend he was shot and he lays on the.

ground and he's going uh the guy next  to him was sitting next to me he goes. i think what happens you don't do that i go yeah  he goes yeah he pulled up his shirt he had been. stitched up the side with an ak-47 and he had  three holes in him and he goes i didn't do that. it's like all right dude i guess you're the  authority on that one because i've never been shot. but yeah i mean it was it was awesome i  mean i learned so much hanging out with.

different folks i really enjoyed being with  these indige throughout the world malaysia. i went down to malaysia we asked you did a  joint operation that consisted of malaysia. australia in guam saipan and what it was  is a culmination of different organizations. both american and foreign and we were looking  for a dirty bomb they actually actually brought.

in dietrich have you ever heard of dietrich no  i haven't they're a u.s organization that has uh. nuclear sniffers they can they got things set  up you never you go down the highway and you. see them things where the trucks pass under and  this and some of those are actually i believe. looking for nuclear weapons nuclear material  possibly coming through they got them in airports. they got them everywhere they fly around in a  helicopter in new york city with them especially.

after 9 11. yeah but these folks they actually  had sniffers and they allowed us to use them. and they uh had a small piece of nuclear material  that an individual is carrying around and. i think we actually got him in uh saipan is where  we actually but we went through malaysia you know. all around australia it was a good time yeah  how long that was like an eight month deployment.

eight months philippines all over oh so you  just bounced around yeah we bounced all around. looking for this dirty bomb it was a whole  scenario that's awesome and you guys got them. yeah we got them in uh saipan i think it  was saipan or guam but we had both the. asap team which was the advanced special operation  techniques the secret dudes you know that's a team.

i was on it was all plain clothes i'm telling  you the equipment we had back there was junk. i mean you had a radio you know what a prick  68 was yeah big freaking thing like this. split up and it had a connector and we had that  on us we were down there walking through the. australian zoo with all this junk earpieces in you  know it's just what we had yeah you know and uh.

walking all around looking for this dirty bomb  and doing little meets with people individuals. of course it was scenario driven you know  it was like it was good training good time. i didn't realize that uh asap program was that  was developing you know the navy seals tried to. get into it they did did they get into it oh yeah  i heard they were trying to get into it yeah but. yeah it's a pretty good program i went through the  broken axle part of it which was uh preliminary.

to see if you were you know had what it took  to go yeah and i was like i went through it. i passed everything and they said we're gonna  recommend you to go to the level three which. is three months long dude yeah and i just got  the group and i was like i don't want to go. i said they were ticked up they was like all  right two months later i was on a halo team. so i spent my time on a halo team my remaining  10 years on a halo team oh run on yeah no i was.

they started that man when i don't know what  year they started it but i heard about it maybe. 04 time frame yeah that's about right is when  we started when i started hearing about it in. the teams and then and then i was gonna go we did  uh we did a course with the british mi with some. former mi6 guys which was actually a really it was  one of my favorite courses uh that i've ever done.

never fired a shot never blew anything up but  it was all about you know blending in and and uh. and it was some of the coolest [ __ ] i've  ever done winding up on the i don't know 18th. 20th story bank of america building nobody  knows who the hell you are it's just what. can you infiltrate yourself into and without  you know being detected what happens when you.

get questioned how do you handle all that i  really [ __ ] liked that course and then um. and uh whatever i'm getting long-winded but then  i was supposed to go to the i was supposed to go. they picked me to go to some course  at uh mi6 oh yeah yeah and then. and then i got yanked and uh went to went  to war one to afghanistan so that's too bad.

now that i think about it i we actually had  seals in my my broken axle class oh really yep. we did yeah guys i don't know looking back  you know if i would have uh i mean because. i would have given up a lot of combat  experience had i wound up going to. that course and then eventually getting into  the asap thing uh so i don't necessarily uh.

regret it or anything like that yeah i mean  but it was really it was just so different than. blowing [ __ ] up and shooting and shooting move  communicate going in the kill house doing close. quarters combat battle you know what i mean taking  houses down and and then you're doing something. that's really permissive and blending in and it  was like that was the james bond [ __ ] of the. you know what i mean it was pretty [ __ ] guys use  that a lot and there was a guy i went through the. q course with that actually went delta force and  they used that a lot over there and he actually.

dressed up like hodge yeah got on a bike and drove  through fallujah on a bike and his dark complexion. with a beard and everything and mapped out all the  positions they had already set up in fallujah and. went back and reported and then went in there and  tacked them all i mean that stuff is viable even. when we work with the agency you still got the sdr  portion and stuff like that and you know you're.

always watching your back and you learn how to do  that all that kind of work oh yep it all came uh. it all came like when we started when i started  working there you know before i met you at all. i like that stuff man i really like that under the  radar you're out there on your own and uh and uh. it's just it's another it's just a whole other  whatever you want to call it tradecraft i loved.

it i love treycraft i love figuring out things  i even probably i still do it today when i. drive around yeah you know it's just it's  something with me and uh i just do it just. to do it you know i'm always watching always  looking always trying to what's he gonna do. always trying to keep a step you know it's funny  because it's just it's ingrained in you i guess. after you do it for so long you know yeah i  enjoyed it i enjoyed working for the agency.

it was a good time yeah working for them  or them something like that yeah whatever. yeah but uh let's take a quick break and and  then we'll come back and and wrap this up. hmm.

all right man we're back from the  break kind of covered everything. we're going to talk about transition  i think i'm gonna spare you the pain. of talking about transition so let's just  talk a little bit about what you're doing now. now i know you just launched a new business  but uh when you left the agency you started.

phalanx concealment and uh we've been using  your products here at vigilance elite for what. five years five years now called them out on  i don't know a couple different videos and uh. and uh but now you're kind of venturing  off into into something new yeah so. what are you doing now so i decided to  go ahead and try my hand at woodworking i.

enjoy doing woodworking i have for a while the  new company is called true grit wood designs. i've got an etsy account and i believe it'll  probably be up and running within the next week. um we're focusing right now on. cutting cutting boards butcher block board type  i have a thing for the women called the spa board.

even dabbling in epoxy type art so wood epoxy  type art charcuterie boards serving trays. um it's sky's the limit with this your stuff's  amazing man i mean i mean you made that raw edge. live bar over there is what they call. you made that i made that the it's actually a  rubber table and it's made out of the actual.

stones out of your river out of your  stream and it's got to try it in it. yeah tabletops stuff like that the  hardest part right now for me is. trying to decide what type of legs to put on a  table so that's the big challenge so learn that. i got all everything set up it's uh operational  i'm actually building inventory right now for when.

i go live in about a week on etsy well we'll make  sure you're live before we release this episode so. uh the link to both phalanx concealment if you  want to buy holster uh they're all handmade. custom that's below what you're really focusing  on nowadays and what you're transitioning into. is the woodworking and your work is absolutely [  __ ] well i appreciate it yeah so that's linked.

below and um yeah man i just i want to thank you  for coming out i know like i said i know it's. it's nerve-wracking sitting in that damn chair  well i loosened up a little bit i feel a little. a lot better now you know initially you  don't know what's gonna happen yeah but. uh i thoroughly enjoyed it and for your viewers  i appreciate you supporting phalanx concealment. we had our five year anniversary  last month and uh not we me.

a lot of people out there and i appreciate your  your viewers for supporting me throughout the. years excellent um i mean tremendous tremendous  support and i really do appreciate you. uh pitching it for me uh for those of the those of  you out there he really didn't know me that well. and pitched it for me out of the kindness of his  heart just bets supporting vets and i think that's.

extremely important i buy all most of my material  from to make the holsters from vets so you're. supporting vets and it's keeps giving you know  keeps giving and i think that's important thing. yeah i just saw you man you know i mean we  did one deployment at the agency together. and i left a couple years before you did and and  uh i can't even remember how we got in touch but.

uh to be honest do you yeah my sales were like  going bonkers man i was like what in the world's. going on i don't remember how i found out somebody  told me somebody told me that you were promoting. my stuff yeah so i called you up and that's how it  started yeah i found out and uh or you called me i. just know how [ __ ] hard it is to uh transition  out of oh yeah a life of special operations and.

agency work and go into uh the business world  having to deal with what i got a endeavor to. persevere just keep going but before we do wrap  this up i do have one phone call i need to make. and uh when i was talking to your dad he  said he had something he wanted to tell. you is that why he's been waiting for me he's  calling he's calling me up today hello alan.

how are you i got i had a  great talk with you yesterday. talking about your son and uh he's sitting right  in front of me and uh we kind of talked about. you had something that you wanted to say to him  so he's sitting right here can you hear me i'd.

like to thank you first for having me on your  uh podcast and um you have my son sitting there. yeah he's there i'd like to just tell him as his  father i am so proud of what he has accomplished. when he was in the military and i've never  told him that uh sean or shane john john.

it's uh it's been a long haul for him in  the military and he stood at the test and he. came out a winner on that with his military career. why thank you dad so proud of him and i'm proud to  be his dad really and i want him to know one thing. in life is that i love him dearly we usually don't  say that to each other it's uh i love you too dad.