The Ranger Account of Takur Ghar | Josh Walker & Chris Cunningham | Ep. 471

I think I have two questions to kick it off. The first one is we talked about this early on in the section just talking about Anaconda and I wanted to reinforce this and it was the inexperience of everybody involved on the Seal Site even though they were at a Tier 1 unit. I had to be shocked if anybody had actually seen any combats, a stained combat, especially something like this. Does that hold true for the Ranger Regiment as well as far as real world experience the people that you were with, where the vast majority of them on their first combat rotation? I think that was a vast majority of everybody that was even involved in that mission to include your GPF that were not located in the same area but similar offset for Operation Anaconda during that time frame. I think that was the first real mission outside of some of the smaller stuff that was going on throughout the theater. Yeah. Yeah, we really hadn't done too much all the way up to that point. The closest we got was when we first landed in Afghanistan and the Seals took the General Dailies, Armored Server, and we were going to go to a night wrecky right as soon as we landed there and that was the closest we ever got and we didn't even get outside the wire. The British went and got them. And I guess the second question maybe to start it off, I know how this story is told in the Seal community or where it maybe holds its station for a lot of people. Where does this story in the Ranger's participation sit in the Ranger Regiment World? How is it talked about? What kind of place does it hold in the legacy and lore of Rangers? You know, I can't speak for Ranger Regiment and anecdotally, even in your experience and your time and/or post, how do people talk about it? Is it considered successful? Is it a catastrophe? And there's a catastrophic loss of life, obviously, is it a massive lessons learned? All of the combination of all of those things? Well, I'm going to say it was a success because we didn't leave anybody up there, got everybody off the mountain. We lost really good dudes in the process, Rangers and everybody else. Yeah. Yeah, success, I guess. We made it, we made it happen, it worked. Is it a story that is still told and talked about? Do you guys have any idea of that in the modern Ranger World Regiment? You know, I think it was about four years ago we all went back to Savannah for a reunion. And Eric Stebner put together a reunion there at 175, I think at the 20 year. And some other dudes came, I think some of the guys from 160th and some other folks had come in and I couldn't tell you who all was there, it was so crowded. What we did for the regiment at that time was the battalion commander hosted basically a leadership roundtable and we had the opportunity to tell the story to all, you know, the young NCOs that are there now and shared that story with them. And then we had about a one hour question answer session and then that night, you know, we were still on station there in Savannah. So we all went out downtown and some of the Rangers had joined us and things like that. What kind of questions did they ask you? Who? Well, mainly it was, you know, our leaders that were on the ground there talking about, you know, what we did there and what led up to the mission. But also, I guess, thinking back, you know, it was kind of cool, I got to meet the guy who essentially does my job now back then. You know, this specialist saw Gunner from same platoon, same squad, it was really cool to be able to actually meet him, sit next to him, you know, and just be a part of that again essentially. That's cool. Can we go back to your question about like the impact that it made on regimen? Yeah. I think initially, I think it made a very significant impact. I think it made a very significant impact across, you know, the entire special operations community across the entire United States and, you know, even our forward deployed folks. But I think where it kind of probably has gotten lost is the fact of looking at how many missions have been pulled off by people in the community now, I'm accrediting everybody, every one of the tears in the special operations community, the work that they've done both in Afghanistan, Iraq, later on in Syria, and then some of the other stuff that we just can't talk about on this forum, right? Some of the great work that they're still doing today, we're like right now, real time. I think it got lost in there. I mean, if you go, if you go to the wall, Jay Sock and you look at the wall and you look at the wall there, look how many names are up there that are account for how many folks that come out of Task Force Ranger. There's a lot. I've been there. Yeah. And it's, I mean, I'm not saying that anybody did any more work or better work. I mean, it's all God's work to me. But I think when you really look at the burden that's felt across the community, I think if you look at the size of the range of regimen and you look at the amount of rangers that have lost their lives in combat, you can tell by just standing in front of that wall that they get on the business end of it sometimes, on the receiving end. Building on that, you said something right before we went live. And that is that you haven't read a stitch of anything since you've been out knowing that they are participating at that level. How can you haven't read anything? Well, that's a good question. I've never really thought about it. For me personally, it's kind of tough day. Like your question earlier was like how much combat had we'd seen before that? None. Like I had never seen combat. The closest I got was through, you know, day and night, life, fire, exercise, prepping all the way from 98 until we rolled out no one. Well, let's not forget our excellent BFA training, but I never had and none of us had until that day. And so I don't know, even to this day when I meet young individuals that want to go serve and they always want to, like everybody's always so eager to say, hey, yeah, I hope the experience is coming back one day and I'm like, I always, because I got out one day to watch you see. And that's what I said. I said, careful what you asked for because you just might get it. And then, you know, I ended up going back in as an officer and I'd tell some of my peers careful because what you think you want to see is also followed by, you know, the following night, you're all right in letters, you're the guy responsible right in letters and make a phone call to moms and dads to have that tough conversation after they've been notified. And, you know, when you meet those gold star families, that's, that's side of it sucks. Yeah. Were you guys together that day and night or did you, I know there was obviously a helicopter that landed right there and another one that offset where were you guys in relationship to those? Oh, yeah. So Josh was on chalk one, so they were the first one up there and we were in chalk too. Okay. So we had to actually climb up to where those boys were fighting. So what did you guys think? And I'm basing this question off of the very recent conversation I had with Mitch and Brian. Where did you think as chalk one that you were going to be landing? What information did you have in the back of the helicopter? What did you think you were stepping out into? I was going to a farpsight to pre-po hold on. And then that's where you landed? And that's where we landed. I knew at some point we'd lost comms with, do you want to explain what a farps is before it? It's a fort area of fueling point. It's fuel blivits that are in the middle of nowhere where a guy hooks up a gas hose. We got to the farps later on. Yeah, we did. That's good. I mean, the night. It's your private mission, they reversed the order on the way that I was supposed to roll out. Do you think that was the vast majority on chalk one that's where they thought they were going? We thought we were going somewhere to pre-stage and we didn't know we were going back to the X, where we had basically, well, what we thought when we got on the aircraft was a dust one missing US soldier. Were you guys planning on disembarking the aircraft at the farps, or were you going to stand when they refueled? To be honest with you, it would have been probably whatever came over the radios, what the security posture would have been if there, but was not expecting to. We rehearsed the way that we rolled out the aircraft with those of us that were still able to move. That's how we exit the aircraft, we're rolling out, going left and right, and we've rehearsed before while we were in stateside and for Cesar missions, so. How about chalk two? What did you guys get briefed on? Yeah, I was the same thing, I mean, you know, me being a corp. back then, I thought I was just gonna get off the bird, set in security, put the guy on the helicopter and then fly away. So you knew it, did you, were you guys under the impression that somebody was missing, that somebody was wounded? All we had gotten was that, at the time we didn't know the name, but we, we, we later found out news. Yep. Robert's that, that Neil had fallen out of an aircraft, but all we had known was, we, an individual had fallen out of an aircraft and that we needed to stand up Caesar. And so at that time, you know, they all woke us up, we went out, they pulled up gun trucks to escort us down to the airfield and then we went down to the airfield. And when we got down the airfield, we didn't have control of, I say us, our task force didn't have any control of any of the aircraft that were down there. Yeah. Because they were being held at a higher echelon for the larger anaconda operation that was going on. And so we were actually moving us from sets of aircraft down the airfield. And I, I remember telling Matt commons, he just looked at me and I just start laughing. He's like, what's going on Sergeant? I was like, this is a fucking shit show. He's like, what do you mean? I was like, these dudes won't let us on this aircraft. I was like, this, like, like, we're missing a dude right now and we're over here arguing about who's aircraft is what? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, initially, it was just going to be one bird. I remember me and my team later, George were actually on your bird for a minute there. And then a weapon squad leader was like, now you need a, you need a machine gun. And so they got me and George off and they put Anderson on there and, and Gillum on the bird instead. And then we actually, I think we actually drove back to the tents and then turn right around came right back. And you guys were already on the, you know, blade spinning on the flight, flight line and jumped on a bird and went. How far separated were Chuck one and two time wise? Did Chuck one depart by itself? Did you guys leave in a flight at two? I couldn't, I, yes, I think we flew together because when your, you know, when the sun was coming up, I could still look out the bubble and see. Okay. I was wondering, we was there. I was wondering if there's a substantial amount of time separated between the two trucks. But at a certain point, I think I don't know if it come across one of the old whiteboards pass through that, but we'd gotten word that we lost comms with the trail bird. Oh, excellent. Yeah, that's helpful. Yeah, same whiteboard was being passed around with us. You know, the only one guy had a head and you write the grease pen and send it around. What's going on? And I remember we landed in Gardez and Navy SEAL jumped on and then we picked up and kept going. But I knew there was no comms like that we, we didn't know where the other bird was essentially. So when you guys touched down up there, you, in your mind, thought it were you were going to be at a farpe. Today's episode is brought to you by Mars Men. If you're due to out there, who is getting older, which spoiler alert is all of us, pay attention here for a second. Ladies, I don't mean to leave you out, but this is particularly for men today. Guys, have you started to feel the change from lower testosterone? Anybody who's hit their thirties potentially ford is beyond that. You know that things just start to feel a little bit different. Energy can drop faster recovery takes longer workouts. Just don't hit like they used to. 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And then like we knew, like we started getting a elevation and we were flying through the mountains and not over them at a certain point. I could tell by the posture by the door gunners that something in our situation had changed that like, like just the level of alertness by, you know, the right side door gunner, like he, you know, he was up on his gun. And then at that point, like it's, you know, you start looking around and it's like, okay, like start bumping dudes, make sure everybody's awake. And then that's a couple of minutes later. That's when we flared. So since you thought you were going to be landing at a far, I'm going to assume that anything beyond exiting the aircraft, there probably wasn't a plan for you guys were going to get off and then figure out a plan from there. Okay. Walk me through touching down or I'm assuming you guys started taking fire before you touched down. Yeah. So we came around, came around the top of the mountain top. And at that point, the helicopter flared. And then as we discussed earlier, you could tell the posture had changed. And then about that time, like no sooner than we flared. I mean, to me, it felt like it was immediate. I don't know. Maybe we're up there for 30 seconds. I don't know. But then just bullet start ripping through the side of the aircraft. Many gun goes hot. And then I were just up there floating. As rounds are ripping through, you know, we start to go into a kind of like, I call it like a belly flop with the aircraft. The aircraft goes down. My understanding later on is, you know, exterior had been hit with an RPG. And then, but notes to others, this, another RPG came through the window at this point, the door gunner's dead. And we hit the ground. We all, where were you in the bird? Fourth man back on the stack on the left side. Okay. So I had Ray DePoli on point, who was my squad leader at the time. And then we'd, we'd actually gotten, our teams had gotten flip flopped when we went to get on the aircraft. So I had Brad Kroos and Matt Collins in front of me because we reverse loaded up. And then beside me, I had Anthony Misselli and a couple other guys. As soon as we hit the ground, it was like everybody was trying to get unhooked and unsnapped. It's funny. A lot of folks don't really care about safety, but we'd always in regiment. We'd always adamant, even if we were shoving 60 dudes on an aircraft, probably five over what we were supposed to, everybody snapped in. And it was always a pain in the butt to get unhooked. So we all eventually got unhooked as rounds are getting, you know, still coming through the side of the aircraft. We get to our feet and it's like go, go, go, go. Ray goes out the aircraft and we're all going Matt and Brad are in front of me. Before I even get to the tail, Matt takes one and he's, he's laying on the ramp of the aircraft and Brad just knows dive straight into the snow off in front of me. And initially I just naturally, you know, really close. I went down and grabbed him and kind of flipped him over and Ray told me, hey, we're still taking fire. I need you. And so at that point, I just kind of dropped what I was doing with him and piled over to what would be my left side, coming out the side of the aircraft and started just engaging any type of rock outcropping. I couldn't really see anybody specifically, but I knew we were still taking heavy fire at the time. Josh, and that's time. Yeah. Call that thing up because I don't know if the camera angle can catch that. Yeah. So interesting story about that. That happened on the exit of the aircraft. You can kind of see inside how it was dinted in there. I'd probably say six more inches and I'd taken it through the front of the melon. Don't know what that was from if it was through another round or shrapnel from the RPG that was in there. Interesting. I never knew that this happened until me and him were pulling six o'clock security off the tail of the aircraft, probably about an hour before it got dark. Well, and he goes, hey, you all right, we had a they dropped a 500 pounder that didn't hit target later on. We'll probably get to that. And then he and then Aaron can and came over the radio and one of the know if we were good. And then he looks at me and he sure you're all right, man. Like, you got hit in the helmet and I was like, what? And I took it off and looked at it and it wasn't from the 500 pounder that went a little short. Yeah. But I had never known all day that, you know, there's a lot of people that got hit that day that never really got killed too. You know, Ray, we found a Ray found a AK round embedded into his lower back plate. So five three or four days. Maselle Saul was hit five times, I think four to five times was non-functioning. They actually found it on a dude walking off an objective sometime later. And that's that's how the U.S. actually recovered that saw 'cause it was actually left behind on the X. - It was combat, what you thought it was gonna be like? - Hmm. - I guess no. - I guess no. - The situation you were thrown into, I'm not aware of many training scenarios that model that, so you got a bullish shot, no pun intended, I guess, right out of the get-go on that. - It wasn't what I was really expecting from our first firefight. - Yeah. - I think there was a lot of tension. - Maybe he's our way into this? - Yeah, yeah. - Maybe some long-distance engagement where we could just get a little comfortable or reckon some stuff. - Yeah. - Holy cow. - Yeah, for people watching that to plate up there on the TV, that is speckled. - Do you guys know who this plate that is? - Uh-oh. - That's a. - TV guess? - Uh, pilot. - Griggs? - Griggs. - Yeah. - Griggs. - That is insane. - He's right side, right side front. - You know, you were talking about earlier that I made a statement that I don't really watch much of it, I don't read my none of it. I did watch the. We started watching the section that you sent me. I didn't realize how bad even he was while we were up there because we were, I mean, at the time I was just a team leader with no dudes at this point. I knew the pilots were all shot up, but I didn't, he, till probably three hours before now, I didn't realize that I knew they were shot bad, but I didn't know the severity and where some of those wounds were until I actually watched some of the other previous work on this. - That's a recurring theme. And I don't mean that negatively. There's a lot, and again, I asked not to see the information for Mitch and Brian came up and there's a lot of, even just listening to some of the communication, there's a lot of not intentionally compartmentalized information, but there are some massive gaps in knowledge overlap in the plan in what is going on in the ground, what people thought, what people knew. It seems to be a repeating narrative around this operation. And maybe that is because I think for most people, this was their first bolus exposure to combat, but you're not the first person to date. I have had the same realization many times, talking with Mitch and Brian. - Yeah, I bet. Where are you in this? - So this is all happening at the top of this mountain. - What are you guys doing? - You're probably still in flight. - Yeah, we're probably, I don't know, either at Garda's or are, you know, moving towards the mountain. You know, I'm sitting all the way up by the door gunner. The seal is right here and everybody's out that way. Towards the back of the aircraft. And yeah, we're in flight. And it's kind of crazy. I thought I was gonna be landing in the desert and I start seeing snow and we start climbing. I'm like, well, I guess we're going up. And then, you know, the white board came around and by that time there was 2KAA. - On the white board, they already reported that. - Well, I don't know what the timeline looks like back then, but it was a long time ago, but yeah, I remember 2KAA. - I think in reality, it probably was five. - Yeah, which didn't know, but that's what we got. - How did that change the mood of the helicopter? Did you see that impacting people as the white board made its way around? - Oh yeah, we were ready to go. We wanted to go get with the boys wherever they are. - For sure. - Yeah, and so we were flying up and, you know, normally land, we didn't. We just spun the bird around and jumped off into the snow and landed and the snow came up. And we're like, wow, this is pretty deep and pretty steep. And, you know, once you get out the bird, you guys are in security. So I was trying to muscle through the snow to get our bearings, leaders are doing leader things. I remember that seal was like, all right, come on, let's go. We're gonna go get my guys and we're like, oh. I'm like, go talk to the squad leader. And I think he did. I think he won't talk to Cannon or one of the leaders and I can see him going up there. So he walked off by himself towards wherever the seals were. - Do you know who this is, Andy? - No. - I just assumed he had fantastic hair. - He had beard. - It was big hider. - Okay. - Yeah. - I know Vic, not well, but I know Vic, yep. - Yeah. So yeah, we started climbing. - I'm assuming at this point, are you guys able to pick up radio comms coming from the mountain top? Are you guys able to hear externally? Obviously the gunfire, the thing's going on up there. - I know Aaron's making some kind of contact, but those guys were in the thick of shit. - Yeah. - Could you hear it from where you were? - Well, you could see Jets flying over. - Yeah. - Stuff like that. - Okay. - Way up there. - I think a lot of folks were failed to realize, like those of us that probably retired here more recently, the commsweats that we have as an individual and every individual in the special operations community back that up 25 years. - Yeah. - Not every, like, you get a range of regiment now and every kid's got probably $30,000 over the comms kid on him. Back then we had a little shit icon radio and then team leaders had an old saver, and squad leaders had savers and then bitters. - Yeah. Yeah, modern area you can touch across any network you want to. Which is amazing. - Which is crazy and it's awesome. - But it is important I think to remember back looking 20 plus years in the rear view mirror, the technological capability there. It goes right along the lines of the combat experience. It's at its inception of the evolution. - Yeah. So you guys land and obviously no, you're probably gonna be making-- - We're going wherever the guns are. - For sure. So we're climbing. We climb for a good while trying to maintain 360 security, but try to get up there as fast as we can. And we had a 240 gunner with an AG. We was carrying a lot of weight and he had to climb. I don't know how far, like 2,000 feet, that's what he climbed. - About, yeah. - Yeah. - Just over actually. - Yeah. And it was pretty much snow, which was great. 'Cause you know, when stuff starts exploding around you, then snow kind of muffles it. It takes the shrapnel out, I don't know. We were climbing. There were some shrubs up there, some rocks. And then I think we got mortared or something. Something blew up close by, it's probably about 50 meters, I don't know, it was off to the right or whatever. And it wasn't anything. I've never had a mortar or whatever that was. Just hearing that, it cutting the air. And then landing in the snow and making a muffle explosion. So then we started to haunt, but even faster. At one point, like we needed to get up there, I know the squal leader was talking with the squal leader to Polly on top there. And he was gonna receive us as they're coming up. I think we got mortared again off to the right or off to the left this time. And you know, if you do anything with mortars, you know that's bracketing, so at that they were bracketing us. And then the next one came even closer. And then at that, we were gonna start getting hit. So we got down in the rocks and we were getting ready for fire for a fact and it didn't come. I guess they probably started mortaring you guys at that point. Maybe they were shifting up the building. - What I think may have happened during that time frame was because we were taking mortars and I had the exact same experience that Connie did. I was laying next to Nate's self and mortar round landed. I can't remember if the first one came in off the sixth or the nose, but one came off the tail. And then one came off the farther up on the nose and then another one landed in front of us. And I remember telling, you know, cat himself at the time, I was like, we got to move. - Yeah, so we got to move, and he looks at me goes, Josh, where do you think we're gonna go with all these people? Like we can't move, like we can't move all these casualties out of here. And about that time what I think had happened was they put three or four on top of us and then re-oriented their mortar, the rounds down onto, you know, the QRF that was coming up the hill, if I'm not mistaken, I think at some point somebody probably got a 500 pounder put on top of that mortar team and that's why the mortar is actually eventually stopped was. - Yeah, yeah, chalk two didn't shoot around yet. From all I know. - At this time, so you refer to them as the QRF, even though you guys were part of the QRF as well too. - Our QRF to the QRF. - Were you guys able to do anything other than establish a perimeter and do your best to shoot back until chalk two got there? 'Cause you took a massive amount of casualties right off the jump. - So we were there, and it wasn't very long after we were there, like our perimeter wasn't even in front of the aircraft. The nose of the aircraft was pushing forward, And then to the right side of the aircraft, you can kind of see that rock outcropping there. There was only thing really sticking out in the snow at the time, and that's where preponderance of us were, except for who was off the tail of the aircraft. But at one point, we'd made it, the leadership team had made a decision to try to push up to the top of that hill and take out that bunker complex. - I mean, if I'm wrong, that would be right there. - Yes, sir. - Okay. - And the decision was made to take that out, and it was going to be myself. And I think as Anthony Macelli and Rada Polly, we got probably halfway up that hill, in similar experience to what, kind of him and his element was experts at the time. It was at least a minimum knee deep snow. And we all think that we're fit, and we all thought that we were fit going into combat. Things change when you start getting at that elevation. You take four or five steps, and you think that you're trying to run and move quickly, and then you're quickly out of breath. I'd never operated that elevation in my entire life. - How close did you get to that bunker complex? - I'd probably say about halfway there. - What did it look like? - For us at the time, all it looked like was a traditional, well, a non-standard, like, port hole. That's all you could really make out of it at the time. - And that's portal like they stacked a bunch of rocks. - Yeah, like the rocks and the trees, and it was kind of built into the side of it. It was almost like a perfect spot for like, naturally, I probably wouldn't have a bunker facing that way. So I think it was just more like more of their underground system that they had up there on the ridge line, and had built in there over the years. No, necessarily, we call it a bunker, but I don't know, it was like in the traditional sense of like how we would build one in the US, but I think it was just like a security position for them. - So you guys sounds like you were just doing your best to hold your own until chalk to the QRF's, QRF made its way up, which position or which direction did you guys approach from on this picture, do you? - Yeah, so I, this is a great photo here. So here's the nose of the bird facing that way. So I guess we came up from this area up here, or maybe it was here at, maybe it was this way. - Yeah, down there. - But there was all kinds of military crafts you couldn't see over stuff 'cause you're still going up. - Yep. - So I don't know, right around here, when we crested that, that's where you could see the bird down, and you could see casualties and stuff like that. - I think it's, it was as a thing here. Just the time is going by. - Are you gonna say it into the microphone, or? - Do you recall, I'll say it in the microphone. Do you recall, I mean, we know how long it took, do you recall how long it took you guys to get up the mountain? - It took a minute, yeah. - There's over two hours. - Oh, jeez, yeah. - Seeing shorter than that. - Yeah, and you forgot a story about some plates, you can tell it or not tell it. - Oh, yeah. Yeah, we were trying to get up there and we're wearing those plates, and, you know, squallers like, I don't want to speak from 'cause, I just remembered, hey, you can hock it if you want, if you want to lose weight. So some guys did, some guys took a plate out and hocked it, I kept mine in 'cause I wanted to protect this area. - Yeah. The reason I even brought that up is just because, again, these guys are up there hanging it out for two hours, living in that world, they're living in, these guys are moving as fast as they possibly can, but it's not like it was 10 minutes. So it felt shorter than two hours for you. - Yeah. - How long did it feel for you? - Yeah, it was, well, at first we didn't know that they were coming, you know, there was that element of disconnect there before they'd put down, and you know, the decision was made to put down 'cause how long, I mean, I guess I'll ask you, you've probably seen the official timeline, from the time that we went down, what was the time span between the time that Razor Zero won crashes to the time that two get put down? No, the time to get put down, to get off the back of the aircraft to start there too, our journey. We have the timeline, I don't have a memorize, but I think it was something like an hour afterward. - Yeah, so now we're talking. - Let's leave you on the ground for three hours at that point. By the time we conducted the leak out. - Are you guys under sustained fire that entire time? Are you guys, do you even have minimum force to try really maneuvering? Are you just holding your own and trying to deal with your casualties? - Well, we were holding our own and dealing with the casualties in that attempt to move up towards the bunker, the decision was made by the leadership on the ground there of, and it was the right decision. Realized that if we took casualties going up there to secure and push our perimeter out, if we lost one or two casualties, you've now lost 50% of your able body fighting force outside of the ground force commander at the time. - Yeah. - How well could you identify where they were shooting at you from? Or was it, you know what I mean? There was the mortars being an indirect aspect of this. Were you able to, 'cause, I mean, again, I'm so used to just thinking through the lens of, oh, it was obviously at night time that we're using night vision goggles. They're going into a pocket at this point. This is a different story. Were you able to pretty visibly see them maneuvering or shooting at you guys? - We couldn't see anything on the other side of the ridge line, but what they would do is they would sporadically come up and shoot at us from what we call the bunker side. - The bunker one, yeah, okay. - It wouldn't be consistent. It was very inconsistent. I think anytime we would start moving around, they would start putting more rounds down on our end. I'm willing to assess hindsight being 2020. They probably, they have the higher ground. They can see over where sometimes when you're looking up, you can't see what it is. You come over the crest, you see us moving, which was probably had a lot to do with when they would put fires down. - Would you guys recall these pictures? - Yeah. - Yeah. Is that, who's gun's that? - That's probably Mark's gun. - Is this up on the mountaintop or is it okay? - Tell us who Mark is. Mark Anderson was our 240 gunner. He was the gun team leader for the gun team that was in razor zero one. He got shot and he never made it out of the aircraft that day. - Is the tree that you can see just over the carrying handle? Is that the bunker one or was he laying fire down on that ridge line that goes, it slopes down to the right? It's hard to tell a context of where the photo is. What is aiming at? - That's facing. - I think it's facing off the tail of the aircraft. - Okay, yeah, because those mountains will be behind us. - Yeah, I don't know how obvious this is, but do you see what's next to the gun? - The brass? - Yeah. - Yeah. Yeah, the mini guns. I mean, we're not even to that point yet, but mini guns, they couldn't shoot. So it's a Brian Wilson. He was one of the crew for the bird. That was an AB essentially. He was running, link all the way to the guns. Later on, once we took everything and during the counter attack. - How'd you feel when you saw some friendly forces peaking their head up, coming your way? - Feel really good. I'll just assume that every Ranger Platoon has the same level of camaraderie that we did, but I mean, you could go back to, you know, Arplatoon traveled everywhere together. At least the, what I would say is the young NCOs and below the younger NCOs and below the E5s and all the privates, like on the weekends, we were all probably at the same bars and same locations. - They were pretty tight. - Yeah, some of our leadership were a little bit older, maybe married, but it's, I ended up spending 24 years of service in. I've never been in another unit where the camaraderie is at the same level as what it was when I was in Ranger Regiment. - I just really molded me into kind of who I am today and molded me into the type of leadership that I demonstrate even in my civilian job now. - Yeah. - I mean, Christmas parties, I mean, Thanksgiving would be maybe out of me and Stemner and Jason Reel, we all live in the same house, we come on over if you don't have a place to go and that's how it was and then we'd all go downtown and meet up together. We have privates in the Ranger Regiment, so if your private doesn't have somewhere to go, no questions asked, he doesn't have an option. He's coming over and having a holiday dinner with the dudes on his left and right. - Okay, so you probably have that emotional reaction when you see each other. Chalk two at this point probably still hasn't fired around yet or maybe as they got closer they did, but you guys link up and I mean, probably order a business number one is to establish a plan and figure out what it is you guys were gonna do. - Sure. - How did that go? - Well, moving up there, Stemner was on point, I'm pretty sure the whole time, break and trail for us through that, that must have sucked. And then actually making Link up, I remember seeing the Pauli as we're moving by and we're moving up to see the bird. We're moving up. up and we could see guys behind the rock, see the PL. And I remember walking up past the CCP, which was right out the back of the bird. That's a casualty collection point. Yeah. Yeah. And there was, you know, there was guys that were down there. But there was somebody who was just like sitting on, sitting back and he didn't look like he looked able bodied. I'm like, what are you doing? He was like, oh, my knee hurts. I'm like, what? I just remember walking by and like, okay, whatever. And he wasn't a ranger. He was a somebody. Anyways. And then I remember from, I'm not sure what the what the team leaders do, but we train so much that you kind of know base of fire maneuver. So I moved up and PL had me come right by him. So I'm sitting there and, you know, the rest of the squad's off to the left as a maneuver. I see George. We're all kind of crammed together. They're actually at yeah, behind the rock. Yeah, we're pretty tight. Yeah. There was like, there was much room. Yeah. Cause we kind of held our ground there throughout the day. At the farthest point forward was a rock outcropping that, I mean, if you probably ran, ran a major tape major, it probably was less than 25 yards, you know, directly to the right. Like, I mean, look right straight into the, we know where the door gonna like, where the door gonna would be sitting on the aircraft. When did you guys finally start maneuvering on and take that bunker complex? I think the, the sugar point was a hellfire. I think that's what, you know, they're having a hellfire come in. And that was a trigger point. Once it, once it goes off, base of fire maneuver. Yep. So team leaders do the leader things and they're people. And everybody else with battle drill one alpha. Just get after it. Yeah. Yeah. People don't think navy guys know that shit. Well, it's good. Omar said battle drill number five. Is that correct? Nobody's gonna hear you because you're not talking into the microphone. Is that correct? There is a bunch of battle drills. Okay. Not gonna have a standard fire. I'm saying that in a review battle drill number standard fire maneuver is a one else in the FN. And our clear trench that was in there too. Okay. There's a bunch. Yeah. But it was, yeah, when that, I'm pretty sure the first hellfire flew over. It didn't even hit. I can't remember. Do you, you probably talked to those people? Yeah. It was either Gabriel Kevin or the combination of the two. They weren't, if you remember, they had to figure out, they weren't even sure this was armed. This is how, these are early days of predators. Yeah. We didn't know that like, I remember earlier on when the predator was over station. I remember Nate self asking the guy that had comms with the gunship or the Fred. If it was weapons hot and the controller at the time was like, I don't know because if, you know, if you recall, like, nobody knew back then that predators had, you know, two rockets on them. Yeah. Yeah. It would gin one. Yeah. But to finish out that story and see this jugging memory, but they weren't sure how it would have had on it. They weren't sure if they felt they trusted it. So they made it do kind of a test round. And so that's what that's the first one didn't hit. The second one went right. We were supposed to go. We interviewed after we sat down with you guys. We interviewed the predator pilots. He told us that story. Yeah. Because they were first like, we want to help. We have Hellfire. I was like, tell us where to shoot it. And Gabe and or Kevin, or the combination of the two just didn't trust this thing. Like it wasn't going to come in on their position. Like, show us what you can do first. Yeah. Okay. So that was with the 16. That was on station also because they did some gun runs for us before talk to got to us. And it was they got waved off a couple times because you're talking. We're going to get a gun strafe that's designed for air to air combat. And we're going to put that in front of you at 75 yards. So I remember them waving that. I did specifically remember him calling that gun. Well, that that platform off because he didn't like the approach angle. And you know, I mean, that was at the last time that I had gun runs that close to me. And I remember the next time that I had him that close to me, I jumped down into a turret and was like, WTF, the team leader that I was wrong with at that time. And he's like, Hey, yeah, it's good. It's like, All right, man. The test firing of the Hellfire again, is it possible to overstate the inexperience of the military at that point from a Connecticut? Like, we have we have two, but we really have one because we're going to go ahead and test fire this in a real world. Absolutely. Everything is going wrong. Yeah. Two is one. One is none. Yeah, that first one landed, you know, directly in front of us in between us in the Balker, the first rocket when they did that one. Yeah, maybe it's good. They did a test fire then, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That first one flying over didn't give me confidence in it because I was like, wow, they should have hit something. But when the second one went off and it blew up, you know, the pick up and everybody's ready to go. And all I could see is a tree and maybe a porthole something up there and I just start shooting at that, suppressing it. Before you get into the, where I think we're headed to is the assault of the top of the mountain. Are you aware, because as you rightly pointed out, you guys are the cure off. You guys are cure offing them. Are you aware that there's another element over the side of the mountain anywhere? The Mako team that had bought off Britney's team and maybe your answers are different. Yeah. Yeah. I knew there was, but I didn't know where I and wherever that seal was going down. It looked like it was going down. So I'm like, oh yeah, where is Vic and all this? Well, let him finish his answer and I'll submit. So earlier on, we did not know. And then as we were putting on fires and pulling basically localized security, it did come over the net and then it's when Nate self had told us, hey, watch what you're doing. We have friendly zone on the backside, which will for those of us at the what I call the outrock outcropping. We have friendly seal helmet over to your right side. So, you know, anything that we're doing over that away, be cognizant of whatever comes off the back end of what you're doing because we have friendly zone there. Because, and again, this is not comical, but it, you guys can right might appreciate the comedy here. They called the QF of you guys. You guys came in. Now you need a QF. Now they're curfing you. Yep. It's, it's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. When did Vic depart? Chuck, if you, if you remember in his story, yeah, he walked on the bird. Once you walked on the bird. Yeah. Yeah. Gardez. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was, this is a longer story. There was a leadership change in Gardez and AFO. Again, it's, we'll talk about that maybe another time. But Vic Hyder comes on your bird because he has some awareness of what's happening. Yeah. It doesn't sound like you guys really knew who he was or what he was doing there. I thought he was supposed to be there. And when you guys landed, you know, over in this vicinity, getting ready to make the climb, he saw, and I think you guys did too. He saw the make-o element. You guys are probably wondering, who are they and why do they even matter? He knew who they were. And so what didn't happen was something like, hey, I need a couple guys ago. QF, the guys that were actually all here for. And that just never happened. Yeah. And then you guys are hearing rightly so what's happening up top. And like, well, that's where we're going. Yeah. Anyway, where did Vic go? He went straight to make make-o element. That's its own story. Solo mission to the make-o. Yes. Okay. And look, there's, there's Vic's in some of these books. He's not painted in good light. I'm not even going to go into it. But okay. I will just say this. He was a sight for sore eyes for that make-o element when he got to them because they were running on batteries. They had two wounded. Turbo's got his leg shot off. And so even one more person mattered. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, he had a mission that day and, you know, Canon was leading our other mission. I mean, that's where he was going. I guarantee you that's where he was going when he got on that aircraft. And then Aaron, Canon, it was going to lead, I mean, your guys has raised their zero to us. And, you know, yeah, it's cool with me. All right. So, talk me about the assault of Hill. So from my sight picture, I guess, peel, he's like, hey, once that hellfire goes off, I want you to start rocking and rolling on on that port hall right there and say those words, but that's just my words. So, as soon as it went off, I start shooting. Other people started shooting. I even had to think the 240 was up. Yeah, we had a machine gun and then me, and I think somebody with a 249 were putting some rounds on the port while you guys were maneuvering to the left side of it to come around to fling it. Once I saw, like, Steppner and Oskano and Jonas get to the military crest where it just looks like daylight, they set in and then we hauled up a military crest. And as soon as I got to that military crest, I could see there's like, a freaking dish go over there there's some kind of mortar or something I don't know and then there's bunker stuff and probably a trench or it was a trench eventually but yeah then we just start shooting at that wasn't too many enemy I was shooting at just known unlikely and there's you know a scanner he was our grenadier so he was like Garmin distance on that thing maybe I don't know if it was actual grenades or it was the 40 mic mic but you could hear the 40 mic mic like thump come out and go right off so 14 meters is arm distance so it was like thump it was pretty close he was shooting them yeah then we push up and get to the dish and then we went into the trench and there's bodies and one over make sure they're dead as we're moving through one into the trench and then we're just trying to figure out the limit of advance essentially and leaders are doing things behind us but I remember pushing and getting to a limit of advance essentially no go further there was cover and essentially took took the top there at that point I don't think we're making too much contact at that point I was gonna ask you what happened to the enemy contact once you were able to secure that with that when they say take the top with that encompass the bunker two position as well yes okay is that what I mean is that what the dish was yeah I remember pushing past yeah yeah yeah bunker that's the dish good and you're you got dish good bunker two no dishes beyond bunker two okay yeah the mountain was going down okay I guess it was in position the why they thought this was important to put that op up there in the first place was there might be a gun replacement they can affect the battle below in the valley so it was on the far side looking over the valley ready to take down any aircraft yeah how many hours had you been on the ground would you estimate by that point when they got there no one you finally secured the top of the mountain four maybe five yeah it's all right it seems like it went pretty quick from once we push past and got to pass the CCP got to the PL how long was that I mean that I seemed it was like pretty quick yeah once you guys got there the decision to push forward with you guys was was almost instantaneous like like we like Nate had wanted to do it and then pull this back because of the security posture but yeah in our interviews with you guys a few years ago I believe Aaron said something about it was the mad minute and pretty much as soon as you guys got up there within a few minutes you guys are pushing up yeah yeah yeah once they got over the top I mean it was pretty quick too after that we you came back down through picked me up and we went down and we picked up six clock security and pushed our perimeter down yeah yeah I don't know maybe 50 60 yard sounds I'm sorry I'm sorry into it like even before that I remember squad leaders identifying I remember hearing hey there's another American up here um it wasn't that wasn't Roberts I remember hearing that and looking back which you're not supposed to do in security like looking like oh so you're talking you had already pushed past that position yeah and you heard that you had bypassed an American yeah what was your first thought when you heard that oh no I guess moved around no I I knew that well there probably wasn't American up there that's where our mission was go get whoever it was but I remember hearing there's another one up here while we were still in that all the way that limited events yeah pulling security um and I know squad leaders were doing things they're trying to identify stuff and I think guys went into the bunker and went down into they got commonly stuff or I don't know I don't know you guys are doing stuff back there I was just like I'm just gonna make sure that they're safe what was happening from your POV were you anywhere near where the bodies were discovered I didn't know what part of the recovery team because it was after they pushed up and cleared you know the bunker system that's when we know I say we the collective range element found to Roberts and then found Chapman also and that's you know he's discussing the the comms that were being had with regards to that um probably up until that point we probably didn't really fully understand that there were two up there yeah as shooters you know maybe the leaders did but yeah well that would be an important piece of information that I feel like they probably would have passed if they would have known right to the shooters yeah that bunker complex one what did they find in that I know that the bodies of Roberts and Chapman were found close to that you know if they found anything else in there it wasn't my focus okay yeah you read the elevator mine either uh we know uh we did discover later on it was some of the gear had been uh rat fucked yeah by the Taliban and that kind of been split up and then we ended up finding out who it was somebody found I think a piece some of Roberts maybe gear down on the well I would consider the four or five o'clock area in another area uh we're enemy personnel had been located at one point yeah do we have that picture of his gear what camera was this picture taken on this is like the old school school you guys tell this tell the story of these cameras where where these pictures are coming from do you know it's first quiet I don't know so somebody had a uh clearly a old probably codac manuals you know the notorious for all types of pictures that you'll find on one of those cameras for sure definitely don't leave it around the team room or don't put it on a uh your Ranger buddy's wedding table yeah you're gonna get yeah your fair share of those at what point did you guys shift mentality wise from we have to assault and clear this to its secure and then you have to start dealing with the totality of the situation that you are that you are in um I I know that once got the L.O.A they started doing leader stuff behind us um we wanted to they wanted us to do a larger perimeter essentially encompass the CCP which was down by the bird yep um the bird um and there's all these spurs coming down and going up we had to get avenues of approach so and fires that we had to cover yep so they're like you guys go cover the ball which is um I guess there's a ball it seemed like a ball down in here yeah and then the mountains went up to like 14 whatever they were 14 uh 12 something 12 they're higher higher than us but cuz this is 10 call it 10-5 10-4 69 or something like that yeah yeah I also remember that while all this was going on there were numerous platforms on station that were drop and casts in surrounding areas uh does that probably don't know who was really controlling all of it uh probably used in different types of ISR pods and feeding into the jock and somebody else was probably making those decisions on those drops but yeah we can see him from the top of the ridge line of just you know 500 pounders dropping in the distance and then you see a cloud of smoke coming off from the adjacent ridge lines and stuff so yeah to this day I'll probably never know how many really true enemy personnel were not necessarily on the ridge with us but like in the surrounding areas yeah yeah when we pushed out that like security like there was cover over for me there was cover in the bunker and you know in the trench and stuff like that when we pushed out into that bowl there was just like a little little six inch little granite sandbag essentially to fire behind I guess and then my team leader George was over here and Josh was over here on a team leader and then we had a scano further up the ridge watching that is uh if it's okay Andy is uh is there anything more to say on finding Neil Roberts and finding John Chapman is there anything is remember that story did did you resolve that on top of the mountain at some point in the in the next few hours or I can't speak I can't speak to that I wasn't correct that wasn't my mission part of what I was trying to do I know it was around the time that we you know Kenny and I and George and the scano had pushed down to the six o'clock that we were reconciled atting the entire um remembering that the CCP off the tail of the aircraft was also our six o'clock security so I mean you know I kind of say that in light now but uh it it was our almost our like like you know we did have one for their element to the six o'clock but outside of that like completely exposed over there until we had moved uh after the objective area got cleared at the top um at that point we're starting to move the casualties up to the top I say us it was who always up with their stebner, with friends. - Harper, Cannon, Nate into Polly, and we were down there pulling six o'clock, and they were moving the casualties up and that's when Jason got shot. - Yeah, that was a little bit later, I think. We already started, they already started a counter-talk at that point. I remember sitting there, and probably about 150 meters away on a little spur, there's portals out there. - Do you remember them launching RPGs through the poor hole, not even aiming at us? - He was firing off randomly. - Yeah, and they're just zipping. One of them skipped between us, which was thankfully that was great, but snow was there, so it was nice. But that thing went flying somewhere. - Somebody put, we were able to get cast, put onto those ridge lines, but the first one was. - It was really close. - It wasn't on target. I think it landed right in front of me and you, and I remember Aaron Cannon coming over the net and asking if we were all right on the six. I remember the two of us looked at each other and I'm like, "You all right? Yeah, I'm all right." And that's when he's like, "Hey, dude, what happened to your helmet?" And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And I remember, he's like, "Take it off and look at it. Didn't want to take it off, right?" And I just had another cast platform drop something danger-close on us that was not supposed to be danger-close. So I take it off and I look at it and I was like, "Oh, holy shit." And I just put it back on and snap it back up. - And you can. - Can I show them a video? - Yeah, please. - I assume you guys have seen this before. And maybe even we showed it to you, but if not, I think it's worth showing Andy this and having a conversation. - Well, that's up on the screen though. Where's that from? - Do you guys recall this picture? - I think that's like probably below the bunkers, probably on the backside. - This is down by, I think, was the mosque. Is that right? - It's to the south. - By the mosque, that's the first time I've heard that reference. - Probably all right. - It's about four o'clock, four o'clock with the bird, nose of the bird. - Yeah, yeah. So that is Neil's helmet, that is Neil's saw. - So as you said, his gear was all over the place. I think you guys also know. And we've talked about this earlier today, you know, his pants were on one of the, you know, someone took his Gore-Tex pants. - Yes. - So is there an informag in there too? - Yeah, it's weird. - Yeah. - Can you play, you know, what's your video I'm talking about? With Stebner? - Well, while we're waiting for that, I remember that dude. All you could see was his blanket flying behind. I mean, go get more RPGs, come run backs and another one. That was crazy. - This is a solid picture from the code.com. - Yeah. - Don't forget, too, you had to take these to like Walgreens to get them. - All right, what's this? - Yeah. - Never mind. - Long story. - Yeah. - Really long story. - Have you guys seen this before, before we even hit play? - I don't know. - Maybe. - It's a very quick clip. - Oh yeah, they're moving the CCP. So yeah, we were up over here. - So what's happening in terms of counter-attack? - Yeah. - Spirating machine gun fire. And as Kenny said, occasionally a Robin RPG rounds at us for the fun of it. - Yeah. - And why were you moving the CCP? - You're supposed to move it to a secure location, it wasn't secure, where was that? To protect the casualties and let the medics do their thing. - And you got to also, I think, part of Nate's rationale with that also was, I don't know that we could have painted any bigger target on anything to shoot at. - Yeah. - From 12,000 or 10,000 feet on the next bridge line over. If you're bringing reinforcements on the enemy side, what do we shoot at or what are we looking for? Just go start stone things at that big black helicopter to be sitting on the side of the mountain there. And that's where you're going to engage. And that's what they were doing, right? Like that's from far. - So we heard some stories about this when we sat down with all of you. Can you pull up the next video that is describing the situation? And we want to get to your reaction, because I don't think you've seen this. - I've never seen this. I don't remember seeing this. - Yeah, I've never seen that video. - You guys recognize that guy, right? - Yeah, Robert. - Yeah. - He's out there in California with you guys. - Yeah. - The gorilla. - I don't even move. - In the middle of moving, the casualties. Machine gun team opens up. Stebner jumps behind this rock to get out of the machine gun. The codifier coming from the machine gun right towards Stebner in this casualty. And Stebner's initial instinct was like, jump behind the rock. And he quickly realizes the casualty is stuck in the open. And the only way to get this casualty out is to stand up and go out there and move this 200 pound guy up hill to pull him behind the rock. So it's probably about a 30 second process. That's Stebner just said, well, I'm going to do it. Expose themselves to a shing on fire. Pulling, pulling. Get some hide the rock. It was miraculous. From this time till now, I have accumulated 27 deployments in combat zones overseas. And I still haven't seen anything more selfless than that. What do you think? I mean, I kind of knew he did that. I've never heard the squad leader talk about it. I know he had to, all those guys were doing it, but Stebner had to do it a lot more. I said, Mike, he really made it to the decision. And that, you know, those people were everybody shooting for him so he can do that thing. And he probably felt safe enough to go do it. Or he just didn't go shit. I'm going to get the guy being put on the rock. I feel like it was more of the ladder. Yeah, probably. It's an interesting perspective coming from somebody of Harper's caliber, right? You look at the career that Harper had. And I still remember what Harper came to range of regiment. Is that the man we're talking on this? Well, with right there, he was a squad, the county squad leader at the time. The term we use was import. He was an import that came into Ranger battalion as in the five, which, if you don't grow up in a Ranger battalion, they don't necessarily roll out the red carpet for you. You're coming there. You're taking in another guy's job, possibly that's in the running to become a team leader. And then Harper excelled while he was in range of regiment. And then we all know the career that Harper had after that. So for him to hear somebody like Harper say that after the number of deployments in the units that he worked with that were at a higher echelon, higher tier than what range of regiment is in itself. You know, for the following 20 years, that's impressive. It's very amazing. It says a lot about what what Eric's actions were that day. Steadler was an import too, wasn't he? Yeah, he'd he'd start off in the old guard. So you guys know Eric was supposed to be here and had to had to pull out. So I've talked to him. We sent him these videos. If it's okay, I want to call him and spend a few minutes just talking to him and have him explain what we just watched and how he felt about it. Is there going to call he does know as he heard that does he heard Harper say that? No, we just sent it to him. Okay. Interestingly, that's the first time I'd ever seen that. I hope he calls on the shitter. Yeah. Nice echo of the bathroom, you know. Eric. You were on Andy's podcast right now and everyone can hear you on speaker. I guess I have to behave that yeah. We sent you these videos just a bit ago. Did you watch them? Yeah, I did. I watched them. And had you ever did you ever know Harper? You know, had those feelings or had made those comments? No clue that he did. Okay. What did you, can you describe what's happening in that first shot from the predator? In that clip that would have been, I would say, towards the end of moving the casualties, because you could see where there weren't many, there weren't any like at the rear, rear round with the helicopter. And that's kind of where casualties were somewhere. So that clip would have been in the end towards the end of moving casualties. But when I was about done, while I was done, I put it like that. Um, well, you know, I think what we wanted to do here is, I think the main motivation here was to have you here with Harper had to say about you, which we all thought was pretty cool. So, you should feel good about it. Yeah, thanks. All right. You guys want to say anything about Eric? You guys want to call him later? Yeah, we'll call you later, brother. Good here, brother. All right. You guys are enjoying it. Thanks for the call. Yep. Thank you, Nathan. Today's episode is brought to you by Surefire. This is your daily reminder that half of every day occurs in low light situations. Of course, that doesn't apply if you're at the crazy Northern latitudes or Southern latitudes. You may never need a flashlight, well, at least for half the year. But then for the other half, you're not going anywhere unless you have one. So for the rest of us who don't live there, that's your daily reminder. My first Surefire flashlight was issued to me probably back in 1997 or 1998. I'm happy to report. They've come a long way technology wise when I talk about three different types of product today. There's handheld rechargeable and then two types of weapon mountain light, rifle and pistol. Because I assume that's the sweet spot for most people. If you head over to Surefire.com, go to the shop by product and then hit the flashlights. And you're going to see these sweet handhelds that I'm talking about. There's Toledo. There's two. Pro two and a pro. I use actually one of each. I have the pro in the center console of my vehicle. And the pro two is actually at the hanger and I use it for all of my pre-flight inspections. I'm flying mostly in the daytime, but there's nothing like a handheld illumination source to let you see all of the things you really need to crystal clear. They are USB-C rechargeable, fit in your pocket, fit in your go bag, whatever you may need and put out an incredible amount of light. Then if you head over to the weapons light section, you click on that. You're going to see both pistol and rifle mounted lights. I know a lot of people who's EDC or everyday carry is a pistol and they have hopefully night sights on there, maybe a red dot and most people don't carry a flashlight. And again, I'll just go back to a lot of your day, at least half of it, not including the time you spend indoors is going to occur in low light situations. They make lights for compact, sub-compact, you name it. And then when you get to the rifle, why not add a light to your for grip and allow yourself to illuminate again any of these low light environments should you need it better to have than not need in this situation. I can't fathom something worse than needing to use a ballistic tool in an environment where you cannot see clearly and positively identify your target. You can learn all about the company and the products that they create and sell by just heading over to surefire.com. Like I said, I first got issued these in the late 90s. They got the job done then, they're even better now, surefire.com, back to the show. It makes it sound like it's just another day at the office. The most badass ones always do, they're like whatevs, I don't have anything else to do. I had some time on my hands just run through enemy fire to save other people. Yeah. Who made this? Do we make this? I did. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, this is when we even adjusted like security at that point. I remember we moved around a little bit. Yeah. We pushed up. So if that was one of the last cows used to be moved, once we got everything cleared from there, all the cows are pushed up to the top top or what we considered the top top up there. We pulled, we clapped six o'clock down to the, to put it in front of the nose of the aircraft. Yeah. Yeah. At that point, I was over off the other, we'd all picked up and moved up to the other side of the ridge line. Yeah. And they're still dropping stuff kind of close, at least it's felt close. How'd you guys eventually end up getting off of there? So it was interesting throughout the entire day, there was a feeling that we were, they were going to send an aircraft to come get us, right, like if we could just get, if we could just get what we considered, you know, that HLZ secured, you know, Uncle Sugar would send a couple more aircraft to come get us. Yeah. Once we got us secured, you know, we started asking the questions, hey, all right, I say we did, you know, our leadership team, you know, Nate and Ken and, and, and Ray and those folks started, you know, sending it up, hey, when's Xville coming, when's Xville coming? There's also the long living debate of, if they could have gone us off sooner, maybe Jason would still be here. I don't know. Was Jason the last one to be wounded and killed? Yes. How was he wounded? So he was actually with Eric, it's too bad Eric wasn't here to talk about this, but he was with Eric when they were moving cows, these up, we were taking machine gunfire from the tail of the aircraft, from the next ridge line over, when, as kind of him was talking about earlier, we were taking our PG and, you know, what we considered probably PKM fire at the time, and he took around just under the plate. Ever from, from the stories that Eric told about it, I never even realized that it happened till probably later on, and he told Eric that he was hit, and, you know, Eric went and checked him out and was like, yeah, there's no blood, Eric and I were just talking about this last week when I talked to him. He's like, man, I still remember it. He's like, hey man, I'm, I'm hit and he's like, I don't have any blood, you have no blood anywhere. And that's, you know, they found the hole, you know, we got him packaged up and moved him up to the top of the hill with everybody else. Yeah, I don't even know. There was another person him coming him up there and tell, I heard the medic working on him. Well, we, you know, after we spoke to you guys, we interviewed a person by the name of Brian Berlingame, and he was the medical officer back at Bogrum. And if you, I think you guys even alluded to it, there was a little bit of shuffling at the helicopters. There was an Air Force component, a PJ, and I think Jason, I think there were four of them. And there was questions about if they're coming or not. And Brian Berlingame told us that he said, Jason, you have to go on this. And, you know, of course, not knowing how this is going to end for him, but, um, yeah, you know, he, there was, there's a scenario in which he doesn't even go to the mountain. Right. It was kind of a last minute call. I'm sure you did a lot while he was there. Yeah. Was there a time while you guys were up there where you started processing the totality of what you would live through and the loss of your friends? Um, I really, it wasn't, for me, it was cold, it wasn't really hungry, but people, somebody gave me a frozen piece of an emery, I'm like, I guess I'll eat it. Were you dressed for the desert you thought you were leaning in? Yeah. That's excellent. Yeah. Yeah, I have some reboots, some reboots with the lighter in the snow though, you know, so pros and cons. Yeah. Yeah. I, I wasn't really focused on that because that's what, you know, leaders, they're doing their thing and there's medics there, they're doing that. I, I guess on the bird flying up when I knew there was 2k, I knew that it had to be Rangers. I didn't know, but I'd figured it was right, you know, I didn't know who was. I figured it was probably a macelle because only person that can kill macelle is macelle. Yeah. Um, about it, you know, that, that really just got me pissed off, really, I guess. I guess more focused and then being up there, it wasn't until I can wait for that bird to finally come and we are collapsed all the way down, you know, not the butt trying to keep each other warm while pulling security, um, that, I guess it was just, I mean, there was a lot going on, you know, it was, you can't really focus on that, I guess. It's all over you at the time, oh shit man, I don't even know how old I am now. What is your driver's license say? 47. 46, I don't know, that's 25, whatever, I'm not going to 21, it's going to be very young, 21. Yeah. I remember being there freezing at night and knowing that the bird wasn't, it was coming eventually and looking down the mountain and watching, you know, operation in a condo. Yeah, seeing RPGs getting shot down at them, you see little villages way the hell down there and they're, they're maneuvering, they're doing things down there, I was like, well, they're now they're doing stuff, I guess. How about you? Did it ever land with you or because in the moments, right? Yeah. You want to think about it. You want to kind of just get the fog, right? For me, it didn't really, it's fair to you of what had happened, didn't really catch up to me until after we got back, Cunningham and I both living out on the first aircraft. And I still remember the 64 escorts coming in to the, the should hooks to come in to get us when that first one came in and then it actually didn't get the six o'clock of the aircraft pointing the right direction. So we had to move all the letters around to the other side. I'm just like, can we not just lift this aircraft up and turn it to 180? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I still like, to this day, I still remember the feeling of like seeing that 64 coming over the ridge line with my nods on and then that's it. Like, I kind of got a chill that ran through my body. It was like, okay, they're gonna get us out of here now. Like, because we've been talking about all day, like I said before, hey, we just get the objective clear. They're gonna send to aircraft. They're gonna come pick us up. The reality is, we got another full operation going on. At some point during Operation Incona, you know, we lost a green beret down there. You know, on the other side of the objective area where they're on, the reality is aircraft are expensive. And so our soft personnel and, you know, we had a skier, let's wait till dark. It's a call that was made. Probably would have had to make the same call if I was in a leadership position. Although I wanted off the X. I mean, it was the right decision at the time. But for me, when it really hit me, was cutting him and I left on the first chalk with some of the casualties. - Oh, second. - Second. - This guy with me, Misselli. - Misselli. - Misselli. - Misselli went with me. I, we landed in Bogrum. And after we went to the Farpsight, and then I went to, I got off at the Farpsight to see what was going on there. 'Cause me and Misselli were the only two Rangers. And I remember, I went to the dude on the tail of the aircraft, one of the crew chief, and was like, hey, look, do not leave me here. I said, I'm getting off this aircraft to go touch base with somebody on the ground here to see what's going on here and see what's next. 'Cause we didn't know what was next. All we knew we were getting off of here and we landed at the Farpsight. So I ran down to a bunch of aircraft trying to look for somebody in charge. I went over to C-130 and they were dealing with some casualties in there from another incident. And I ran back to the aircraft and we ended up getting on an aircraft and we flew back with, Misselli was down there waiting for me and we got on an aircraft and flew back with some brits that had spun up for something. And I just remember sitting on that aircraft, me and Misselli and just, like, everybody's, I felt like I was staring at me the whole time. And then we landed a ballroom, nobody there to pick us up. We walked back to it. We walked back to, from the flight line. From the flight line, walked back and I just walked back and I don't even really remember where I went at that point, 'cause I came through the Brit Hanger. 'Cause the Brit Hanger was across the street from the task force to inhanger. I walked through the Brit Hanger and walked out past their security dude, turned left down the dirt road back in the ballroom before they turned it into Disney. Walked down the, walked through the gate at the Ranger Silk Camp. I just walked over to my hooch, and then I still remember when Ray got back, 'cause I had Matt's 203. And when Matt got shot and killed, I didn't have his 203 on the objective initially, but then somebody gave it to me and gave me some 203 rounds at a certain point during the time on the objective area. But Matt had laid there, bleeding on his 203. And the rest of our Ranger element was, by the time, the people to come back to a camp were only the people from the objective area, 'cause they took the rest, they'd taken the rest of our Rangers and moved them into a posture for QRF for everything they else that was going on. So there was nobody in our- - From your mountaintop to another QRF posture. - No, no, no, no. The Rangers that weren't on the objective area. - I was gonna say, so like the rest of us- - There was no one else they could have. - Yeah, no, no, the rest of the Rangers that weren't on Razer, zero, one, zero, two. - Okay, got you. - It moved them into a posture to pre-stage them for everything they else that was going on. - That makes a lot more sense. And so the first Rangers back to camp were, the Rangers from the objective area. And I still remember, I still remember Ray walking in, and I was sitting next to my bonk, and I had Matt's 203 propped up against, you know, little table thing that we had next to our cats there, and I remember Ray told me, I was like, hey man, you gotta get that cleaned up before everybody else gets here. And it was all the blood that was just caked on, the side of this 203. And I remember walking to the shower tent and putting hanging it across the sink and watching Matt's blood off of it. So that the privates and our platoon that were close to him didn't have to see that when they came back. And I remember somebody walking in, and I'm just in there, washing blood off of a gun. I mean, that's the only way he could do it back then is, 2002, watched it off and brought it back and, you know. - Pretend like it's just another gun. - Yeah. - Did your elements slowly start trickling back to that area? - Yeah, yeah. - How was that? When you guys were finally able to reconnect your back and side of the wire? - Yeah, like the first thing that came in, and I was like, first quad, and I think they went and picked up the seals too. And all the casualties. And then the second bird came in, and that was all the KIAs and equipment and stuff like that. So that was our bird moving all that. And it was kind of, it's funny 'cause me and George did very, something very similar, once we landed in Gardez or someplace and we got off, they were like, come on Rangers, get it back up. And I-- - Pull that mic with you. - Oh, you get it. You can turn sideways just politely if you want to Mitch. - Yeah, easy. - You're trust me, you're not pulling a Mitch. I mean, it doesn't times reminding him at this point. - He'd better mics. - Yeah, we landed in Margaretwood's pitch blackout. There was people there with vehicles. There was people there ready to pick us up. Sucks that you had a freaking walk off, walk by yourself. But, and we went back there and I just remember cleaning up, but I really, I don't know if it's kind of lost in the sauce until the morning. I, you know, I knew, like, I was a Corporal Saganer. So that means like you're the next in line to be a team leader. So the next day, I guess, that's when they told me I was gonna take Crow's team, which is super huge. She used to fill 'cause he was amazing. - Amazing. - Yeah, man. - Did they get you guys all together for a debrief after this? - Yeah, they brought us in together initially. Oh, there was, I don't even remember what was right out of that building across the coast. - Yeah. - Somebody else had used that for something. Maybe it was the general forebones, sweet or something. - You used to do Bible study in it. - Yeah, there was an open area for Bible study in there, wouldn't there? - Yeah. - Yeah, that's where we did our air. But immediately following that next day, I remember the chaplain sat us all down, or he didn't sit us all down, but he came to us and sat with us. And I, for me, I was, like, focused. I wasn't really, I didn't really wanna talk about stuff. I just wanted to be ready for this team, you know? I gotta be ready to lead them. So, it was a lot later on. I remember we had a mission that later on where we, it was a, I remember getting spun up for that one mission. It was, like, a week later or a later. And we actually got on the birds. That would be my first team. My first mission as a team leader, and I was on the P.L.s bird with first squad. And we were gonna go, and then the rotor blade stopped, and I was like, oh, damn. I was, we were all gonna amp that pretty to do our job again. - It was interesting, though, during that time frame, because, you know, we'd gotten there just after Christmas before the new year, and there wasn't anything, like, there wasn't really much of anything going on. The operation in Kondo was the first kickoff of Spring Offensive, you know, you had, you know, an element from Division that had come in, you know, they're ready to get after it. Elements from 10th Mountain were already leaving. Like, going back pre-enfield, I remember being pissed off in our task force area because we didn't get invited to operation in Kondo. - That's even the most entertaining thing. - The seal left out. - Yeah, and, you know, it's interesting, 'cause I, you know, I was very junior leader at the time, you know, young E5 sergeant at the time, and, you know, all I wanted to do was go get my gun on, 'cause that's what, you know, range of regiment had raised me to do, and then here we got a GPF element down the road, getting to go on a multi-day off. Later on, you know, in life, you know, I got to talk to some of our senior leaders, and what I learned was, we had some great leadership that was over us, and the bottom line is, we weren't gonna go do bullshit missions. Like, we were here for a specific mission, and that's what these rangers are here to do. And at the time, you know, being kind of, you know, a junior guy, like, all I saw was other people getting to go do some stuff, and then I'm sitting down here, waiting for the green light for something else, and it's like you could be using us. This is what the Army's built us for. - Yeah, and, unfortunately, right before that mission, we were down in Kandahar as a platoon, and we were doing it. and we'd got all the way up between life-fire. - Yeah. - And we were. - Is this Tarnac? - Yeah, Tarnac. - We went up to Tarnac. And that was like, we were pushing it. I remember the first agent was there. The battalion commander were there. We were doing our culminating exercise, and there's this giant horse corral. And first quad, our third quad breached. The mind wall obstacle, first quad went up, explosive breach, went in, got a foothold, and me and my squad were your Woolmuth. Through an agent, I was local support by fire with my saw. And he was directing my fires, and then second squad would assault over and take it. And I remember moving through, getting down on the ground, and we were, weapon squad was prepping, doing all that, everything they were doing, they were doing good things too. But I remember shooting and seeing the boys come over and go into the first stable, and we had targets set up in there, and I was shooting at the door, and Stemner gives me a signal, and then I shift to the next one, went in. And then George, and they comes out, and Stemner was hauling, but he was going wicked fast, and there wasn't a Joe behind him. So I'm like, oh God, don't go in there, 'cause I'm shooting right in there. And I knew he was gonna stop, 'cause I was a saw, and you can see Tracer, so I just kept the rounds going right through the door, or they're opening, and I knew as soon as someone touched his back, he was gonna go, so somebody was coming out, so I just transitioned to the next target, and they went in and focused over here, somebody jumped on my back, and wasn't my squad leader sitting right here directing fires, he's like, hey, how'd you know when it was my battalion commander? He's like, how'd you know when to shift? I said, it looked like he was ready to go, he's all right, keep it up. He's like, yeah, it was good. Don't bother me when I'm working. Yeah, it was great. So like, ask me that question later, dude. It was really good timing to get that training. You know, re-blue ourselves, I guess, and go right into that. 'Cause even third squad was still down there, and Ken are with the two sergeant. Like it was right after that. Do you guys remember a story about Omar? Randy Paz are 12 of us a story about him going for some rounds. Does this ring a bell? Uh, no, he was a 240 gun, all right? Uh, our Omar. Yes. Oh, not though. Okay, yeah. Um, I'll give you the quick version. It's gonna be, you know, in the series you guys see. But, um, very similar to Stebner. You know, Randy tells the story like, I can't believe what I'm witnessing here, and Omar's making a run for rounds, and he says something like, I just hope he comes back, because what he was just, you know, running across to go get those rounds, and I forget who he was bringing it to. The reason I bring it up is something you said earlier. Um, you said, I think it was something about you weren't, you didn't realize that Greg Calvert, you know, your pilot was having the experience you was having up front. And Ray and Matt LaFrance connected me with General Thomas, Tony Thomas. And so we had a couple conversations that were really productive. Good. And he said something similar. He watched some things that we sent him. We just wanted his opinion on it. And he said some things, basically the same thing he says. Like, I just, I don't think I understood, you know, some of the more, some of the details, some of the heroics that's, um, that happened up there. So, well, after that first experience. I remember the first time I got shot at it, I didn't realize I was getting shot at, which is probably not awesome. Yeah, but the next day we went back and looked at the helicopters. And there was 27 holes in the helicopter. And the guys must have been reaching up to scratch their ass and a bullet. I don't think we could have loaded the people back in there and not had somebody injured. But I do remember in that moment thinking, if this is how we're going to do this every day, I don't know how long my career is going to last in special operations. Did you guys have any of those thoughts about the long-term occupation after that horrendous first combat experience? No, like, that's actually the answer I expected from you. Like, no, I just wanted more. I didn't want more like the first time I re-enlisted is because I was having fun. Yeah. The second time I re-enlisted is I didn't want people to go without me. Yeah. Mm-hmm. How long did you spend in the military? 22 and a half years. How long have you been out now? May 21. OK, so five and a half years. Looking back on your career, how do you feel about it now as an older man? Oh. It was really good. I got to develop a lot of leaders to take my spot and to lead others. I got to meet amazing people that, you know, those are my brothers, you know, and sisters. I got some sisters out there, too. Yeah, it's good. And I got some families. And I got a lot of families, which sucks. But you got to be there for the families. How did you work through a process or whatever word you would want to use all of the experiences you had in those 22 years? So in regards to, like, families or just everything? All of it. The career and special operations, looking back on it now, is kind of in a way defined by its exposure to trauma. And I don't-- a lot of people use that word flippantly. And I'm not talking about having your hand on a table and being smashed. Right, yeah, yeah. You're exposed to things that a lot of people-- well, you guys let through on that mount-top. I mean, what fraction of a percentage of us humanity will ever experience or be put into a situation like that, in my opinion, that leaves a fingerprint on you. Oh, yeah. And you can dull the fingerprint, but you can never wipe it off. I'm just curious, did you, after your career in 22 years, did you, during that time, intentionally try to go back and rework through some of the things that you experienced, or do you think, there's no right or wrong answer to this, because I know people who can naturally, as who they are, they're more tolerant to things like that, and more tolerant to stress. And then I know other people. I'm sure you guys know the same thing. You give three people online, you have an experience, and it impacts them all incredibly differently. I get what you're saying. Yeah, I'm just curious, after those 22 years, or during that time period, did you just keep working as hard as you could, or did you ever put any effort into going back and processing or working through stuff that you experienced? Yeah, definitely. I mean, initially, just from this one, this one, when we got back, you know, I didn't have a wife, I had a girlfriend, but she didn't know I left, so I didn't have one when I came home. That's how that's generally going to go. But there was gold star families there. And, you know, we knew 'em, 'cause like, our families were tightly, we'd go to Anderson's. We'd go to Matt's. We'd do so much together, so just seeing them, being there, 'cause they went through it too, they just did it back here, you know? So being there for them, you know, you always think you can do more, you know, looking back, but you gotta keep going, too, you know? And, you know, I've been in a lot of units and done a lot. So I got, fortunately, a lot of families. And you just gotta be there. They show up, you show up, that thing. But with the Joe's, it's like, the way, the way chaplain very next, like, immediately happened right afterwards. He put us together, you know, that's the right thing to do. And they do that for sure, you know? Critical, and so I don't know what they call it, off their words. - It's changed, I'm sure. - Yeah. But like, immediately after he sit down and talk, because you think about, like, we're learning about stuff. Now, how long ago was it, right? But if you sit down and talk about it right afterwards, right, I'm seeing my site picture, you know, what I'm doing from this angle, right? There's always other people doing stuff, right? And shit happens, bad stuff happens, right? And you think you could have done something. Now, you were doing what everything you could do. At the time, you're doing everything you can do. And somebody does something. You're like, what the heck? Oh, why'd they do that? And you're like, I could do whatever. Like, you didn't, you did everything you could do. You know, you pushed, you got to whatever limit, or you're just like, I'm gonna, this is where I'm most effective. I'm not gonna push further, because I need to be, this is my area. These people need me to do this. Just like I need them to do that, you know? And people are gonna do crazy stuff. And they're gonna run out and do crazy things. And all you can do is help support them, you know? Yeah. about for you. I guess hit me with a series of questions because you asked him like six questions. So I just, it's been fascinating for me talking to guys after they've gotten out with some time away from their experience and the impact of their experience. It morphs over time as they go through more chapters of their life, right, in different seasons of their life and a little bit more distance from it. Some guys will say, yeah, I work through it in the moment. The reality is you can see in them that they didn't and they're almost destroyed by what they were experienced. Some people will say the same thing and again, because of their natural resilience, they become a better version of themselves because of what they saw and now they want to have a positive impact on the world, you know, as two polar examples. I'm just curious when you look back on your career, did you ever have moments where you got to just a boiling point or the totality of what you were exposed to starting to have an impact on your life? And if so, how did you work your way through it? I think what you run into is you run into two types of people. You have folks that have the ability to compartmentalize it, which some might argue that's borderline sociopath that an individual that can go on a 90 day rotation into a theater and see the type of experiences that we've just discussed in this forum. And they build a walk back in, get off an aircraft and Savannah, Georgia, go turn in your weapons and then go into town and sit next to normal people and have a beer like nothing happened. And then you have other folks that maybe when they experience that, they kind of struggle with it. I think that's what you see is they're almost becomes those that stay. It becomes what I would consider an addiction. I don't really classify it like a lot of people will call it like some type of adrenaline higher, something like that, but I think it's more of a being driven and feeling like you have a purpose. And then within that, there's an element of personal power that comes along with that and having the ability to do these things. And you no longer possibly doing them for your government, you're doing them for the guys on your left and you're right. I had a break in service after the first rotation in with Ranger battalion. I was in college. And when the rock war kicked off, I had a hard time staying on campus and looking at folks when I was at Florida State, like to me, I was like, these kids have no clue what's going on in the rest of the world right now. And I had a hard time coping with that for a while. But knowing that I was coming back in and I remember, you know, telling Brad Crosse's mom, Sheila, that I was, I said, I think I'm a, I'm thinking I'm going to quit school. And I think I'm going to go back in. And she was like, Josh, please don't do that. Like, I just ask who you just at least make your decision to finish college and at the time I was enrolled in our OTC and my attention is where to come back in as an officer and, you know, I did have a lot of personal guilt at that time during that phase of the war that we were in because all my good buddies were over there and the ones that weren't over there in uniform, they all ended up going and flipping and getting a lot of them when got become defense contractors and not the kind of defense contractors are just sitting at the gate, you know, the ones that are running patrol with no back support. Yeah, same job, no, same job, no back support, yeah. So for me, it became, it became an identity on who I was and you kind of see that with folks. I think a lot of friends and family have a hard time gripping with it and don't understand it. They almost think something's wrong with you. But I think that I think what it is, what they don't understand is you have more of a purpose than they've probably ever been able to see, see in the past or even can even process within their mind when you start seeing the relationships of, I mean, I haven't seen this dude in five years, you know, first thing I do is give them a hug when I pick him up at the airport when I found out as Uber was 20 minutes out, I was like, hey dude, my wife has like changed to the GPS, we're going to pick him kind of up at the airport, you know, and they like, that's like, a lot of folks have family across the United States and cousins and things like that. I think a lot of us in the military, yeah, that's these relationships, even relationships that we've built in forums like this, like it's, there's a different type of camaraderie that you can't even replace with being family sometimes and I think a lot of folks have a hard time understanding it. And I guess can I keep going with that, like when I got out of the military, when I was getting out, all these sergeant majors were like, hey, Chris, you need to go talk to, you know, talk to people, you know, start working through this stuff, like, I'm fine, I'm good, you know, and when I got, no, no, I was getting out of the army, my wife was the one that was just like, you were going to talk to somebody, well, this isn't happening. The real, little IC stepped in, yeah, and I did and I went to the VA and I've heard all these horror stories. So I was just like, I don't want to take drugs, I don't want this, she's like, we're just going to talk. I'm like, okay, and I just sat and talked with this person I didn't know and talked through stuff like this and talked through other stuff, you know, and it was really good. We went to a group where it was people that act like actual combat veterans, not just went and deployed and stuff like that and they, we sat through this great, you know, initially we're all just like sniffing each other, but like, who is this guy? For clarity, we're talking about metaphorically, we do some odd things in the military, but this is a metaphor. Yeah, but we even had a marine Vietnam, putune sergeant that was a part of this group, right? Oh, anyways. Jerry is incredibly politically correct. Yeah, well, yeah, they'll, anyways, oh, I shouldn't have said this name, anyways, there's a lot of bills out there. Yeah, he's, anyways, but just sitting there talking through stuff, initially we weren't taking it serious and then like halfway through this 13 week, like just meeting once a week that thing and working through words that we just don't understand, you know, like shame and guilt and understanding these things, like what we do to ourselves, how the body keeps this score as a book about that probably in here, hopefully. I think that's the title of it, but it was so good. I came to so many realizations within myself, you know, who I am now and, you know, processing so the stuff I did back then, but then also we're getting off topic, we're not, there is no topic. Oh, okay. But, man, it was so great, seeing that, that Marine, you know, E5, I mean, sorry, Sergeant, Patoon Sergeant, from Vietnam, just seeing, you know, he wasn't saying anything and then eventually, but just getting to that point towards the end, you just see his shoulders drop, he's like, he can actually talk, you know, this guy's Vietnam. There's a chance that that's the first time he's ever been able to put his shoulders down like that too. I say that my dad's a Vietnam veteran, the story is he has, let's be honest, our generation was treated a hell of a lot different than theirs when we came home to a degree that is sickening in some senses. His stories are about the guys that he knew that just disappeared into the mountains, never, not that they were, I'm sure some of them were ending their life, but they would just go decide to live alone because they didn't have a place where they felt like they could talk about it and they didn't want to. So it's a beautiful thing that you guys were able to find that, yeah, yeah. What do you guys wish that people knew about this particular operation? I mean, I don't know where the name Roberts Ridge originated from, and obviously there was he lost his life on that ridge. He was the person that fell out of the helicopter, but I think it's important to remember, what was the total time, 13 minutes versus 13 hours, something like that? Well, they had two inserts, but yeah, the second insert was, you know, around 11 and a half minutes before they went over the east side. Point being, what you guys have talked about, what you, I'm not trying to compare experiences and I'm not into competitive suffering and hardship and any of those things, but the vast majority of what happened on that mountain top actually came from you guys. What do you wish people knew about it? Yeah, I think it's something greater than what just happened here on this day, right? Like, for some people, it's a story for me, it should just stay my, my life, right? But I think more importantly, like for me, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Like you go to the wall at J Sog, you know, the wall at Yusus Sog. I think a range of regiment in itself doesn't get the credit that it deserves for all the hardship that it does for this country. What do you think that is? I think because they don't talk about it. I think there's, and I'm not saying there's one way is better than the other, but like there's very strict, you don't talk about it. You don't, I mean, I can't even think of anybody from range regiment that's written a book over the last 25 years that's like a top seller in a story, but I can tell you that wall at J Sog, follow those names, right? How did you guys hear about the range of regiment? What inspired both of you to go down that pathway? Funny story for me is I had went into a recruiter's office to try to become a military police officer. And yeah, the number of stories I've heard like this where I wasn't gonna be in marine, but he was at lunch So I was a Navy diver It was interesting. He he he the recruiter had showed me a couple of videos of some some ranger promo videos But you know, I'm talking mid-90s Jit and genre Some you know some dudes coming out of swamps and stuff some shit that you'll never really do and range of regiment It looks awesome, but yeah, it looks cool I'm still waiting for a couple of those schools that he told me I was gonna get It can be face paint, but I had actually he said hey, what did you think about this as like all right That that can be an option But my my original intentions were to become a military police officer and go back home and be a fleet a law enforcement back home And then when I got down the meps I had a bit of a record when I was a kid nothing significant But I got into a little bit of trouble and it was still on my Record and it had been had been expunged Even though I was of age at this time and they wouldn't the Department of Army would not allow me to become a military police officer And so they're basically told the recruiter's ad meps to Call my recruiter and time to come get me. I was 21 when I joined So I was a little bit older had a college degree and some things like that Oh, I was working for you know, I had a successful job at a 4500 company and so I was like yeah Call my recruiter and time to come get me and They were kind of irritated with me and they brought him in there and they were trying to give me to become a fireman They were trying to give me to come. They're like what do you do now? I said I work for general motor or You know work work at the corporate headquarters of Ducca Remi like hey, how would you like to do that from the army? I was like I'm making good money doing this, you know, and I have a full-time job lined up soon as I graduate and And then he he had said well hey, we talked about you going to range of regiment like If I can get you a range of regiment contracts would you do that? And I was like Yeah, let's do that. That's how I ended up in a range of regiment. Okay, so almost a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while Chris How much yourself? Yeah, I was a chef at my brother-in-law's restaurant and I wanted to get out of Vermont and both my older brothers are in the military And my brother I told my brother Tim He's a Chris You know you need to go be a ranger and don't sign anything unless it says ranger on it. I didn't So yeah, the reason I asked that question is If you were to ask mentioned eyes era of team guy Did you ever read the book men with green faces? No, I was aware of the book later on. Thank you for completely fucking up my example You could have just lied and gone along with it, right? Point is I would agree with you that The book's impubblicity is a razor blade. It can cut in both directions But it can also inspire the next generation the first thing I when I I heard the term seal from my father who was not a seal he was a On the first quarter in a patrol bus in Vietnam in the Brown, why the Navy? He had a two foot pedals and 50 cows up front and about and used Used as an insertion and extraction platform But the first thing I did is I went and found the book men with green faces which led me to everything that I could find at that time Which didn't end up being the reality because it was Vietnam based and we could have never forecast 9/11 But if if and again, it can go way too far and I would say on the seal side, it has gone way too far some of the publicity I don't think was asked for some of it was thrust upon the community and I think that's hard to deal with but how Are those legacies and legends going to continue if people are told Not to talk about them and I'm not saying exploit them. There's a difference between being a silent professional And a quiet professional How do you perpetuate those legacies if nobody hears about them? Yeah, I think that's It's a very important fact and which uses socks actually trying to do but has been historically trying to do a better job of that For the army side You're asked them like like how do I know what Rangers were I did I grew up reading like Charlie's Rangers and some other Lurse stuff like that kind of books. I read as a kid. I grew up my dad was in Vietnam some some level of volume of work existed Yeah, but like If you would have asked me 15 years ago to come on here or 20 years ago I'd have told you to kick rocks. I mean, that's rude, but yeah I would have told you to get rocked. I would have been like I really you know would have been very fresh about hey look like I would have been your worry. What's that? What would have been your worry? Oh We just don't talk about it, right? Like you just go to your job. It's your job. We don't come home. Talk about work It just wasn't like it's Let me get more of a quiet professional type environment. I get that this is a tough question to ask But I'll ask it the friends that you guys lost on the mountaintop that day. Do you want people to know their names? Absolutely, that's why I'm here now. I'm gonna say how does that happen? That is the shift for People like me. I'm a little bit older now more mature about the situation and the legacy You know, I'm raising a son and four daughters right now and it's very important to me that they're brought up in this country The way on the under the values that that I see not necessarily the direction this country may be going sometimes So you're still deep in combat just for clarity because I heard you say one son and four daughters. Yes, wow You may look at want to look at real listing and going on extended to plan. If they can get me one of those exosuits I'd be back. Wow. You win. What do they call that from the frying pan into the pot? But you bring up a great point. I think it is important. I think you know, I think more people should Take part in things like this should write about it. It's possible to maintain and perpetuate The legacy properly without exposing anything sensitive about the job itself Yeah, I think a lot of it though I think a lot of it goes to like there's certain stuff that is just for the Warrior, you know, and your brothers and sisters that are there with you And I think that's okay because they're not going to understand that stuff Not everything is should be for public consumption. I've been doing this now for nine years And I have found ways to talk around Anything that might be even remotely sensitive and I just avoid topics exactly what you're talking about things A that I don't have the vocabulary to describe But I still have been able to find a way to help people at least tell those stories because I can't tell them. It sucks that There aren't stories about this. I have learned more about this operation and again the people who spent Magnitudes of order longer time on this mountain in the last 24 hours Then I did my entire time when I was in the military Well, this will be of interest of you I was signal officer when I came back in the army My first time was with the one-to-one special operations single battalion and then I only did 12 months there and then Volunteered to go to seventh group Knowing that seventh group one I went to one seven and we were doing back-to-back rotations on the schedule there I didn't want people to know when I got the seventh group that I was on on the ridge why For me personally I didn't want them to know because I didn't want them to judge me for what I'd done in the past and I wanted them to judge me for what I was doing moving forward And I still kind of viewed it as like something of the past of like It was a rough day for me, you know, it was a rough day for all of us and it kind of took me a long time to Kind of understand that and kind of grow and mature as you know a Father a soldier and things like that Before I even flew out here like I did tell people that I was coming but historically when I had We'd come out to California and I I didn't went up to New York in the past to to do an interview I was supposed to go with Canon and it ended up just being me by myself, but I historically hadn't I Wouldn't tell nobody I was going. I just tell my I did what was they feedback you got when you told them People are very interested right they're very interested They they want to know they they want to know the story but also like like When people also know that to the point of your question People want to know if I don't tell anybody about it, then I don't have to share it And I think at that those times when I was experiencing that I don't think I was ready to share it That's fair. Yeah, people have People have been telling war stories long before we all showed up here. I mean since the beginning of time and I think How I might answer the question you had is you know, what's the intent behind telling this story? I think that's what matters because Don't be more war stories. I mean maybe you know, we'll be replaced by drones here soon But until that happens there's gonna be war stories here and there and not just with our country with the rest of the rest of the world and I do believe intent matters, you know Also if the arena is dominated by Voices from one area over the other it creates a void Or even if there is no animosity people will assume that there is they will fill it with bullshit that doesn't exist and sometimes that ends up becoming real This this story case in point, you know, we were talking a little bit about this the other day There's no There's a version of taking the high road too far, which results in what you just said. If you don't say a word, the public will begin to fill the space and to begin to create mythology. Because it will ask the question, how come there's so many seal stories in no range of ones? And then somebody will say, oh, I heard that they don't like each other. And then somebody also say, oh, yeah, they're actually, they don't work well together and that's why the seal guys are just trying to drown out. And none of this shit is true. But they're all, you know what I mean, that's the void that gets filled with the bullshit of the internet. And then somehow that stuff ends up, then people buy into it. And then it perpetuates itself. And then we're living in a fucking selfless, licking ice cream cone. Sure. What Chris? Are you after that? Like, growing up, I didn't like the seals in the army. Was it because we were better? It was because it's in the hair. It seemed like, you know, we're going to do stuff because the most classic joke you're ready for this. What? Do you know what all army guys and seals have in common? Oh, there's a lot. What? They both wanted to be seals. I was not. I pulled that shit on green braze. I do that with firefighters and cops like do not. You know, when you asked me if I read men with green faces and of course I fucked up your completely. Just like, where is this? But you know, but that'll drill one alpha fail. But what I will say is, because I'm a two or three years ahead of you in this whole game, but when I was growing up, you know, I'm probably ten years older than you guys, something like that. There were maybe seal stories. The stories we heard growing up were about green braze, John Wayne, John Rambo, Chuck Norris and Delta Force, the movie with Charlie Sheen came out after I joined. The documentary? Yep. No. So, you know, these, these, these, these, these stories they shift, you know, the seal teams got some high profile, profile ops in the bank. The public spotlight shifted over to these guys, but it'll shift back to something else. Well, you know, we'll, we'll run our course, it'll go back to CAG or over to the Rangers or to whatever, but that balance will come quicker if we can figure out a way to give equal voice, and they are, and they feel empowered to want to tell those stories, because you can't get blood out of a turn up, you know, that's the whole thing, yeah, I'm wise, you know. Yeah, I wasn't until like learning about, you know, like I read it in a book, you know, I was so pissed off at seals, I was really angry at them, but it was, did you ever encounter one up into that point? No. Perfect. No. I deeply appreciate that headstand. It wasn't until I learned about, you know, I mean, these guys are, and I've matured, I'm like, these guys are fucking put, they're just like us can put somewhere to go do something. If I had heard from my dad, if he had said green beret instead of seal, to be honest with you, it was the idea of the job. I think I randomly fell into the fact that I grew up in a family that had a navy tie. You know what I mean? I look back now, I appreciate my pre-9/11 service because I got to see how utterly ridiculous we were because we fought each other because we needed relevance and budget. And then in our off time, of course, what do we do? We talk shit about every other branch of the military. Yeah. Then we get thrust into things like this in Urela as the communities are defined by their similarities and not by their differences. And I have worked at this point with every, I say this every time Rangers come up when I'm talking on the show. Like they are the most badass dudes that I've ever worked with. Like you ask them to stay on a corner until the corner doesn't exist, Roger that and they will be there. And green berets, and I didn't get to work with the Marsaw guys, so it's not that I don't have equal amount of respect from, I just don't have any data points with that. But it's interesting now, as the mature theaters of War have wound down, as operational tempos winding down, I'm watching it go back trending towards the pre-9/11. Let's pick and hand each other apart. And what you forget is when you get to a place like this, none of that shit matters. Yeah. I'm going to add on to it. Just to go to this, right, like I, all these guys, if I can went through this same shit with us, some of them were fucking away above us, some of us were there before us, some of them came to get us, you know, and we don't fucking know each other. Which really, like we were all share that same fucking spot, and for, you know, I got to meet Robert's son, who was a baby when this happened, and he was a grown man when I met him, and I didn't meet him for all those years until he was a grown man. So his son got what happened from his CEO buddies, you know, they let him know. But we weren't part of that, you know, maybe we were, but you know, that kid probably had some questions for us too, you know. There's a, there are healthy levels of a spree to core, and then there are, and there's a toxic, toxic version of it. And I think leadership has to pay attention to making sure it stays in that healthy competitive space and doesn't turn into, you know, fuck those guys, and we don't want to work with those guys. And I hope that stops, and a lot of it's happening in the social media realm. Yeah. There's a whole industry and podcasts that tries to pit one unit against the other unit, and unfortunately it works sometimes, there's leadership, you know, probably in every branch and every unit, talking shit about the other guys, teaching the young guys to dislike these guys, and this is what's so fucked up about these guys and vice versa, and he's a stop. It should stop. Well, I think, you know, grew up in range, started all off my career in range of regiment, and then never really left to use the sock, except for spent some time in the guard while I was going to college and then went straight back to use the sock. It's interesting though, because it's not just department, department's department. It goes on entry to department too, right? Like everybody's competing for the same resources, like these things happen within department of army, you know, you have multiple elements of the special operations community, and they're all fighting over the same resources. So that conversation, like I think you're at the nolan head, it comes down to the leadership doing the right thing and make sure that we all understand that we're all supporting the greater mission. Chris, tell me if you agree with this. I think I have a theory here, because what I've understood about this story is, and you spoke to it a second, a few minutes ago, after this happened, you guys never sat down with Red Squadron, hashed it out and had a, you know, I think what I understand, you tell me if I'm correct, you guys had your own internal AR, but there was no joint AR saying, let's talk about this. Pilots, rangers, seals, whomever else, air force, what the hell just happened? And so when you don't do that, I think you're just inviting. That's the point. It's a different version. You're inviting these divides, you're inviting this cancer to grow. And when you have these pivotal moments in war, I think there needs to be an extra effort to say, let's not let this fester for the next 25 years, let's get everyone together, hashed this out. They can agree to disagree, but let's at least have them talk to each other. And that's on the leadership, you know, not just yours, on the seals leadership, on everyone's leadership at that moment, what didn't happen was the real AR that was supposed to happen. Yeah, I know the regimen, this is part of the legacy, you know, private or private to talk this when they're becoming rangers, you know, or they know it before they get there, whatever, but what was the highest award that was given to a ranger that day? Silver star. I mean, I've never sat in an awards board, but that is fucking ridiculously low. That's the way it works. Doesn't need to. Right. What? Like, I don't, I don't put anything into the awards to be honest with you, we didn't want them. We didn't want our awards like for us, all of us like, this was even, I'm talking pre the debate that, you know, you're bringing up now, we didn't want them for us, for me, when I found out that we were all, whether they were putting us all in for at the time, doesn't bring them back. Yeah. Just, just not supposed to though. It's not supposed to, and I understand the importance on why it is important now, but at the time, you know, reflecting on at the time, like it, okay, cool. I almost becomes a conversation of. Why does he get this or he get that? That conversation is head by civilian to don't understand any of this either. This ties into the void as well. Why are there two metal of honors for these particular units up here at a different tier? Why so much lower for the, if you know, not that I'm not diminishing a silver star by any stretch, it's too down from the metal of honor, but you know what I mean? That gap, that delta creates an unknown as well, which again can be filled in that void by things that are not true, but then become true because they're perpetuated for long enough. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting as you bring up the conversation to awards, even separate from outside of this, I ended up spending just under 36 months in Afghanistan over, you know, my, my term of service and I saw it time and time again, people sitting on awards panels, I was even asked because I had a valorous award when I was in third special forces group to sit on a panel and it was very interesting how some of those panels went down. Yeah. I have to talk. Can you say more? Well, it's just, uh, let me know if I'm getting close. Yeah. The military award system got tied to the rank system as well and competitive advancement. Then I saw this specifically on our side of the house. If somebody who fills a leadership role as a warded a certain award, not to use that word twice in the same sentence, and the next person to fill that billet and the next rotation does not equal that. They are no longer equal when it comes to advancement cycles. And that shouldn't be the case, and I'm not going to display the examples that I have personally seen, but I have seen awards guidance directly violated, like specifically you should not be allowed to apply this award or give this award for anything other than direct actions and combat based off of the leadership role to ensure that their competitiveness in advancement boards were maintained. And the second that you do that, it devalues everything else that these things mean to everybody else. Is it close? Yeah, it is, but then you also, not everybody that sits on the panel of a awards group are on that panel because they have a previous ballerous award. So then you get into the geopolitics of it, you have some of it. And I've seen, I've seen people get awarded ballerous awards because of the unit or demographic that they were, when I worked, we'll just say, next to men that were doing something very similar that it wasn't even drawn up. Yeah. And that's what crumbles the entire system. Yeah. Because whether you're sitting on the board or not, if you think that the people around you once that word is given, don't realize what's going on, you're not living in the real world. Yeah. Okay. And I don't not diminish in anything that anybody had done on any one of those panels that I sat on. Yeah. It was just, there was a, it's not as pure as people would hope it would be. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good way to put it. I would say, I think the awards process is generally good. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. I don't want to make, I don't want to have anyone believe that we think it's just a complete shit show and it's a mess, I think most of the time does the right thing, but it's an imperfect system. Yeah. It's ran by humans. Yeah. Yeah. And every once in a while they get something, get one of these wrong. I mean, case in point, every year we read in the paper, such and such, gets an upgrade from Vietnam or posthumously from, you know, they find out new things. Yeah. And so if that's happening, it means they can also misalward somebody, you know, in the present. Sure. It's an imperfect system. Did we miss anything, Mitch? Do you guys think we did? I appreciate this opportunity to be able to be here, you know, for the guys that are up there and their families, be here for Eric, this is Eric's seat, you know, when I came here, when you reached out to me, like, my greatest, I was just like, I don't want to bring discredit, just like hosted by a CLD bag. Yeah. To what happened up here, what the boys did. I didn't want to speak for guys up there. That's why it's both from my side picture. There's some amazing people that were up there and they did really amazing things. They still are doing them. And I know they did it. That's all that matters to me. Are you guys going to have a 25 year reunion reunion? Hmm. Because it's coming up. Eric, start planning that now. Anything to close it out with, Josh? Yeah, appreciate this opportunity going back to, you know, some of your previous questions on, you know, why and how I may have dealt with some of these things in the past. I think you brought up a very good point. I think it comes down to maturity as we start to grow older. When I first got out of range regiment, I've enrolled in school. I was in college classes, like literally three weeks later, one super healthy, by the way. It was an interesting thing that I knew was I was going to struggle, not academically, when I figured out what college is kind of joke. If you can just show up and do what you're told and growing up in a rage regiment, like you said before, hey, hold that wall. Okay. I can go to college class and hold that wall, but one of the first classes I took was a stress management class and that was deliberate. It was a mandatory health class. I just got knocked out of the way because I knew over time that I was going to have some problems. Yeah. And so one of the things I learned through there and then through an old World War II that I'd met through a girl that I dated years ago, I called him by his last name and his rank when he got out of service in World War II and the rest of the family used to get upset with me when I would do that and you're getting it. You're getting grandpa fired up and he'd come tell me about all the people he'd killed during World War II and it kind of bothered the rest of the family, but for me, I knew he needed that because what's important is that you need to talk about it to get through it and not compartmentalize it, but talk about it and share those experiences because there's a lot of things that folks can learn from the great stuff that we did and the mistakes that we made more importantly. So if I could challenge anybody, it would be out there kind of struggle with trying to figure it out, especially after they get out, a lot of people struggle when they get out. They never have the same purpose that you had while you were in, but you need to go find something else to be passionate about and probably throw your family on the top of that list and then from there, work your way down because after 24 years of service, there was a lot of family getting neglected, not deliberately and it wasn't just, it was just nature of the beast of what you signed up for. I want people to know these names. I want people to understand and know the legacy of specifically the community that you guys came from, but I can't tell those stories. But anybody who's put in the time and the work and the effort and the sacrifice, they deserve to have their names told, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. People can argue for as long as they want to about that, but we need willing participants to be able to share these stories, otherwise they're only going to be known by an incredibly small group of people, whereas things like this, anybody listening to this who isn't inspired by that, also maybe on the sociopathic scale, or just like national defense level autism, perhaps it's hard to say, but, you know, I mean, without that, it should inspire you. It should cause people to question what they believe and what they're willing to fight for, what they stand for, all of those things, but the person has to be willing to participate in that as well too. So it's a discussion for the communities to have, do you want the legacy to live only inside of that community, or do you want it to inspire as many people as humanly possible, and potentially inspire those people to join and continue that legacy and drive it forward? Yeah, that's a good point. Thanks a lot.