The Craziest GWOT Battle You’ve Never Heard Of - Battle of Najaf | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 277

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Remember to head to zbiotics.com/unsub and use code unsub to get 15% off. You can train for Desert Warfare, you can train for Jungle Warfare, you can train for Mountain Warfare. Nobody ever prepares you to go into the most holy ancient cemetery in the Shia Muslim world where there's catacombs and 12-foot tombs. I'm sorry, how big is this cemetery? 600,000 people in the largest cemetery in the world. Clearing it out, World War I style in 125 degree heat. 3, 2, 1 Hi, welcome to the unsubscribe podcast, I'm joined here today by Eli Double Tap, Uncle Jack Manaville and our new friend Adam Schwarzi and I am Donut operator. Donut, you look amazing, right? You're getting strong. You did, I think Adam Schwarzi. Yeah, see? But now that you know it, you guys are pros and we've done it once or twice. It's already pronounced as weird European, every single syllable is pronounced fatically, aggressively. Hey, well, then now this is, I don't know what the fuck they were talking before. It's a future satellite Trition video that comes out after this so we can't talk about it much more. This comes out Saturday, so in four days, this is a quick burn in turn of a video. My video will not be done by then. So what can we talk about with that? But first, we should introduce how you guys know each other. Well, everyone knows Jack. Jack, he's our longtime pepper box boy. Should I have high energy or and be, try to be funny on this show or should I come in now that I'm a, I'm a filmmaker, should I come in more with like a Ken Burns type of tone? Should I take myself a little too seriously? I think you should take the all of GWAT and apply your artistic interpretation over it. Okay, I don't want you to stick to facts. I want your artistic interpretation. It cuts back his feet around. That was actually helping me turn to a dance video. Yeah, I'm actually after this project that we're going to discuss today. I'm producing GWAT the musical after this. Yeah, it's going to be a 20 year long musical. So we're going to have like eight intermissions. GWAT the musical is beautiful, Jack. I'd expect no less. There's a number in there where it's a guy singing about he was there for the original O203 years. And he's, there's a great beautiful song I wrote about him going to war with his son by 2020. So yeah, that's the GWAT baby. I hate how true that is. Explain your friend. This is Adam Chorsey. Pepper Box is releasing its first ever film. Two-hour feature length documentary about the battle of Najaf that happened in 2004. I'm saying this as someone who wasn't there but has interviewed a lot of war veterans and a lot of different conflicts. This is one of the gnarliest things I've ever heard about. And I wanted to tell these guys story because unfortunately in 2004, while those guys were out there fighting, it got kind of overshadowed in the news cycle. So a lot of Americans don't know that this in the same battle happened. You can train for Desert Warfare. You can train for Jungle Warfare. You can train for Mountain Warfare. You can train for Urban Warfare. Nobody ever prepares you to go into the most holy ancient cemetery in the Shia Muslim world where there's catechomes and 12-foot tombs clearing it out World War I style in 125 degree heat against a well-entrenched militia of a few thousand locals who know the lay of the land way better than you do. And I'll have the high ground. And by the way, this wasn't a planned operation. Some lieutenant walked into the wrong place one day and then it kicked off a month-long battle that he kicked a hornet's nest. This is a like a butter bar or just say first lieutenant. Yeah, he's in the film. He's one of the guys we interviewed, yeah. This is so a resupply convoys made like the wrong turn. They yeah they he walked into the wrong place and they thought McToddall Sotter was the this is like the most lit horror movie ever. It is a horror movie. Literally took a wrong turn down the road wound up in a cemetery full of things trying to kill you is insane. Well, if I can just I don't know this story. That's why I was super excited. And then I was like I it's the options of like do a bunch of research or as I end with all my friends don't watch anything they do. So that way you get a general reactions source right here. Because it is for me all my deployments I've never heard this. And I have like a different deployment than your average one. But when I hear stories like this or read briefly I'm like holy shit. What how did this happen? And then just you guys being able to tell that story is insane. Because again fighting and catacombs. How many catacombs did you fight in Jack? Zero. Yeah I stayed my ass on that vehicle. I zero myself. Yeah, these guys and you know Adam was there and he can speak to it better but purely from the person that put this together and did the interviews. I've never heard anything like this in my life. And like you just said it was it is a horror movie combat that these guys were in. Nobody prepares you for that kind of fight. And there's never been anything like before or after. And the first three days it was just one battalion of Marines basically versus what do you think? 50,000. 50,000 militia members in the cemetery and surrounding the city. How I'm sorry, how big is the cemetery? Yeah, it's I think from what I recall it's about 14 by 14 square kilometers large. This is the holiest place in the Shia religion. So the guy you know there's the Sunni and Shia Muslims. They get along. Yeah totally. Yeah like the Catholics and Protestants of Ireland. Just like we had to separate them in East Rashid. We had to build barriers because the inner just the fighting between Sunni and Shia's was so bad. It's like, okay, we'll just block them off and then they won't fight each other. Yeah, because our fucking job somehow. So all in one place, this whose call was that at the military? Oh, Jordan, I would pay money to be sitting in that officer's tent. Being like, hear me out, segregation. Yeah, we thought the second thing was like, we're segregating people. They're like, wow, they're not going to get along. Trust me. There's a reason why it's the don't act the way he did it. Yeah, well, I mean, largely it just did neighborhood gentrification by the second, third GWAC deployments. They'd all sorted out themselves. Yeah, yeah, these are beef that beef that go way back before America showed up. Yeah, we thought we were just going to navigate around that one. Yeah, what could go wrong? What could go wrong? Yeah, you know how many United States of America in the last 50 years? We really think things through. Can you imagine right now in America if you removed all the government, all the police, what would happen right now between the like our own civics right now? That's basically what happened. Yeah, honestly, I bet it'd be a lot shiller than people think. I'd be like, I know, they're like, boom, don't get wrong. This is an acronym, Ohio. Well, there is that. I'm just always finding your excuse to go after acronym, that's all. I got no real beef there. Sorry, guys. So how'd you guys meet that like we literally went to boot camp together. Yeah, we met on the bus getting shipped off to boot camp. Okay, I didn't so were you there when Jack got shot? I was not there on site, but he was the first marine I knew that actually got shot. It was he's like this cool guy. He's the coolest guy ever to get shot. Like national press, the base commander's going to the hospital. Like this guy was a freaking movie star before we got out of school them tree. But I want to even top that. Adam didn't just do three deployments in some of the nervous battles of the Iraq wars and marine. Also a Navy career Navy seal afterwards. So for me to be the first guy, he knows that got shot. - Yeah, I'm really honored, dude. - Force on force. (laughing) - Just goes clear, slacker plan! - All right, this wasn't like we were in combat and I got shot in the intensity of combat. I got shot in an armory in California. - Yeah. - You know this? - Yeah. - Okay. - You break it up every time. - I know, I do. - But it's such a great story. - Of all of the combat trauma, this is still one of my favorite stories. One, he didn't die, too. It's just a funny marine, marine story. My battalion, by the time our enlistments were all running up, it was just nothing but purple heart license plates in that parking lot. And I was like the only guy in the battalion had a gunshot wound from another marine on Camp Pendleton. - Yeah. - Yeah. - You and Marty somehow both got shot in the opposite. - Basic training. - Marty was a ranger who did like six deployments. - And to get shot in basic training is absolutely wild. You know that one? - No. - Yeah. - Was it Marty who was just wrong place? - They were doing like rushes and a stray round from a different range. Hit his back. - Yeah. - Olen Shannon Maldonado. Käsintecht ja artesaanitua teita myüven jaui lajakaopan perusta ja. Valitsin Shopify, koska alusto ja testatessani totesin sen ehdottomasti yhdeksi helpokäyttöisimmistä alustoista. Minulo oli tärkeä pohtia kehittymistä me tulevaisuudessa. Kaikki myyntiin tarvittava työkalut, kuten varaston suunnittelu, ovat katevasti dashboardissa. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu Shopify piste kom sivustolla. - Yeah, and he told his instructor that he got shot and the guy just blew it off. Yeah. And then they looked and like, "Oh dude, he got shot." - Oh shit! Like it was, like, no boys shot. - You want to hear a tie into this movie too? The instructor who, and I, the instructor who was the first instructor to show up and grab my arm and start attending to me after I got shot, was in the battle in Nijoff, and he'll actually be a big part of the story 'cause of his role in the battle. - No shit. - Yeah. - So you guys met in basic and then we did our School of Infantry together and he went to 1/4 and I went to LAR. And so 1/4, what they were the ones that, they were the ones that kicked off the battle in Nijoff and then the army came in and it became, you know, a pretty big fight. - And after that, you went and did Navy SEALs after. - Yeah. - Damn, okay, like, thank you for your service. Thank you for your service. - Thank you for your service. - Thank you, thank you. - Yeah, I know we all hate that. - What if there was like a human centipede for thinking, for a bunch of veterans thinking each other for their service all at the same time? - We could start it right now. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, it's a nice, just all. - Yeah, but it's like done and our hands are all glued together, saluting each other. - Yeah. - KK, I'm, again, it's amazing to see what you did for Pepper Box and to make this possible. And thank you, like, to be able to tell a story, we tell that story and then capture it for the very first time, 'cause. - Well, thank you. 'Cause I got involved because Jack had some friends that were in this theater and in this war. And this is such an untold story that really had some not overarching strategic implications, but there's a lot of guys that did amazing things on the field of battle that nobody knows about. And I don't know how sad we're gonna get on some of the stories, but a lot of guys made the ultimate sacrifice. And so I wanted to just get their word out for the guys that we didn't bring home. There's some really courageous American patriots and heroes that I'm so pumped to be a part of this. 'Cause Jack has done honor by their sacrifices for this project, so. I think a lot of the times it is these stories, it's, you probably thought it was the norm. That was your first experience. And you know, like, holy shit, this is what everyone's dealing with. I talked about it multiple times. It's like, my experience was like, oh, everyone's been at least like 20, 30 gun fights. I was like, I thought that was the norm. And then you get out and you find out, oh shit. I guarantee probably your entire seal career less gun fights than that. - Yeah, it's, brother, that's it. Nine deployments been to like 75 plus countries. That conflict was the most kinetic environment of my entire career. And people do not see that. And they don't understand that. That's why I think these stories are extremely important. - These stories that are gonna be in the film, and it's just literally, it is a sliver. 'Cause I've talked to a lot of other guys, offline, who have helped with the film that we're in Nij off. And, you know, one guy, he talked to, he's like, yeah, I got a, like, a napcom with a V. I picked up a 60 millimeter mortar tube and killed two insurgents running through the street. I'm like, what? These guys did in the cemetery and around the city of Nij off is literally the definition of uncommon valor was a common virtue. And again, kind of the politics of it, they were in an army chain of command. So this battle has never really made itself into Marine Corps lore because this Marine battalion was part of an army chain of command. As Colonel Mayer, who's in this film, said, he made an interesting point. The Marines of 1-4 are probably in the battle in Nij off, are probably more well known in army history than they are Marine Corps history, which is a very interesting part of this battle. They were kind of like a bastard mu battalion out there on a Polish army base reporting to the army. And so these guys never really got the coverage that Fallujah did a couple months later when that was a planned operation. And you had an army of media there going into the city with these Marines and soldiers where Nij off was one lieutenant kicked up a horn, and it's an ass 25 day battle ensues. And it was a very anti-climactic ending to the battle itself. - Thankfully, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I mean, 'cause I was there when we were gonna go do the big push and take the, you know, everything surrounding it would have been, you know, we lost seven directly, hundreds wounded, but we would have lost like a thousand guys. It would have been a big deal. Had we gone in there and done that magic? - One in four Marines in Battalion Landing Team 1-4 are documented as having been wounded during that battle. That's not counting the, God knows how many, that weren't documented, 'cause these guys were getting peppered with shrapnel, and they didn't wanna be pulled off the line. So dudes weren't telling people they got wounded. - And we lost our medical officer. I think there was some drug related stuff. We lost our medical officer for the battalion. So all we had was a senior chief IDC corpsman for like the whole battalion. So we had to document the purple hearts. And so most of our, like, it's been 20 some years later, I just found out an email yesterday, two days, three days ago that my purple heart was like, tentatively approved and like. - If you've tried quitting smoking or vaping and you keep going back, well, you have to try our new sponsor, FUME! - Uh, uh, your willpower isn't the problem. How you're trying to quit is. 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More than 1 million people have already chose fume to quit differently. The only question is, are you ready to take the first step? Remember, addiction is really good at saying later. Don't let it. Head to tryfume.com. That is T-R-Y-F-U-M.com to get 30% off the good habit pack. And use code unsub at checkout to get the free topper. - Guys are missing awards. So the saddest part, and I'm so glad that you guys are getting this out there. Really appreciative because there's guys who are missing their combat action ribbon. Still to this day because of the administrative paper drones, not 'cause I'm talking crap with the chain of command, but we are running so hard and gunning so hard that a lot of these records just got dropped. There was nobody planning the backend for all these awards, basic administrative things. And to Jack's point, guys didn't care about purple hearts, guys didn't care about their combat action ribbon. They didn't care about documenting either shit. They just want to get their gun on. And largely just by the way, the conflict developed, this was truly, you know, you guys are veterans. Like they were just there for their guy that left the right flank because it was a a very kinetic situation. - Dude, it's great. We were lucky enough to have Stanley Lee Davis yesterday on that of honor recipient him. - Oh wow. - Just telling that story of looking across the river and being like, oh my guys need me. And he's been hit by like 30. - Got hit with flight gas, 30 or 40 fleshats out of a beehive artillery round. And then he'd also been shot in the leg with an AK-47. And I think by this point he had broken his back. - And then Swam across got all three guys and then tells the story of couldn't pick all three up. So he's like dragging them and then laying down in the middle of the night. And then when the NVA is walking over him, if they look at him, then they're like, and then he gets back and this is like the Force Gump story. - Yeah, and it is. - No, it's literally the story that inspired Force Gump. - Oh yeah, it's gotta be, right? - No, it is literally like the movie. - No, no, no, no. - In the movie. - The Force Gump getting the Medal of Honor is a real footage of him and they just superimposed Tom Hanks over it. - Oh yeah, yeah. - So here are these stories, it's wild and a lot of people don't realize like medals or purple hearts. It's the guys, they don't realize, they wanna just be back out in action or at that time if you're losing some of your medical command, it's your back out the next day, there is no time off. I've told that story, I go like, I got shot and then I was back out the next day and I didn't realize it was supposed to be time off and then I didn't realize I was getting a purple heart tell six, 10 months later and they're like, you get a purple heart and it's like for what? It's like you shot and I was like, huh? - I will say. - We didn't get to cover it on the podcast. So Sammy, he showed up in full dress uniform, wearing the Medal of Honor, like he looked great. And like mid podcast, I think Cody didn't know what a flesh-shet round was out of a B-hive round and I go to try to explain it and Sammy is like, I got this and he like moves the Medal of Honor aside and unbuttons his shirt and pulls out a flesh-shet round on a necklace and he goes, the one of the real flesh-shet round that was in me is at home. This one's made out of the gold from my teeth. It was like, mad drip. - Yeah. - Thank you for the service. - And I'm not being sarcastic about it. - I've never seen anything cooler than a 78-year-old man be like, check out my chain. Like, bro. - Literally, every student's like this and it's like the gold made from my teeth and like. - Can you imagine being his grandkids for like show and tell? Like, you know, everyone's bringing in, you know, they're, they're painting or whatever. He's like, my grandpa's gonna show you his war wounds. - So he was, he was very open about a lot of things but like through asking questions, it became obvious. He didn't want to go into like excruciating detail about the battle and actions itself, which is completely fine. So I didn't get to ask him about it. But one of the questions I wanted to ask him about was in his book, which I read before the podcast. So he was artillery guy. He was manning artillery. They got ambushed and they basically slammed the how it's straight down and he was firing antipersonal rounds straight at oncoming waves. He runs at, he runs at antipersonal B high rounds, switches over to high explosive, runs at a high explosive. And then the only thing he has left is propaganda rounds, which we're supposed to like, you're supposed to rainbow that shit and disperse pamphlets. - Yeah, brief leaflets. - All he said in the book was that's all he had left and it turned out to be really, propaganda turned out to be highly effective at close range. - This is what he said. - That's it. - He's Shannon Maldonado. He's a business partner of art and art. He's been a shopkeeper since the beginning of the game and he's been working for the first time in the first half of the game. He's been working for the first half of the game and he's been working for the first half of the game and he's been working for the first half of the game. He's been working for the first half of the game and he's been working for the first half of the game. - Dude, those guys, 'cause I said I was coming from our war, looking at what they did is we can't wrap our head around it and then he had the exact same thing about the World War II veterans 'cause he got to meet those four. - The scariest part of the whole thing about not wrapping your head around it was, he talked about like 50 years after the fact. Some organization had organized him to go over to Vietnam and he got to sit down and have dinner with dudes that were at, looking for him. - He was up against real NBA, it wasn't Viet Cong. It was NBA. - Yeah. - And he sat down with like three or four guys that were NBA at that battle and they recognized him and knew who he was. They're like, oh yeah, no, we saw you crossing the river on Jack Rath carrying your guys and then one of them asked him, so he's famous for playing a harmonica and he was always playing a harmonica when he was up at night watching this thing 'cause then everybody knew everything was okay if Sammy was still playing as a harmonica, everything was fine. One of the NBA guys asked him if he brought a harmonica and asked him to play it because they knew he was the one playing the harmonica. - He is. - And it's like, how fucking close were you guys to me when they were watching them? - Dude, we're the NBA. We were watching you the whole time, brother. - Yeah. - Dude, this story's, again, and then he played the harmonica for us and it was, we all, I was one of the few times I got chills on the podcast. Just everyone shut the fuck up and we're like, and Sammy is fantastic of it. We all applauded afterwards when he's seeing and hearing that story. It's just something where you're just, figure you guys would appreciate it 'cause it's that next level of holy shit these guys went through this and then he was talking about the World War II veterans that he met and then him getting the medal of honor and then being, like, shut the fuck up and sit down new guy. This is a medal of honor recipient. I'm like, oh, holy shit. - He said, oh, it's Clint. - Oh yeah. - So you'll appreciate this. So his first Medal of Honor society meeting that he went to where it's all, everybody there is Medal of Honor recipient. He talks about walking in. He walks in the first three people he sees are Eddie Rickenbacher, Do Little, and Pappy Boyington. All sitting next to each other. Let's throw you lessons as grand in there while we're at it. - No shit. Like the three of the biggest aviation legends ever and I guess Pappy Boyington walks up in Shakespeare's sand. So you're the fucking new guy, huh? Like, coming from Pappy Boyington. Like, he's like, 23 year old kid, like. Oh, it's like three people that like, are solid contenders for like the Mount Rushmore of American aviation ever. And he saw all three of them at once. - And Maverick would be fourth, right? - Yeah, for sure. - And they're just chilling. - Oh, okay, but I can go on, I'm sorry, real quick. - Yeah, oh, is anybody want coffee? - I'm good, thank you. - I'm good, thank you, now go on. Okay, well, I mean, Adams, Adams, your first hand account here of everything, but yeah, we're putting out Pepper Box's first feature laying film on this just insane thing these guys were a part of. They will drop the exact same day that this podcast airs. If I do remember, right? - Yeah, it's August 15th, Saturday, August 15th, early morning, it'll be going live. And yeah, it'll be up. We've got a lot of great people that have been supporting this. And a lot of great people that were involved with this, both on and off camera. The fact that these guys, I just want to state too, one of the hardest things about creating something this size is assembling the roster. It's getting people on board to volunteer, to go on camera and talk about what can be for a lot of people very sensitive part of their lives. I started, you're gonna see in this film, you're gonna see a lot of LAR guys in this film, they were just one platoon while they were in this battle. Well, the hardest thing to do is assemble the roster. So I started with the people I knew wealth, guys I served with and it became advantageous for a couple reasons. A, once you've shot everything, then you have to assemble all the photographs and all the imagery and all that. That can be hard getting a hold of people to do that. The good thing is the guys I served with, that can just text them and be like, hey asshole, I need these pictures from you. But it became a blessing in disguise too, because these LAR guys, now guys like Adam, they were line company guys, they were in the cemetery, all they had with them was what was on them. But these LAR guys had room to stash cameras. So we have a lot of never before seen video footage of this battle that these LAR guys were able to capture with their cameras that became very instrumental to telling this story visually. Shots of the cemetery, all that kind of stuff. This is 2004, but August of 2004. This is pre-date, this is like 720p. You're looking at 480. It's not HD quality, or it's just getting in there, which is-- - We just talked about that today. People didn't have cameras back then. Like, if they didn't have cameras on their house. - Yeah, no gopros, that was way before that. It's like, having a digital camera. - It's all when that started, kind of happening. We have one gun fight, Sophia Ratteney, filmed it on a camera from one of ours. And that, again, unheard of. So 2004 is absolutely ridiculous to have that footage. Yeah, holy shit. The only thing that's even close to this, severe clear, do you remember that? - Yeah. - There's like one platoon commander in like Charlie Company had like an old camcorder that he took to combat. That was like the only, I think that was OIF-1. That was our first one for to plan it. But like, nobody had cameras. So the fact that some of that video I saw today, I was like, holy cow, I don't know if this is going to exist. So really appreciate that you found the way to get that. - Well, that was my LAR buddies, and again, I could be like, "Hey, asshole, I need that footage." Where, if I'm hitting up Colonel Mayor from footage, I gotta be a little more, Colonel Mayor, who was the battalion commander of 1-4 is in this film, and provide, what I really, I was talking to Adam about this earlier, there's great perspective from the guy who was the battalion commander down to the E3s and E4s that were literally in that cemetery. So it has all perspectives from that battlefield. This isn't some documentary about the history of the battle, this is it. Because we don't really touch on the politics too much. It's literally just about the guys who got thrown into the thick of this fight and what their experiences were. In this battle, again, like I said, nothing like it has ever happened before, since. And just really quick, this is for everyone out there watching this on YouTube, on Saturday. This will be on Pepperbox, so go check it out on Pepperbox. You get your two week free trial. If you want to watch it and sign up, it's $7.99 a month, a month, but you do get a two week free trial. So. And if you want to leave a comment of how handsome Adam looks right now, you compliment him. Leave all the comments on everything also in the thing. Tell Jack he's more handsome. No, there's a certain subset of what I feel like just are about that. Like the dude. Just like the dude. Oh, yeah, it's the typical like this guy doesn't give a shit. Yeah. But like it works surprisingly. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Just comfort all. Yeah. Girls like that. Girls like that. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's talking. You. That's a good wingman, right? I just want to redhead. I just want to redhead with big jugs. Jack's a simple man. So redhead big jugs and freckles, I'm happy, man, how did the Wendy's girl? Oh, yeah, you just described Wendy's. How did all of this start? What was it? Yeah. What is the etymology of like this whole concept? Well, first you guys did the battle. Okay. Yeah. From the top. Thank you. I appreciate that. Not sarcastic. No, so long story short. So I served with some of the guys that were in that battle in my first appointment. And these guys have been very close to me. I've been to their weddings, lived with some of them. We've stayed close the last 20 years. And I also know a lot of Fallujah veterans, rightfully so Fallujah has a lot of name recognition. That was a gnarly fight. Because this battle in Fallujah happened around the same time and because Fallujah was a more planned operation, not a lot of people know what these guys did in Najaf. And it's hard for them to tell people because there's no based, you know, a Fallujah I can say, like I was in Fallujah and be like, oh, yeah, I remember that was all over the news. For the battle in Najaf, that's, I think for correct me if I'm wrong, for a lot of you in Najaf, that's been a harder thing to navigate with the public, understanding what that battle was. And so I wanted to basically, I wanted to tell my friend's story of what they went through and it started with I called my LAR buddies because I knew who to call. And then, you know, they're like, oh, we gotta talk to this person and then it was Mike Borneo who's in the film. He's that lieutenant I talked about who started, they'll kick the whole thing off. And then Mike put me in contact with a guy named Oscar Rodriguez, who lives locally here, who was one of the company XOs. And then I eventually, I was put in contact with a guy named JD Le Hue who was one of the first audience. He had a Navy cross going into that deployment from the invasion of Iraq. So already a highly decorated guy. Then I was put in contact to Colonel John Mayer who was the battalion commander for all the Marines during that fight. And I said, shit, we have us a film right here. And all these guys were gracious so over a three day period we filmed 12 interviews. You know that moment when you text your team and say, did anybody follow up with that guy? What do you think? Who? A bitual. Who? We call them mudflaps. Meanwhile, the customer has already moved on. Got married, started a new business and retired. They let us say fuck in the ad by the way. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo. The business phone system built so you never miss a call. Did you know all your calls, texts and voicemail can live in one single place? I mean to tell me they're inside the phone. Get them out of my phone! Stop, Connor. With Quo, you don't have to break that phone. But the point is, anyone on your team can just pick up the conversation where you left off. So I don't have to get the calls out of my phone? All the people who called you were just stuck in purgatory forever inside of Connor's phone. Back in my phone. Cody? Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2. Connor, what's G2? Probably like you would never know. Trusted by over 90,000 businesses. Set up in minutes on any device and you get to keep your existing number. That's important. And teammates as you grow. No IT. No hassle. We all hate IT. We all hate hassle. You know how it is. Why are you being so racist? Shut the fuck up. Money is on the fuck line. Which is why you should always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free. Plus. 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com/unsub. That's q-u-o.com/u-n-s-u-b. Thank you to Quo, back to the shitty content. And uh, recorded these guys testimonies and recollections and everybody was perfectly vulnerable and open and honest and I think 20 years later is almost like a sweet spot because it was far enough away that you've gained a lot of wisdom and a lot of the pain has gone and you have wisdom from it and you've had, you know, you're in your 40s now and you've had time to think about these things but it's also still pretty fresh in your memory. So we were able to capture you guys in a way that they really weaved the picture well of what their fight was like. And like I've said, this isn't a raw, raw, guts and glory type of and it's certainly not one of those, well, war made me sad kind of stories. This is just a perspective of grown men in their 40s putting themself back in their E3, E4 mindsets and talking about this gnarly fight that they were in. Yeah, you know, not to pump your tires but I will like you, from what I've seen so far, you're a really good job of not glorifying war but this is a matter of fact, experiential from the boots on ground, this is just what happened from a story that you probably haven't heard of and a guy swear it like, yeah, just like this crazy battle that nobody knows about that deserves to be known, especially for, you know, the hundreds of casualties and boys we left on range. I mean, this is a battle that should be known, you're a good job of just a matter of factual like crazy experiences from the guys that were there and I didn't think about like, yeah, that is the right spot because five, 10 years ago, I still want to open up about it. I didn't cry like a bitch but I got close to and if it was too much down further down, I would probably have started to forget some of like the really salient parts of it. So if you guys have a good job of that, I wanted to put it in the film but there was a part where he just broke cameras like, you're not going to make me cry Jack and I was like, I should put that in the movie actually, no, I didn't put it in there. Now, those are those moments I think I put back in. It's a moment where I as a dude, it is hard to have that emotional response or even show that little emotional response to the public. Yeah. Again, maybe seal or I've been to combat. You don't think it yourself that way, but it is one of the hardest things to show to the public. I have on one of the unserved episodes like me crying and it is, I sent that one, I was like, I'm never watching that episode, I am never, I don't want to hear about it. I put that out and that's fucking it. Never tell me about it. And everyone is extremely sweet. I still never watched that like thing today. It's like, I've never cried before. No, we saw you realize. We were talking about just gaslighting people didn't happen. Yeah, but real warfighters are two things. The guys who have really been there and done it for the right reasons, they're quiet professionals. They don't like to talk about the deed. And they certainly don't like to show, you know, that weakness, that perception of weakness. So both of those things. So it's not romanticizing it. It's always my biggest hell. It's like if Mike Weimer, it's our major Weimer of the army. I was one of the things we connect on instantly. They were asking about like military war. He was like, oh, I was like, yeah, I've been joined, got a gun fight. That fucking sucked way more than I thought. And he's like, that dude's been shot at Mike. It's like a homie's been shot at if he's had that response. And I got to witness it with you and Brett Downing, who's in the film, they're still very close to this day. Like think about it when you get together with your old military buddies. You guys aren't reminiscing about like this. You're like, you're laughing, man. You're happy to be around this person. Yeah. Oh, dude, I just shout out to the guys because next month, September and yellow, I invite if you want to come that we're going. I haven't got to see them in a decade. And we're all meeting up over a decade. Dude, you serve with? Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. I'm so do that. So important, man. So fucking stuff. Where are you doing it in Midland, Texas? No, God. No. Okay. All right. We just go to Jumperido. All right. Thank you, Jack. Yeah. Family plug right there. We're going to see you in the next episode. See you in the next episode. Bye. But how was it for you and like watching this and then The lieutenant's perspective that get the guy that kicked it off because as you guys are saying it's like he kicked this off by accident. How was his? Mike Borneo and you served with him in your first He was one of your in your company your first appointment, right? Yeah, so he knows Mike way better than I do Mike Borneo is even to this day is a very high tempo He's from Jersey. He's from North Jersey. He's a Jersey guy a lot of energy with that guy There could have been no better person to tell the story of how this battle started than then Mike Borneo who started the battle Yeah He showed up in one of those shyness these suits. That was like a camo better. Erwin. Erwin. Did she get a suit? Yeah Yeah, I told everybody in the email before you know before we started filming like just just dresses, you know You would for you know in your every day. How are you feel comfortable? You showed up in a camo suit. Yeah Yeah, Mike Borneo and then yeah, there's just David Lewis who's in this film, you know This is not to give too much where you you were in David Lewis's company as well a miracle Leo, it's a he got shot in the head not to spoiler alert, but he got shot in the head with an RPG He caught it RPG with his face. Yeah, and it didn't go off and he was he was out of Yeah, it wasn't not a great experience from him and we'll show that in the movie Not soft. No, no, he's a stud. Yeah, I'm an American he kept going Yeah, he was a little reluctant to be in the film because he was like well, I got taken off the battlefield the first day because of my wounds He becomes a pertinent important part of this story because yes as we continue in this 25-day Battle throughout this two-hour film We always go back to David Lewis in the film because people have to realize it's not just about the guys that are still in the cemetery fighting These guys who got pulled off because their injuries were so bad that they had to be pulled off They're going through their own fight and they're doing it alone for the most part So we continue David's story even as the combat story continues We always throughout the film you we check and with David what houses recovery going and everything like that And that's why he became so important of the story He represented a lot of those guys in the Jaff who their injuries were so bad They had to be shipped you know to Germany and then Walter Reed and go through multiple surgeries and then became a leader Back here. Yeah, well the battles go on. He's like leading Marines and was like a morale guy He was in Walter Reed and he was like the only officer that was wounded in his ward So he was walking around to every single Marine and soldier that was in that ward at Walter Reed checking in on them every day Raising their spirits as he's as he's blind and a lot of these guys just from the civilian perspective a lot of people do not realize when it happens They get taken out day one day two now they have this regret or remorse because survivors get to it To a degree where I'm not helping my guys I'm not there with them and it it's more of an emotional toll on them even though they're out of the battle Now they have to deal with that by themselves, and people do not get that survivor's guilt. That's so when I There's three of us had an LPOP and a 120 landed in between the three of us two of us got like frag thrown through wall knocked unconscious But largely, you know, okay the other guy you know look like you jack and I like a 120 lands between the three of us You and I get thrown this way Jack turns into a piece of Swiss cheese This gives the guy his name is Sergeant Harvey Parkinson had kids family was a Marines Marine my sergeant my section leader How the flip does that happen like you and I why that why this guy? Why Jack it's just so threat for like a decade plus. I man. I had so much survivor's guilt from from that alone But that's why I just I'm appreciative you guys have given the time to tell like Harve story and you know Harve was not we lost two of my 12 guys in my section and I think another two or three were Head per parts are you know casualties? I'm everybody left out of their scar As long as the hard ones and it's the stories that need to be heard anyway again, we did You all are doing the hard part with telling the story Making this possibility. We had the easy side was just like give you guys a platform You've the second thing we could have ever done is like like I really appreciate you guys new platform This is the purpose of that for box. Everyone's been on board and I'm so grateful for that because I didn't do a lot of I didn't do like a I didn't show up with a a PowerPoint and this is why we should do this movie. I was like hey guys I got this idea green lit. I'm like really? You trust me. Yeah, I'm like okay shit. I this is gonna be good damn jacks You don't really come across as a PowerPoint kind of guy He was walking out to his PowerPoint. What do I do with that? I worked I was like do you guys want my PowerPoint though? No, Jack. We don't want to should I be using Comic-Sans for this I don't know Joker Man font winged things Joker Man font just Jack get the imagery is just literally a drawing. I did of those the Wadi oscillums cemetery Yeah, it's still crazy what was The fight getting kicked off and then your perspective of that where it's a wrong turn or whatever is happening in your mind What was going on and again a cemetery? I don't think I've ever experienced a cemetery in any of my Man, yeah, 15 months much less like nine by nine miles Yeah, that's a massive and if I'm not mistaken There's something like I think it's like six to nine million bodies. I love those. I love those so much It actually it tastes very good. It looks like I'm drinking like a chunk of pollen that has oil mixed with it This is all you do once a day. That's it. I am I'm skeptical, but I'll give it a shot That's really good. Yeah, it tastes like it tastes like very good orange juice. So what's in it? Actually turmeric organic milk fissile organic dandelion root extract organic ginger root powder and sodium and potassium That's it. Oh orange juice concentrate. I Do it. Oh and monk fruit. No, I'm just looking at the other ingredients list like all the other It's in it and there's not a lot. It's basically just a Supplement fact. Let's be honest modern life is rough on our bodies and there's certain choices we can make that makes it Rougher and if you've been feeling sluggish or just off Your liver might be trying to tell you something. Stop drinking. I've been trying to get off Dose for your liver is a clinically backed liver health supplement. This isn't just another capsular powder Dose is a liquid supplement. That's a supplement that takes the shape of its container It's taken in a daily two-ounce supplement and it tastes just like fresh squeeze orange juice zero sugar zero junk Zero calories when you're ready to give your liver the supported deserves head to dose daily dot code Slash on sub or enter on sub to get 35% off your order your first subscription your body does so much for you How about you do something for it? That's d-o-s-e-d-a-i-l-y dot kill slash on sub So the significance of that cemetery the reason why it's considered a holy cemetery is not Just because it's size if you're a shea Muslim and you die You need to be buried in that cemetery within 24 hours if if possible and the reason why it's so significant is the reason the shea split happened in the first place is because the guy that was the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad That's where he was buried. So the the heir to Islam That's the heir to the you know the prophet Muhammad is buried in that cemetery So that's the significance of that cemetery. That's why it's so fully fighting there Well, and that's a thing that this is a big part of the story. This is what Fallujah didn't have what a lot of other battles and the guat didn't have These guys the holiest mosque in shea islam is right there in Najaf irak and these guys couldn't shoot any direction towards that mosque And they're throwing those 120's from the mosque and there was nothing these they were sitting ducks in that cemetery these guys are surrounded not just by this the The Imam Ali shrine the main mosque they're surrounded by multiple other mosques So they are surrounded by these areas that they cannot They cannot you guys couldn't yeah your hands were it yeah, yeah The roes were the craziest I've ever been in my entire life. It was completely political And there's a lot of still distaste about that is of any other battle I've ever been in my entire life It's like you get shot at We're gonna get some we we literally had our hands on our back on fighting the enemy So we literally just sat there at night tied in the lines with iron fireflies that they could see from the high ground Just taking and direct fire all night every night just getting picked off And you like for your average person it's like oh well I shoot him back you cannot you your Your unit will not do that no one can do that and if people don't fucking understand and we followed the rule as well They will not follow that that's what makes america good and people don't when they say like Fuck that i'll break through no the the fact that your average 20 year old E3 E4 had the foresight and the discipline to not do that says everything about the american war fighter right there Well, I would have fired her back, but our m16s could have got that far. We need like bigger guns. It was like around down the dome, it was presidential, like two-blut, I make it sub, but this is like, essentially what it was. Like the dome, presidential approval, a blockout, was four-star, or sec-deaf, and then like a mile, that was like four-star. So it was like that. So incrementally to close, closer you got to the actual bad guys, the harder it got to engage them with any actual weapons that would have effects on target. So, you know, nine mile wide place, we were literally just getting the squatters that were coming down to engage us, but all the big indirect fire that they were shooting our way, we were never had the ability to shoot things back at them that would then have any effect. - And it's that. - And we had to listen to their prayers every night. So they were like praying and then like shooting at us with this big indirect massive weapons and we're like, just getting a job. - Dude, you have to sit there and it's prayer's morning prayer, like I forget how many times a day, like five, six, seven times a day, I forget how many times prayer call happens. And then watching ROE change from different sectors, because we had the worst and Rashid and then we went to Moctadea and that was a wake up call for us. 'Cause again, Rashid for us, very bad. But like we were in a gun fight every other day, every day. And then when we're going up here, it was, oh, if they're filming you and they seem shady, you're allowed to engage. We're like, that's nice. - Yeah, because we've been like, oh, they have to shoot, they can point their guns until they shoot at you, you can't do anything. You're like, cool. Fuck, just aimed at each other and then tell they pulled the trigger. That's the only way. And now it's going like, hey, driving up there, it looks like the moon, the moon, 'cause all the craters and like, hey, it's like really bad up here. And that was a wake up call. But having what you guys experience where it's like, hey, it's getting more restricted, especially where you're getting attacked from, you just can't do shit. And then 20 something days of just experiencing that. - I'm glad you get that, brother, 'cause we had like weeks of that where we were just getting, we were getting it all. We couldn't give anything back. And it was the worst and just getting KIA, it's after KIA is after casualties. And just finally the night after my brother died in my arms, still have like, his skull fragments in my kit and everything. We do this side quest called the Kufa Technical College, which in again, my entire 21 year career, the most single kinetic engagement, violence of action. It should be a case study for every single war college, for every single service on the effectiveness of combined arms. It was amazing where it was, just weapons free. We found out where their, where their FAB was, where they're like, are, they're like, remain behind element was where they're doing like, their casualty collection and ammo resupply. And it turns out it was supposed to be a faint, do you know this part? It was actually supposed to be a faint for a different direct action. That Kufa, Kufa Technical College was supposed to be a faint for a tier one hit for like a different intelligence thing. It was supposed to be like, hey, where did this cause all this, this spin this stuff? So you guys could do this direct action on this intelligence thing. Well, it turns out that where we did that Kufa hit, was like 10 of the top 20 bad guys for the entire country of Iraq at the time. And the reason why it don't be knows about that is because it was so beautifully violent for whatever. This is where his LAR guys, essentially, to draw like a mental map. We said LAR on the hinge, I did not. I was an E4. - He was going through, you guys are bustin' through that college. - Yeah, well, we didn't bust through. It was essentially just a destruction rate. We had LAR, studying the hinges. We had a line company, my company, Bravo Company. So at that point, I was the assault section leader. So we had just all these rocket teams embedded and then a line company. But then we also had a Spectre gunship in the overheads, spooky, and then we had Cobras and he was flying on top of us so close. I could really touch this kids. We had 81's drop in stuff on the back end clothes and an artillery drop and like, will he pee after we cut these buildings open? So it was about 300 to a thousand bad guys on target that we killed and we took like one casualty. But that was like weapons free. So you can imagine smoking 300 to a thousand bad guys. But that's because it was for three weeks. We were just getting the shit end of the stick and finally you put a Marine Corps company online with this couple of cluster of billions that we knew like that's where the bad guys are and just let the boys eat. We all went Winchester. I carried six rockets myself, each of my gunners and teams had like three rockets. You guys went Winchester with the LARs on the flanks. I wasn't there Adam. Yeah, but your boys did. I mean, this Jack was there. This literally, the only other thing like this was was Boston on OIF-1 where they cut open that Medevac track that had all the wounded and then we got the same thing like weapons free. If it moves, it dies and my first deployment. And it looked like apocalypse now. The Kufa Technical College campus looked like the apocalypse now, but it was bad guys. So many bad guys and I got repetition for my, you know, I'm hoping that the guy who put that 120 and killed my brother was in that. You, I mean, like weapons free going through that experience and it's gonna be hard to, it's hard to picture if you've never been in that situation but this week's have build up. And when they're saying, hey, this was a distraction for the main mission, but then the main mission, Irene, Irene, Irene, but then it's not Irene. It's you guys were the distraction, but here's actually where all the holdup was going and then you guys were some was blessed enough to fuck shit up. - Y'all got it, it was like finally like this is our time. - Then that's what it's like because now you have the tier one's going that way without realizing it's like, now everything's happening right there and you guys get that. - I get that, dude. - Here's my question, were you allowed to go weapons free because they weren't anticipating that that was supposed to be a legitimate target since it was a faint and then by the time they realized what was going on it was just too late and it was done. - Unfortunately, a little bit the opposite. We knew there was going to be bad guys there. We just thought it was going to be all like low level guys like a grouping of whether they're R and R. Like we go back to our fobs, they went back to this spot. What we didn't know is that they had like, there's some of them have like families and stuff like that as well. It was literally like their base and so that's part of why that thing never got highlighted because of, there was some collateral damage and I think at the time my company commander, a rumor is that like he was about to get like court martial because we literally leveled this place and there was so much death and destruction of bad people, bad guys and then later on the Intel people, some other level tiers, did a battle damage assessment. It turned out that there was like 10 of the top most wanted guys in the country were in that carnage and then, oh weird, now you're going to go from getting court martial to you're the best guy ever in the history of, like as military and politics go so, but so nobody knows about that but if you're just looking like the Tecco Kufo, right it was again in a 21 year career the most impressive, just how the military in its essence when used appropriately could be beautifully violent. And I, dude, I, we've talked about in the podcast, people do not understand, America restricts itself, the military restricts itself, it's that even now you're like, oh we're losing the battle and I ran and it's like, we handicap ourselves, we called ourselves to a high standard, but Brandon, look what I got you. I got your own poncho shirt because you don't own one. I've never had one. Editor, play any clip of unsubscribe. You do always wear them. Why? That's because poncho makes shirts for guys that actually go the **** outside. That's right, you will touch grass when you wear a poncho. You don't have to, if that scares you, but if you do like touch and grass, these are a great shirt for you. They have an inner mesh too. Yeah, dude, that's what, that's why it breathes so well, like actually like in West Texas summer, like I'm on the road in West Texas all the time, ponchos are like the uniform because they, they look good, you know, the pearl snaps, everything like that, but they also actually breathe. So you can be outside and just kind of roll the sleeves up and like you look good and you feel good. The bow is in the pearl snaps. And ladies love them for the record. It's probably the best shirt he's ever worn. I'm not even kidding on my daily attire. A poncho is like 75% of it. I think everyone wears ponchos. Yeah, because it's great, like it's comfy. If you need to be professional, it can look professional, but otherwise just like going around, it breathes well. You can be outside doing sporty **** like it's just, it's all around just good for anything. And they do have a little bit of stretch. They didn't have to worry about the cost of refilling my wardrobe with ponchos because we had the code unsub. How much do you save with that code? Well, I'm glad you asked. If you go to ponchooutdoors.com/unsub, you'll get $10 off your first order. It's a hell of a deal, Brandon. To make it even better, you get free shipping on top of it. By God, I'm going to start wearing poncho. You'd be crazy not to. Yes, and people do not realize that because then when that happens, it is a completely different game show. Well, you let the boys off the chain, yeah. Yeah, and we could do that at any time anywhere. We just don't. - We choose not to. - Yeah. - People don't realize that, as if I can crazy. - Well, we're all taught the laws of war. I mean, I could still write a lot of all the 10 principles of laws of war that we got from their battle for side, the Treaty of Versailles. Like, we still teach that, and we follow that in the military. And nobody else has hold that standard, and for good reason. That's why, like, when we go somewhere, we're fighting on our just edbellum, the wars of lawfully fighting. And you said, "Bella, we fight them in a lawful way." - I ain't a lawyer, man. I'll just make movies, dude. (laughing) - Jack living his best life. - Yeah. - What was one of the most emotional little pieces for you to capture, Jack? - Oh, wow. You know, this was a great way for me to reconnect with some of these dudes I served with. And again, I've known these guys over the years. So there was a couple moments with them, that just because I've known them so well over the years, that it was a moment for both of us, I think. But, man, just talking about, you know, David Lewis earlier, he, to me, this was a guy that was reluctant to be involved because he just didn't understand why a guy that was wounded on the first day of the battle would be a part of this story. And, but he became such an instrumental part of this story. And you'll see it the way it plays out in the film, where we weave his experience with the experiences of the guys that stayed in there. And some of the guys that didn't come back. And it all kind of almost made, I hate to say it like this. It almost married up perfectly in the film. So that the average kind of person understands all the different sacrifices of war. The people that get horribly wounded, the people that get killed and are to never see their loved ones again, and the people that, for the most part, walk away from it physically unscathed. There's three different burdens that people carry in war. Yeah. - What's something you didn't expect to learn? Like, it surprised you. - Well, I just found out about the collateral damage, just about five minutes ago, in the Coofer Technical College, right? - Okay. - Yeah, that was, I don't think anybody mentioned that in the interviews. - That's it. - I guess how did the battle kick off? Is my, I understand like you guys took a wrong turn, you wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time, but like how does this simply winding up the wrong place devolve into this massive battle? Like what, what happened? You'd probably be like, 'cause I was not there. I showed up my first night on the gun line. I was like two or three days as it was starting to spin up. So I wasn't there for the first two, three days of it. - August 7th or August 2nd, 2004, is when that initial firefight happened with that, that, that combined, that cappatune, essentially like a cavalry between going around. - So it was like a logistic. - They were doing like, support for like a logistical like a food run, weren't they? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It was just a food run. - By the way, big part, we forgot to mention, this was the Marines second day owning the AO. They had just got done with their left seed, right seed rides, with the army unit that they were taking the AO from. Second day owning that AO is, so Mike Borneo's Petun, they, they get contact, Brent Downing, parts of Bravo Company show up. That fight dies off after a few hours. And then something was brewing. Nobody really knew what was going on. The, the Mottie Militia, who, that's who the, everyone, the Marines were fighting in the, the Marines's army were fighting in that battle. The Mottie Militia, they were kidnapping cops and torturing them over the radio. Everybody knew something was brewing. Around the night of August 4th the police station, right outside Revolutionary Circle, which is right outside the cemetery there, got overrun by these, got attacked by the Mottie Militia. The Marines have already, had already been sent on numerous react missions at this point. So they're starting to get a little, like this is gonna be another false alarm type thing. They show up, the sun's just coming up, it's quiet out. And then the mortar's land, on call. These guys are bracketed, the mortars are landing. And then gunshots start coming out of the cemetery. Now they see guys starting to run across the street in and out of the cemetery. So now all the Marines are engaging all these guys. This is the, the, the morning of August 5th, you have one LAR platoon, you have one cap platoon and one platoon of 81 millimeter mortars that they don't have their mortars within their improvised rifle, or rifle platoon. They are engaged, they are engaging these guys in and out of the cemetery. This is gonna be a big part of the film. Forgot to mention this part. About three or four, they've already suffered a bunch of wounded at this point. One of the Marines of 1-4 had already been killed. And Al Jazeera reporter has been killed at this point. My buddy Mike Ball, who will be a big part of this story. He already had to, one of his Marines already took a trap known from an RPG, from where I already think, got them out. Right about that time, about, I'd say four or five hours of the fight from what I understand. The, the Huey's and Cobra's were doing gun runs. The Huey's were spotting, the Cobra's were launching, and a Huey got shot down. Marine Corps, Huey got shot down. And so now, since, for the first time since 1993, Black Hawk Down, these guys are having to recover down to aircraft personnel. So they all rushed to that. This is, that's when the fight truly, that's when the, that's when they're like, oh shit, this is going to be a fight. It was after the Huey went down. They got, they got to pile it out, they got the air crew out. It was after that, that Colonel John Mayer, who is in this film, basically called up to his boss and said, hey, we have to go into this cemetery. This is the only way we're going to stop them at this point. We're in a full-on battle. We can't disengage. We have to go in the cemetery. The call went up. We don't know. Could have went up to the White House, to the secretary defense. But the call went up, at least to the, the theater commander, General Casey. And, and they were, they said, they authorized them to go into the, into that, that cemetery. And that, that will be the turning point in the film where it becomes a horror movie. Because right as the sun's setting, two line companies of Marines with one platoon of Bravo Company, and eighty, and an eighty-once platoon, they, they shot small rockets through this wall that was separating the cemetery from the road. And they found some holes that had already been busted out from RPGs during the earlier fight. And they went through these holes and they got online in this cemetery, World War One style. And they sat there at the edge of this cemetery, looking at all of these tombs, some stacked ten feet high, catacombs underneath. And they, and they were told, push. And they walked, and they pushed through that cemetery all night, until they got, for three weeks, for three weeks. So, I, I get, like, you have this initial contact and this initial battle or firefighter, whatever. And then, is going into the cemetery, like, the catalysts that, like, got a bunch of more reinforcements and more people involved because it was like, you know, you guys weren't supposed to set foot in this holy place or what was, or did they really just stumble upon a horn that's messed with people by, by chance, or was going into the cemetery, something that made it so much worse. - I can't speak specifically to that, but I am, yes. I deduced that once those Marines entered that cemetery, 'cause they had to, they had no choice at that point. Once those Marines entered that cemetery, that drew even more of the, the modern militia into the cemetery. It was inevitable going to be a grunt on grunt clash. Just like any civil war battle, when those two armies eventually land on the same chunk of land, there's no going back. You're gonna have to. - I think you described it out perfectly, actually. 'Cause that was our, so half of that deployment was really battle-hardened guys from our OIF-1 deployment. And the other half was new guys. And having, you know, just been in Iraq for nine months, we knew that this was, like, we felt it. You could sense it just the way you described it, actually. And I think that the, there was, it was known by higher negotiations from, like, geopolitical and diplomatic and general level officers that there was, like, a 50,000 man militia. And Maktatr Al-Satr was the guy who was, you know, climbing the wrong to, like, fill the power vacuum from Saddam. And so this is, like, a major figure in Iraq. And so this was gonna happen regardless. - Yeah. And it just so happened, it just almost happened by accident, but it just happened to be that battalion of Marines was there. And yeah, and so the Marines were primarily in that cemetery for three days. And that will be 45 minutes of that film is dedicated to those first three days, just the crazy stuff that happened in there. Eventually they knew by day three that, you know, they, one battalion of Marines couldn't do this alone. So one five and two seven Army Cav were sent down, I believe, from Baghdad. And it's a joke from a lot of the Marines joke about it. This will be in the film, but they're like, we don't need the Army. I was like, we don't need the Army. And then they saw all the Bradley's and tanks going down the road. And one guy, Sam Rivera says, oh, that was the first time I realized America will never be defeated on the battlefield. He said, he saw more Bradley's and tanks that they had Marines in their battalion. So the Army came and that was definitely a crucial part of the battle when the Army showed up. And- - Yeah, they stopped shooting at me. - Yeah, yeah. It's harder to punch a frickin' Abrams than it is, you know, a fire team of Marines. - But they weren't the Army, but it's pretty fucking cool. - Oh, when they show up. - Yeah. - It's due to molding. - They all said, "Oh yeah, we did these guys." - Let's put it to the enemy's credit though. They are better than people want to give them credit for. They had very good snipers and designated marks and they were shooting on all the thermal sites. - We make predictions every single day about politics, pop culture, the economy, and the biggest stories making headlines. - Galshi, America's number one predictions market platform. Let's you trade predictions in a live market. - Let's use Formula One for example. - Will Kimi Antonelli become the F1 driver's championship this year? - Well, let's see what he's trading at. 75%, you know, what does that mean? - Let's say you bet $100 that he's going to win this. Well, that $100 would have a trade out pay of $131. 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For more information, see koushi.com, regulatory. - Go, use code UNSUB. - Think about this year's prior, uh, uh, they disbanded the Iraqi army. - Yeah. - Uh, so where do you think those guys went? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Great call by the United States government on that one. - Yeah, just like, mm, dude, I will say just a multiple day or like 10, 20 day battle was absolutely insane 'cause especially in G-Watt, most battles lasted. My longest battle was probably like 12 hours. Give or take and then we'd have an engagement at the last, either from 30 minutes to a few hours, but a multiple day engagement was so rare and those stories are extremely rare too. Yes, when we did, they pushed through a diolar river province. That's multiple day, but again. - Hey, wouldn't we in the diolar river area? - During the, uh, 2007? - Oh, okay, I was there right before you. I'm a, I'm a little older than you, Eli, as you can tell. - A year. - Yeah, yeah. (laughing) - Well, I got a few things one year different, right? - Yeah, I've got things going for me that you don't. Siga rats and white jeans. - Yeah. - Yes, kind of piggybacking off your question, like, 'cause all I do is read your war history stuff and I don't cover anything newer than Vietnam generally, but one of the weird parts to me is here in all these stories, but dudes that have been in like multi-day long battles that obviously have a bunch of different engagements with Enem, and maybe it was a little bit different 'cause it's more recent, but going back to like World War II and stuff, these guys are like, yeah, we were in this battle for eight days, and then it was just like every night, it was, okay, we're off the clock, and there's just these weird periods, and then the next morning it starts back up again. So like, I guess, from your perspective, if you're experiencing, what was it like with the lulls in that battle where things weren't going on? Like, what, I just, I can't imagine, what are you doing at that point in time? Like, you've just gone through hell for six hours, and you're like, do you have to remind yourself to eat and drink water at that point? Or like, I get, dude, I love this question because again, it is, we had our breaks where it's like, okay, you're pulling security, we're fucking with our guys, or we're living out in sector, and it's like, hey, okay, we're on rotation, you're not, you're pulling security, but you're going out and mission whatever, but moving in that. - Yeah, unfortunately, there was no really like lulls because of the indirect fire. So there's 24-hour threat of getting a 120, and it's really eerie, the only thing I think that I hated more than IEDs is the indirect fire, 'cause IEDs, it's a boom, you know, you're gone or you're not, but you don't, you know, there's signs for like VBIDs that like, triggers for those, but you can pick out vehicles after a while, but it's essentially, it's a boom. For those, it's like a three or four second that scream of a coming in that just mentally messes with your head. And for just 24 hours a day, we were indirect threat of indirect fire. At night, the enemy did not have, they had some NVGs that were taken from our side, unfortunately, we lost some NVGs, not me personally, but the good guys lost some NVGs, and that's what they're using to spot, and we had our hinge men set with IR Fireflies. So imagine it's like having like second shitty generation nods, but they could see our lines being set up, and that's how they walked in indirect fire at night, and then during the daytime, is the more of like the dude on, dude, kinetic stuff was happening. I gotta say too, this isn't sexy by any means, but it's such an important part of telling the story. We dedicated three or four minutes of this film to talking about how they were, they weren't just fighting the enemy, they were fighting the elements. 125 degree heat, August in Southern Iraq. So these guys were fighting severe dehydration, and you mentioned it in the film, hyper-nutrimia. They could not replenish salt in their body at the rate that they were drinking water, and it was going right out of their body. So they, and the heat, the exhaustion from the heat, you know, it makes you a little delirious, like you guys were having to fight your minds as much as you were the enemy. - If I can guess this before you speak, it is you were drinking a liter, or trying to drink a liter one hour, you have the white lines between your armor, and then on top of that, you will do, you will self-imminister IV bags that just, the drip, you do the squeeze. We used to give ourself IV bags, but in my pretty, like, dude, unfortunately we hadn't adapted the part where we could give each other IVs, and we were always under threat. So there's no like guys, like hanging out, doing IVs, we were like, literally on the gun line, but the white lines, yes. And I'm like, I have all the chaos, and I probably just as much PTSD from hot water, scalding my mouth, than anything else, 'cause it was not even, we only had like a couple of liters, but again, we had two liters of canteens to last us all day. - It was crappy plastic before the analogies, and I was still like canteens, and so it was like two of the liters just drinking scalding hot water. I still hate water. I don't drink water anymore, like. - It's on your vehicle, it's on the humvees. - Yeah, I just take this, you drink it's like, "Ah, it's fucking hot, this is garbage, man." - And you have no choice. You're gonna die if you don't drink this water. - Oh, my God. - I mean, the battle was 25 days, you got there on what day three? - Yeah. - So I mean, you were there for 22 days? - No, so we had three platoons, and it was like rotating out, so like one back, and we were in two platoons out, so I was on there for like a week, then that huge raid happened, and then my company commander actually stood me down after that Kufa Techal College raid for a few days, because I was ready to just go berserk her. It was like legends of the fall, or these rides off into the horse, and like comes back with all the skelps. Like I was about ready to be like, Brad Pitt, I was so mad. - That's a sign of a good leader too, that recognize that. - He did, you know, that my company commander again, we are so blessed that we, that washing machine environment that created that battle, we had one of the best company commanders, and then Colonel Mayer, in 21 years of service, he's probably the top two dudes of leaders in my military, and listed officer Marines, Navy SEALs, anybody in that unit. We still talked about him in the third deployment, we were talking about how if only we had Colonel Mayer, we would have walked through fire, and ran into a naked billion on fire for that guy. He was such a good leader. Tell him about like after like the film. - Well, no, well, yeah. - Maybe I'm wrong, but being under, you were there for a week in combat the entire time, constant threat of indirect fire. I have to imagine to some type of degree that you get, I don't know, comfortable is the right word, but you just get comfortable with the idea of indirect fire. Like how did your thought process change from the first time you start taking indirect fire in that battle to just coming to accept the fact of, this is the environment that I'm living in, and it's not gonna stop. - Good question. I don't know. (laughs) - Can I, dude, it's really fascinating, 'cause I haven't got to talk to somebody, like with kind of the same experience, but it's being so used to it when we go on, it's like those first few months, you just get acclimated to the environment, you get used to it, and then you get complacent where you just stop caring. We just, dude, I'd have night missions when we just smoke cigarettes, and we'd be like, "Ah, it's not our shoes, "at least it's in our cherry, we're good." And that was for a good portion of the deployment, where you're just, you're so on the zone, you're like, "Nope, don't care, I'm gonna just go through it "as long as I'm protecting the guys to my left and right," but you get complacent and hypervigilance, like the hypervigilance never leaves for me, like I would always be scanning, but I'm comfortable with what's gonna happen next is what happened to me. - I remember not so much complacent more is just being on the gun line at night with the IDF realizing that I had no power control if they. dropped it on my position then it was like my bingo card was punched there's nothing I could do about that and that's why I ask because there's I just did a video on a civil war general and it's not the general I did the video on but um Stonewall Jackson the Confederate general has a quote that like that situation reminds me of and the quote was my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe and battle as in bed God has a fixed time for my death I do not concern myself about it it's just a notion of like there's nothing I can do that might as well not be worried about it yeah which is and then crazy got shot by one of his own guys correct when it's your time it's your time I truly felt that it was when it was my buddy's times it was the times we had a striker pull off first put him pulled off ID exploded and they were like holy shit we got so lucky they pulled back in base they open they were eating chow a mortar dropped right in front of the exact same on the exact same day dropped in front of that on base striker with the ramp down and it took out five of our guys they got say him kill Pam and we're like man like when it's your time it's your time yeah and that's what we just got used to that mindset it's like you're not controlling it try not to worry about it yeah it's your time it's your time yeah I just hate IDs and indirect fire rather be able to like see the guy have a real fight that we did I think we lost three people to actual gun fight everything else with IDs or indirect fire yeah what's the fucking time what's what's the meme that was going around a while back you crane veterans explaining did you want veterans the IED's fly now you're just running from the fucking DJI drone doing a wedding shot it's fun I actually was watching some of the similarities of like they're literally in trench warfare for a while and you crash like that was only me and Najaf in the catacombs like just you're there like then ID comes or the 120 comes it's like yeah fly IDs and remember those those catacombs like there were guys down there so these guys were in a 360-degree battlefield because those they were they they pushed to take they pushed to take ground and then guys they didn't have enough grenades to clear those catacombs so they would push to take ground next you know somebody's but shoot behind you and you got to go deal with that now I know this is serious but every time you guys say catacombs all like in picture in my head is if there's ever like it sounds like you know how like action video games have like a scary level like a horror level for the video game yeah this is that for like modern warfare is like the catacombs map where it's supposed to be scary it's a sin yeah they I mean we try to highlight it as as visually as as much as we can in the film and everyone's talking about it but that it's but it again I'm saying this purely as the person that was piecing this story together from their personal accounts I'm like the whole time like this is a fucking horror story this is this is a horror film these guys should have never got rid of flamethrowers seriously that would have come in handy for you guys but even with a flamethrower there was tunnels so I'm like Jack you say it right like you can do mount you can do south you could do jungle desert mountain it's just there's something about being in a city with refrigerator size rocks everywhere in tombs that are that size to sometimes buildings and then always knowing that you've never cleared your back there's never a clear lane but there's not a threat and that sucks to especially when you're sitting in the two to four man L. P. O. P. is on a line you're always like shoot where's the enemy coming from for you know days and again I I said it earlier and again just talking to these guys and then talking a lot of other dudes offline I hadn't put me in contact with one of his old platoon or company guys in this company named Freddie Osuna I've talked to a lot of guys that aren't in the film that have helped me out with this and and like I can't say enough it was the definition of uncommon valor was a common virtue with these like and again since there was no structure paperwork wise a lot of this heroism that happened there was a guy that there was a Marine who had a sucking chess wound he crawled something like a hundred guy in your company Brooks yeah the guy who and I don't know his name off the top of my head I wish I did I'd love to give him as much props as possible Brooks was a guy in his company that had a sucking chess wound and this other marine kid you know dehydrated crawled through gunfire to grab him and fireman carried him like 200 yards to get him to where the evac vehicles were and then collapsed and became a heat casualty like literally made it just enough to get his brother back to safety and then he basically almost died just carrying this guy out of the battlefield well every night when those indirect mortars were dropping guys were carrying guys under fire you know maybe cross style actions that they didn't get anything for I think anything it might have been like I got an Arkham for you know carrying my dime brother out while he was you know bleeding out but there I got an Arkham most people didn't get anything and they're doing those types of actions for three it was the norm yeah yeah and so then the elevation of of handing out metals because if it was a single firefighting like yeah that guy that's a silver star right there but with those those crazy things those guys were doing it just became the norm in that cemetery that's the interesting thing about being a an infantry marine for a decade before being a Navy SEALs on a SEAL deployment if you're doing like a kinetic deployment almost every guy comes back with like a B with via Braun star with valor but every single marine in that company probably should have had a BV and me getting Arkham was a big deal like that was it like I was one of like a couple guys I think in my company maybe two guys got BVs from the army and that was because they did the wildest things and they happened also being like leadership positions so it's it's just interesting how those awards go and just it's almost it it's saddened me to know that specifically I had enlisted Marines who were like the younger guys who then got to the Marine Corps and they didn't have a combat action ribbon like the the system failed them so poor like I want their kids their grandkids and the you know the guys so I'm very blessed now you know 20 years later or whatever they're finally approving my purple heart but I know guys who like Freddy Osuna and I tell his story up until three years ago that guy had a 0% VA rating no 0% the VA was giving him nothing a guy that got literally blown through a wall with me was right you know three deployments together 0% VA rating and so God will and I'm gonna you know correct a lot of those those wrongs I've we've talked about it I've said there's problems with it because a lot of people I don't know how you guys feel I know there's like both side of the spectrum you guys could just make a whole show because I'm like I got so little and then I see people that look I'm at a hundred like what how many gun fights were you in so I'm not I'm like wow that's crazy great so next to me a bootcamp and I got a hundred percent I'm like wow that's what oh we have huh huh it's my four-time and I'm 60 and I have like purple heart like all my list of shit and it's still a battle and that's where I've like which the gentleman's name that's struggling got blown through a fucking wall and then what's the name Freddy Osuna Freddy like Freddy got blown through a wall and rendering aid to our bleeding out guy in the heat of battle I did three deployments with them 0% VA rating I don't think he even got like a combat valor for that for that deployment and I thankfully I had a really good first heart and really good change man it's like do not worry about your fucking medals they are all political fuck those things and yeah we got super lucky with that because that set the standard for us because we rotate on base we see people getting them like wait why are they getting they didn't even do anything and like our leadership is like don't their leadership filled up the paperwork didn't don't worry about it you're like okay that's weird huh yeah I have I will help your buddies get as much awards as possible for that or disability because I do think people that have that paperwork that shows hey here I was right here and it's all the proofs behind it and it's not well you didn't act the proper way during a VA meeting so you don't get you give 0% cuz you down right and you're like what the fuck homie got sent through a wall you were part of the Avengers and survivors guilt he's like why do I deserve for all this stuff because our brother didn't make it like oh man he's still struggle with it a little bit it uh Freddy Wong never so Freddy rocket jump Freddy oh yeah one of my favorite things he ever said he was like Eli do they this is 2010 2012 he was like Eli do they give uh purple hearts for PTSD I was like now why and I was like or TBI and I was like now and I'm like oh my God you are 100% I never thought about TBI is way getting a head injury is way worse than getting shot in the foot like that that's another thing about to put into context too I'm glad nowadays we understand about TBI in 2004 to get blown up and your head goes smashing through a wall we didn't understand the significance of TBI's back then like we do now so it was like literally like, oh, well, you're not bleeding out. So you're- - You're nosebleed. - You're still here, yeah. He's like, the guy's puking, no. There's probably not normal for him to be puking like that. - I remember at one point, you had to be like, passed out for like a 30 seconds or a minute or so. I was like, set the watch, you see, coming to you. Like, Mr. and Rob, like, all right, 31 seconds, all right, purple hearted. It's like, what are we talking about right now? A guy that's blown through all. - Dude, like, you should have purple hearts for TVA. That's way worse than taking a little shrapnel. - Dude, I have so many buddies that like, we had, it's like 42 or 48 purple hearts during my, but just my battalion in my like 16 months. Like, we want to do bad shit. And again, the amount we would have if it was TBI related. - I have buddies that got like, launched ID, went through like 500, 600 pound ID, punched through the hole of the shrapnel, just the engine bay. - Oh, sure. - So your body feels jelly. - Oh, yeah. - Do they- - It's a slot like that. - Oh, yeah. - I think it was Markford flew from the back, from the front driver's hatch, all the way to the back smack his head. And when they're pulling him out, he doesn't come too until he's in a building. He's like, what the fuck's going on? They're like, oh, you're good, you're good. - No, not a fucking thing. - We have a eight minute musical number in Guat the Musical about TVI. (laughing) - Dude, I'm so stoked for Guat the Musical. - That's what we're actually, that's what this is to launch Guat the Musical. - Yeah, I'm really only doing this film for Kickstarter. - Yeah, I'm only doing this film to make enough money to fund Guat the Musical. - Yeah. - Where can the people find both of you on social media and then where can they watch this amazing documentary at? - I am a Jacked History on YouTube and you can watch this on PepperBox TV, August 15th. The film is called Battle in the Jaff, whatever it takes. - Starting Adam Schwarzey. - I'm definitely not starting at Adam Schwarzey. I'm up on all the socials, but don't even go to my stuff. Go check out this to see the Patriots. - Well, you should link it in your stuff to go check it. - Oh yeah, I'll promote it on my socials. I think I have like 3000 followers on X or something. - That's a fucked-up for a lot of people. I have 3000 people staring at you. - Adam Schwarzey. - I do wanna say this about Adam. He is a real patriot. I've known this guy since we were 18 years old. He went off and did his thing. But we have kept in touch occasionally throughout the years. It's no, I wanna just tell a funny thing about Adam. Dude, I went and did war eventually. So I don't remember fucking boot camp. I don't remember boot camp, but one thing dawned on me recently. I went to boot camp with Adam. This is no surprise me that I became a Navy SEAL 'cause Adam got bored with Marine Corps boot camp. I specifically remember him. He'd just get bored and he'd ask the, he'd fuck up on purpose just to get punished because he just was like bored. He's like, "I just hope they haze me here something." So he would literally ask to be punished 'cause he'd just get bored with it. So it's no surprise he went off and had the career he did after the Marine Corps. - Thanks buddy. - Yeah. - He's a tough son of a bitch as the one I'm trying to say. - He's a hard guy. Yeah, not me. I did four and I am making movies now. - Yeah. - Jack's gonna try out to be a Navy SEAL with him. If as many people, how many people have you signed up for you to become a Navy SEAL? - Sign up for what? - Pepper Box, watch this video. - Yeah, if we get a million views on this movie on Pepper Box, I will go do buds. - Oh, 100%. I will make that happen. We will all make this happen 'cause that turns on to it. - That's dangerous. - That's a dangerous commit. - Again, you have to give me a wrap off of the Navy recruiter. - No, we're filming this and we're not participating. - You have to give me a ready though. - No, that's way more hilarious. - No, it makes him call. - We're from the same area, so I'll fly up to your neck of the woods and you train me in your backyard to get me ready, you'll be my-- - We'll document that. - We'll document that. - I just want buds to not let you ring the bell. - Like, really? - Like he's a foreign officer. Like they won't let a foreign officer like this. You can ring the bell, okay, you're not. 'Cause it used to happen is they let the foreign officers ring the bell, they send them back home and execute them. So now even if a foreign officer quits, they like still force them through. I wanna like make that contract. Like they don't let you quit. - We're gonna document all of it. The documentary is gonna be called Jack Carries the Boats. - Jack? - Jack Carries the Boats? - Jack Lee is a six-pack. - Is this my own specialized personalized buzzer? Do I have to be around all those 20-year-old stars? - No, the real one, you have to sign a Navy contract and if you fail out, you're at the, you serve at the wins of the Navy. - Can you just be a buzz contract and then I don't have to do anything after that? - I mean, yes, as long as you finish buds, if you don't finish buds, you have to do the five-year contract. - Yeah. - Three years. I don't know where he doesn't get to quit. He just gets forced through regardless. - Yeah, this is how I love this idea. Million views, we're gonna make it happen. - Yeah, I'm gonna tell you what, I am not making it day two on that thing. - Yeah. - And I'm sleep chasing behavior. - I can handle a little sleep deprivation, sure. I'm not making it past 12 hours, actually, 12 hours. - I've seen the documentary, I know. - Nick, you wanna close this, I can do it. - Thank you for coming to the on-subscribe podcast. I was joined here today by Eli Double Tap, Mr. Jack Mandaville, our new friend, Adam Schwarzey. Still set it right twice, fuck yeah. And I'm still me, donut operator. Thanks for coming. Okay, bye. We love you. Mwah. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Olen Shannon Maldonado. (upbeat music)