Life Liberty and the Pursuit

LLP #122: Combat Common Sense

• Life Liberty and the Pursuit

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What skill do you think soldiers use most in combat? If your answer involves shooting or physical fitness, you might be surprised by the truth revealed by two Iraq War veterans. In this deeply personal episode, Eric and Matt draw from their infantry experiences to explain why critical thinking and situational awareness—not marksmanship—proved most valuable in modern asymmetrical warfare.

Through vivid stories from their deployments, they shatter Hollywood misconceptions about combat reality. When enemies don't wear uniforms and blend with civilian populations, success depends on split-second decisions made by teenagers with the weight of lives on their shoulders. "You had 18, 19-year-old kids having to make very, very quick and correct decisions on the spot," Matt explains, detailing how street smarts often superseded formal tactical training.

The conversation takes thought-provoking turns as they discuss the psychological aspects of warfare, how military hierarchy practically dissolves under fire, and why sometimes choosing not to shoot saved more lives than engaging would have. They explore how each generation of warfare creates unique challenges—from World War II's hedgerow fighting to Vietnam's jungles to Iraq's urban complexity—while reflecting on the surprising post-war development of Iraq compared to Afghanistan.

Perhaps most compelling is their nuanced perspective on respecting enemy commitment without agreeing with their ideology, and recommendations for books like "On Killing" by Dave Grossman that explore combat's psychological dimensions. Whether you're a military history enthusiast, a veteran, or simply curious about the human experience of modern warfare, this episode offers authentic insights rarely discussed in mainstream media. Subscribe now to hear more conversations that bridge military experience with everyday American values.

Book recommendations:
On Killing
By Dave Grossman

Ordinary Men
By Christopher R. Browning

Speaker 1:

Welcome back everybody. This is Eric and Matt and this is Life, liberty and the Pursuit, your beacon of freedom and the American way of life. Tune in every Monday for a new episode as we dive into the world of liberty and what makes our country great.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back everybody. This is Eric and Matt here with LLP. You're home for all things normal in a world of craziness and debauchery. In the world gone mad. Hopefully we're the beacon of freedom that shines a light on all the crazy things going on in the world what's going on?

Speaker 2:

rock and roll, johnny, rock and roll so today's uh show is going to be really fun. You know, we've been taking down a bunch of, uh random ideas here and some of these are going to be pretty interesting. But, uh, we decided today, uh, to do our show on what skills are used in combat the most. This is kind of an interesting talking point because I think that it's going to bring some things to light for many of you and I think people have this sort of preconceived notation, matt, about what being in combat is like and what a soldier's job is and what your duties are. And you know, everybody sees, you know the varying types of different soldiers, right, like there's always the picture of, well, either someone's an infantryman or they're like a cook, like that's it, that's the only two jobs in the military, and like there's so many things. So we're going to discuss some of the niceties and finities of it and give some of our experience from our time in the sandbox. Of course, there's going to be a lot of other things we're going to discuss in today's show, but before we get started, I would like to thank our friends at CHOC.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 3:

dude, my week has been absolutely great. Um, you know I'm back training regularly as I can uh back in the wrestling room, back in the jiu-jitsu mats. I mean it's it's been one of those phenomenal weeks. Everything's going good. It's a rare occasion, but when it happens it definitely is awesome.

Speaker 2:

I wish I could say the same. It's been a really crazy week for me. There's been a lot going on and everything. Some of you that follow me on Twitter especially and I may have posted a few things over on Instagram as well but some of you know that my trainer, james cersei uh, pitbull, the guy that's in all of my videos with me, um, when I'm doing lifting and stuff he passed away last week, um, and it was really unexpected. You know, we all really didn't know what to think there and it's just, you know, he wasn't really that old and for us it's like it was very sudden. You know he wasn't really that old and for us it's like it was very sudden. You know, like we just had a lifting session that morning. Everything was going well, we were doing some monster squats, things are looking great, and you know, you just never know. You know when it's your time and, of course, the energy in the gym this week was just completely different. You know, of course we had lifting sessions, but it's like, you know, there's always that kind of thought, that like he's always going to be there with us.

Speaker 2:

You know, and it's always hard when you lose someone in that type of way in that capacity, when it's unexpected, you know when someone's, you know when you expect it. It's always different than it being a surprise and you're like, oh wait, I just talked to him or something. So it's really tough. And you know, my, my um, my thoughts and prayers obviously go out to the Searcy family and to all the the folks at team Pitbull. And you know, we're going to keep training. We got some meets coming up. We're not going to quit. We're going to keep hitting the ground, running and training hard and we're going to train just like he's there yelling at us the whole time. So you know, that's, that's all we can do. But, uh, it's always tough to lose people and those of you that have been following me on uh twitter, especially uh iraq veteran 88 88 on twitter. If, if you dare, uh, follow me over there spicy, yeah, some of y'all have been following me over there.

Speaker 2:

Um, y'all know, you know I posted some photos and some memorial things and you know I post a lot of my lifting videos over there. So, um, yeah, that sucks.

Speaker 3:

So pretty crappy week there yeah, I remember when you, when you told me about that man, it's uh, and I know the feeling you're talking about. It's like a somber feeling of like you know you just talked to this person or you were just with this person, and then you know, they, they pass away suddenly, uh, it is a different feeling than you know when it's a planned, uh, a planned death, as you say because, yeah, yeah, at least you like you're expecting it, right?

Speaker 2:

yeah, like when my grandpa was in the hospital. You know he's in the hospital for a couple of days, two or three days. You're getting updates from the doctor and it's like okay, you kind of know you have time to prepare for it, you're mentally preparing that something's going to happen. But but when it's just so sudden you get a call and what? You think it's some sick joke or something. Not that someone would joke about that, but damn you know, yeah, it just sucks.

Speaker 3:

Unfortunately, that's kind of what you, that's the feeling you get when you're deployed in a war zone. It's only those types of alerts. It's not like, oh, we just went to the d-fac or we just were eating chow the other day, and then it's like, bam, right, no more someone goes out on a, on a, on a you know a stick for the day, and they don't come back.

Speaker 2:

Yep, and, and that's that's very difficult to cope with. We are going to talk a little bit about that. Um, to kind of like brighten the mood before the show gets rolling, I do want to share this, uh, this crazy picture I took earlier. So, okay, matt, yep, I was behind this vietnam veteran the other day and he's in his old mobile, you know, and and it was just covered in all these crazy bumper stickers and I'm like, all right, I gotta take a picture of this. So I blur the guy's tag, put it on twitter. So matt has not seen this picture yet, so you're gonna get his reaction to this picture in real time. And, uh, while he's looking at the picture, I'm going to pull up my tweet. And, uh, I, I tweeted, okay, and I'll. I'll show you the tweet here should I open the picture now?

Speaker 1:

um. Hang on one second, so all right so here's the caption for this picture.

Speaker 2:

matt you ready? I bet there's a 30-year-old Folgers can, full of camel butts on the floorboard and a government issue 1911 stuffed under a 1990s issue of Shotgun News. All right, you ready? Yes, okay, here you go. Here's his reaction.

Speaker 3:

Let's see. Let's see, pull her up. You are 100 correct. That is exactly what I would imagine, just like a folgers tin can full of cigarette butts and like some dip spit yeah, yeah, there's like a jar of ears in the trunk.

Speaker 2:

A dead prostitute like there's something, oh man like there's something going on, like I, I would give anything to go through that car. Like there's no telling what's in that car.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you got to watch out for the Vietnam vets, man. They're a different breed. They could care less about anything you say or do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and there's always a Jane Fonda sticker. Yes, right Is that? They're not Fonda Jane? That's right, they're not Fonda Jane, that's clever man. And some stickers have been on that car for a hot minute.

Speaker 3:

The car itself. The paint is like peeling, it's like faded. You're like, okay, he could care less. He's on his way to probably pick up another pack of camels.

Speaker 2:

I mean, isn't there something to be said about that, like the veneer of yesterday. That's why that picture is intriguing to me, cause it's like, yeah, it's, it's cool to see all the random stickers. I mean, of course there's a second amendment, and you know every reference to Vietnam you could ever think of which is it's just great, you know. But there's something about that that you know. There's something about the forgotten moments of yesterday that get brought up and you think about, about things that happened in your life and and even that, like his car is just a rolling retrospect of his military career or whatever, and you think, like you begin to think about things that you did and things that you went through, and it's like like, wow, you know that those guys really got treated like crap when they came home.

Speaker 2:

You know, the Vietnam vets got, got treated rough and uh, it's just crazy like how someone can survive and and stay in good spirits and go about their life and and be normal and be productive members of society after all that. And not to say that they shouldn't be or wouldn't be, but I guess all I'm saying is, uh, like, wow, you know some of those guys that go on to have great careers and successful companies and, you know, make something of themselves after all of that and seeing all that traumatic stuff, and not everybody makes it through that system. You know, that's what's so messed up about it. I mean, there are probably Vietnam veterans right now that are on the streets, don't have anywhere to live. So there's a wide range of people who successfully made it through that system and some who didn't.

Speaker 3:

But you could say that about guys with the GWAT, the experience the global war on terrorism the same thing you have.

Speaker 3:

There's quite a few, a ton of guys that are homeless right now that went through the same thing, and there's also highly successful people that came out of that um. On the other end, you could even go as far as to say that you know that the va system probably went through more changes because of the g watt, the 20-year g watt war, than with the vietnam war, because with the Vietnam war Cause, with the Vietnam war, they were just denying everything. I mean blatantly obvious things like agent orange, like all kinds of stuff that you knew 100% was the result of being in Vietnam and being doused with these chemicals and the chemical agents. They were just denied, denied, denied. But now, with GWAT, you can't really hide there. Then they had the whole presumptive like, hey, if you were in the area, we're just going to assume that you have these problems.

Speaker 3:

Um, and that was honestly probably the easiest, the path of least resistance, instead of having everybody come in individually like all right, you were in Afghanistan, you were in Iraq. We knew we had, we were using these chemical agents. We knew we were using these chemical agents. We knew we were doing burn pits. We knew we were doing this and they're just blanket. They blanket awarded people that applied for it, so it worked out for some people and then not so much for others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you know I recently went into the VA hospital. Well, I went in for the first time about maybe a month ago to get my little card. You know they give you that, yeah, the health card, the health card. So I went in to do that. It was a very smooth process.

Speaker 2:

But I remember the first time I ever set foot in a VA hospital was a month or so ago and there were a lot of Vietnam vets in there and a lot of them were looking pretty rough, you know, and and of course they all have their hats on and their patches and there's just something about being, you know, in a hospital that can be rather depressing. It can be, you know, off-putting, and hospitals on their own are already kind of a depressing place to be in when you see people that are not well. But when you see veterans that aren't well and they're all veterans that's even harder, because it's like each one of them has their own story and their own experiences and and you think, damn like, what was he like when he was my age? What was he like when he was younger?

Speaker 2:

he was a hard-charging marine oh yeah, like you're not just looking at guys that are just your run-of-the-mill people. You're talking, you know folks that went and did some really courageous things and you know I mean there, I mean there was one guy from World War II. It's like, wow, not a lot of those left really. I mean the World War II vets are.

Speaker 3:

You know, they're getting long in the tooth you know, I honestly don't know how many more are even still alive. Not that many, yeah, it's reaching the point now where, even like the guys that jumped in and enlisted when they were like 13,- because and enlisted when they were like 13 because you saw a lot of those stories.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they lied about their age?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, they lied about their age they're jumping in there at the age of 13. Even those guys are up in the 90s now.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So to run into a World War II veteran is a pretty rare thing these days. I mean, I ran into a World War II vet in the grocery store about maybe half a year ago and he looked pretty old. I mean, he had to have been in his 90s, but he seemed like he was getting getting around pretty good, you know. So it's just crazy. But um, I digress.

Speaker 2:

The point is is that you know, when you go in these institutions and you see, um, all these veterans in one place, it it does wake it. Wake you up like wow, you know, hospitals are bad enough already, but then when it's all the vets too, and you and you think of what they were in their youth, you know it's like wow, it really does make you realize, like, like it's coming for all of us. And that's a scary kind of thing. You know, when you're younger and you see someone who was a true badass in their youth, and then you know, and they're, and they're older, it's like it comes for us all.

Speaker 2:

And um, and I went and did a stress test for the first time this week I mean not to get into a whole bunch of business, but it's interesting they shoot this radioactive goo in your arm and you run on the treadmill and they take pictures of your heart. You know I've never had procedure done like that before, so I will say that my experience so far with VA medical care is actually quite positive. You know, I've had good experiences. All the doctors have been pretty good, the scheduling's pretty quick, the turnaround is pretty good. All in all I can't really complain with the, with the service I've gotten through the VA. Now I know a lot of veterans have um had issues and have complained of certain issues.

Speaker 2:

But I can say in Atlanta I mean, look, knock on wood, but the service is pretty dang good. I mean you walk in the door and there's like literally a concierge in there, like a person in a jacket that'll say, what are you trying to accomplish today? And they'll like literally escort you anywhere in the building you need to go. I mean, imagine some 80, 90-year-old person who might have a little dementia going in there and it's like they have literally people that will just literally take them wherever they need to go by hand, like, hey, this is where you need to go and help them. It's, it's a very well run system. I mean, what they have going on in Atlanta is pretty good. I can't speak for all the VA hospitals, but Atlanta is pretty legit.

Speaker 3:

So I haven't had any experience yet going to the VA hospital. I do plan on making an appointment to go check them out, but I just haven't had time to do it right now. So eventually maybe I'll get to experience how good the system is here in LA. Yeah, I mean, let me know what you think.

Speaker 2:

I mean I've been twice so far and so far my experience has been pretty good, awesome.

Speaker 2:

So, we're going to kind of get to the meat and potatoes of today's show. I wanted to. I want to talk about that vietnam vets car and I wanted to give a shout out to my trainer and tell y'all how my week's been going. You know we like to do that every other show or so, because you know we usually will film a couple of these shows a week, so we'll only have one every other show. We'll kind of talk about the way our week has been, because that's, we're only reporting for one week. We typically will film two in one sitting when we can. But so we want to talk a little bit about these, these skills, right, cause everyone has this sort of preconceived notation. I'm shuffling some notes here Y'all just give me a second but everybody has these sort of preconceived notations about what they think of combat and what we really have not really to blame but to thank for that, I suppose, is Hollywood.

Speaker 2:

I mean you know the movies portray a certain type of dramatized thing. I mean you look at movies like Saving Private Ryan and a lot of World War II movies especially. They really dramatize combat in World War II and look, world War II is an ugly war. Okay, I mean it was bad. I'm not saying that war isn't bad and I'm not saying that Hollywood doesn't do an effective job of showing the brutality of war. Of course, yeah, war is very brutal and when you think it, when people think war, that's what they think of. They think of battlefield and trenches and guys in uniforms, and you know there's the bad guy, there's you, and it's like, okay, we're going to fight this out. Like you know, they think it's so cut and dry and black and white, and in many cases, yes, it obviously is. It is black and white.

Speaker 2:

But you know, the war, the Iraq war, was really nothing like that. I mean, you have no idea who these people are, where they are. They don't wear uniforms. You know you're not going to be able to identify them. So it was a very different type of situation for guys like us and I think that what we wind up, matt, we get sort of pigeonholed into the mindset of you know, and I think this is just a natural tendency of you know, the human condition is that we will tend to want to say that our experiences are so difficult and unique compared to the generations that are going to come after us, or maybe even the generations that came before us.

Speaker 2:

I know there's a popular meme out there that shows like the World War II grandpa and like the you know Vietnam dad, and then like the GW watt kid, and they're all generational military infantrymen. Yep, I know you've seen that meme. Some of y'all may have and you know. Oh well, you don't understand what it was like, or you know, and it's always every generation thinking that what they went through was way worse than any other generation right right.

Speaker 2:

How could we ever think that what we went through was worse than being in Vietnam or World War II?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, you can't you can't.

Speaker 2:

But again that somehow becomes the kind of calling card of being in war. Is that? You know, people want to make their experience. Oh, it was the worst. It was the worst thing that ever was Like for the wars that might come in the future for america.

Speaker 2:

Are we gonna be like, oh you, you kids do it, and blah blah no I personally am not gonna have that view because personally I I think the face of war has changed in such a crazy way that whatever's coming is gonna be way worse than what we went through.

Speaker 3:

I mean I drones and shit, no way yeah, no, I agree, and the way that I look at, I would never, would never look at, you know, the World War II guys or the Vietnam guys and say, or even let's just say the Panama, if you want to, if we throw Panama in there, I would never say that we had it worse than them. They didn't have the body armor that we had, they didn't have the up-armored Humvees that we had, they didn't have the Bradleys, they didn't have the Fox vehicles, they didn't have, uh, the bradley's, they didn't have, uh, the fox vehicles, they didn't have the strikers, they didn't have, you know, close air support. Not the way that we had it, like we could jump on the horn and we'd have like two apaches like inbound in like 30 seconds, man, like these dudes. The way that it worked over there, if you guys don't know, when we go out on patrol, we, we let, we let the talk know, we're leaving the gate and then immediately we check in with at that time on that rotation was viper element.

Speaker 3:

So viper element was the apaches that fly around and also, uh, the marine, the marine version, the cobras. So they you would have, they would be constantly in the area and then you just check in with them. Hey, this is, you know, thunder element for whatever going out the gate, and they would check in. This is viper two, three. I have 150 rounds of he, I have four tow missiles, you know, at your service. And that was it. And then they let you know. Hey, they're in the area, you're leaving the gate and if you need it they'll send it. Yeah, um have guns.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, man like have guns, we'll travel that's the way it worked.

Speaker 3:

Um, now, like I would imagine we never had to call on them, thankfully, um, but they let you know, having that security blanket, knowing that they're in the area. And I've got tons of pictures where we're like rolling down the msr and there'll be like an apache, just like cruising along next to your vehicle. They're like, hey, what's up, guys, I'm here, like, and then they just fly off and do their thing. Um, I'll try to find. I'll try to find a couple of those pictures. If I can find a couple of those pictures, I'll I'll throw them up on the on the youtubes man or anytime, like especially at night.

Speaker 2:

If you ever heard an a10, oh yeah, shoot. You know there was a few times over there I could hear that. You know it's like something bad's happening to somebody, but they got it, ain't me.

Speaker 3:

But but you know to your point, you know they didn't have that type of ability like we did. Like, yeah, but at the same time, when you look at it, like they weren't, they weren't getting blown up with fricking 500 pound IEDs like every other day either. So it was, it's, it's, it's a kind of a trade off, right. But when you look at you know the totality of it, like what's what was? You know what skill set do you think you use the most in combat? Right, that was the, that was, that was the general question. And only speaking from an infantryman's standpoint, I would say, your critical thinking ability, especially in the GWAT, because they weren't in uniform, they weren't. There was no really indicators on who was the enemy and who wasn't. It was. Hey, you really have to focus on what's their posture. Are they posturing in a negative way? Are they doing anything that's kind of like funky? And even as a lower enlisted we're not talking leadership, but even at lower enlisted you were just as responsible for making sure nothing happened as, say, your platoon sergeant, your squad leader, your PL pl you had just as much responsibility of calling a duck a duck as they did like hey, man, look at that and then make sure. But to me that's what it was. You had 18, 19 year old kids having to make very, very quick and correct decisions, yeah, like on the spot.

Speaker 3:

And to me that you know, nobody knows how you're going to react in war. You could, you know you could have the most charismatic leader you know. You're like, oh man, I would follow this guy into combat and he'll fold. You know like he'll absolutely fold in combat. And you, at the same time, you have guys that you think you know wouldn't be that well-rounded or have that leadership ability in combat that just always makes the right calls. Man, like I've seen it time and time again Like you have guys that they just never make a bad decision. I don't know if it's just because you know they're natural or they're critical thinking abilities on another level, but I've seen it Like, hey, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and it works out every time. And, conversely, I've seen the opposite of guys that just always make the bad decision, you know.

Speaker 2:

That's a really good point, you know. I think you hit the nail on the head. I would say that at least the war we were in and the job that we did is as being, you know, um 11 charlie, I was a mortar man, so was matt, and I would say that probably the most important skill is just common sense yep I mean, like there are certain things in those situations that can't be taught.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you can go out and read a book and do a whole bunch of training and you can, you know, learn how to use a mortar system. You can learn how and read a book and do a whole bunch of training and you can, you know, learn how to use a mortar system. You can learn how to react to contact and you can learn you know um squad movements and individual movement tactics, and you can learn all of these. You know light infantry and and small unit tactics and things like that. Um, that you can read out of a book that was probably written by people a lot smarter than me, but at the end of the day, you're not going to use any of that in those situations, like you. There was no organized um warfare. It wasn't. It was very asymmetrical in that. It was basically just a giant guerrilla warfare campaign on their part. And and and think about it, why would you attack a larger, more well-equipped, higher technologically advanced force with what you have at your disposal? You know you're going to get freaking ripped to shreds. So the only way you can do is to try to blend in with the populace and become sort of just a fly in the ointment, and that's what many of them did, some of them quite successfully. So it becomes much more about your street smarts and your everyday common sense that become much more of a factor. I mean, if something doesn't smell right, it ain't right. And there were situations where you know you would kind of get this, you know, maybe feeling you were walking into an ambush and sure enough it'd be a damn ambush like and that's what it would be. I remember, um, that one night it was I'm going to omit names here because I really wouldn't want to tell anybody's name other than ours in today's show but there was one of the guys that I was on a stick with one night. He and I always kind of laugh about this situation but like we had these passenger vans blocking the road and sure enough it wound up being exactly what you thought it would be. I mean, if you have a convoy and you're rolling down the road at three o'clock in the morning and you've got some passenger vans turning like this, blocking the road, what do you think that is? Are they selling popsicles three o'clock in the morning? No, they're probably not selling popsicles. Is'clock in the morning. No, they're probably not selling popsicles. Is it nuns asking for, you know, donations for the church? Probably not a bus full of nuns asking for donations for the church.

Speaker 2:

Okay, it's somebody that that has some ulterior plans, uh, for the evening for you and you know. It's just that common sense kind of thing. Like there's probably some gunner that would just think that that's okay and wouldn't even think anything of it or wouldn't raise the alarm or say anything and you know, doesn't have the. You know, you gotta have some street sense. Like, okay, we're rolling up in this area where there, where the road kind of goes in this low spot in the road, there's a big bridge overhead, there's, uh, there's retaining walls on either side that have good cover, that are made out of big ass pieces of stone. Okay, so relatively bulletproof against small arms fire.

Speaker 2:

So you're thinking all right, if I wanted to shoot at a convoy, where would I be? That's where I'd be. Yeah, you have the advantage you have a high ground. They're going to be lower than you, they're going to be coming in. You've got a good spot to bottleneck them and stop them. And if they're not ready and prepared, yeah, you're in a situation where you may have the advantage. And, believe me, when these guys, you know they don't have night vision, they don't have thermals, they don't have Apaches following them around, so they've got to take every opportunity they can to try to find an advantage over you.

Speaker 2:

And that's really. You know, combat is about outmaneuvering and outthinking your enemy, and everybody thinks that it's all, you know, like in the movies, you know, guys with machine guns and running around. I mean, yeah, that's a factor of course, but it's really about outthinking your opponent. I mean, it's a game of chess. That's why they call the infantry the queen of battle, because if a war zone is a chess game, the infantry has the best ability, light infantry especially to move wherever they want, wherever they can physically go. And what does a queen do on the chessboard? She moves any way she wants to, right. So that's why they call the infantry the queen of battle, not because it's the most important piece on the chessboard, because it's the most versatile piece on the chessboard that can do anything. Nobody wants to lose their queen in a game of chess.

Speaker 3:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

They're losing that linchpin. They're losing that one piece that can completely change the way that the chess board is even looked at. I mean, winning a game of chess is about kind of leveraging the power of your queen.

Speaker 3:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean and uh, or sometimes using her as a distraction to think that she's dangerous, when you really maybe you're bringing a few nights in or you're you know, you might have a plan. There's a plan. Every game of chess is a little different.

Speaker 3:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

But it's just interesting to think about that they, even though we would picture them as uneducated dumb, whatever they weren't uneducated and dumb.

Speaker 2:

They're actually smart to figure those things out. If you can't physically overcome an opponent through sheer numbers, technology, better weaponry, whatever it may be, you've got to overcome your enemy with superior tactics. And that requires common sense. You got to kind of think like all right, we're into combat that Matt. What do I have to think? What would I do if I were in their situation? I sure wouldn't be just on the side of the road, flat ground with 500, 600 meters of open ground in every direction. That's suicide. You've got to think where would the enemy be?

Speaker 2:

That's where I'd probably be Sure enough my hunch was correct and you know I'm not going to say what happened that night, but let's just say that you know I'm not going to say what happened that night, but but let's just say that you know I was correct let's just say the team made it back.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we did, we did. Yeah, you did all your own conclusions. Yeah, draw your conclusions.

Speaker 2:

But it's just.

Speaker 3:

But that required common sense it does, and that's something that you know you get from being in combat, like being there. So I I distinctly remember when we were rotating out, we had the guys that were replacing us come in and to see the way that they operated when they first get there. It was just you never know how much you learn yourself from being in theater than the guys that have never been there, because, like, we're out there doing our patrols and we're doing everything else and they just they stick out like sore thumbs. They're not doing the things they're supposed to be doing, they're kind of oblivious to like everything. Most importantly, when the, when we were getting mortared, we, after being mortared for so long, like a year straight, you have a very good idea of what's close and what's not close.

Speaker 3:

So when these rounds start impacting the guys that have been there, we're kind of like all right, you know it is what it is, but these guys are like jumping for cover. We're like that's, that's really far away, you don't have to worry about that. Um, but you didn't know at first either, not at first. No, so that's where I was saying, like you could tell, you grow and you learn so much just by being there and experiencing it. Then the guys that are coming in and hopefully, like they are, they're going to learn and your job is to teach them before you leave. But you only have two weeks to teach them before you get out of.

Speaker 2:

Dodge, and even if you do try to explain something to them, it's like sometimes they don't listen. Like I remember I think it was 101st they, they, they replaced and, like I remember I think it was- 101st. They replaced us. It was elements of many different groups of people, but I remember specifically seeing the Screaming Eagle patches, so I know it was 101st guys. And wasn't it like the first week they were there they did a like ruck march out on the main highway.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they got chewed up down and we tried to tell them like guys, you have vehicles, you have armor vehicles, you don't need to. You don't have to do that Like use the technology at your disposal.

Speaker 3:

They were doing a present.

Speaker 3:

I remember they were doing a presence patrol and they were like, oh, we just got in there. And guys, just so you know, this was early G watt. Well, we call early GWAT OIF-3. So it wasn't like this was the 101st, 10th deployment, which I'm sure they did deploy many, many, many times. Just not those guys. Just not those guys. Those guys were like, hey, we're 101st and this goes back to World War II. They're like oh, we're going off our reputation here. Our reputation is we got this patch where it's screaming eagles we are forced to be reckoned with. And they're like we're going to do a presence patrol, we're going to let them know we're in town yeah, and their lt was like some 22 year old kid or 20 20 year old kid.

Speaker 2:

They got rocked, don't know nothing they got.

Speaker 3:

They got absolutely rocked yes, they did and we told them not to do it. We're like listen, we run this route every day. It was, you know, one of the like. We get ied mortared all the time. You do not want to go on foot on this route. Go on foot, got chewed up, man.

Speaker 3:

There's a reason we did we tried to tell them well, there's a reason we do recon by fire on that particular route, like that was one of the only routes. We would like recon by fire a certain area because, like they like to hide in. It was like right where the marsh area was. So it was like a wadi, uh, like some some marsh area and I like to hide in that marsh area. So we would just, yeah, just lay it down every time we go through there I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it was right where you make that right hand turn yeah, get it go onto the dirt, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was kind of like a low-lying area, that, where the canals were, yeah, and it was one of the areas that they had sort of dammed up a little area in the canal to kind of get some water kind of going out a little more they would go out into the water.

Speaker 3:

They'd sit there either with a switch or like a machine gun. Yeah, just try to fire at us from the grass or try to hit switches from the grass and we're like, we're like, f that and we're just gonna.

Speaker 2:

We're just gonna rake the whole area. Yeah, when we started raking the area that kind of stopped.

Speaker 3:

Yep. Yep, funny how that how that happens.

Speaker 2:

You didn't have any problems after that, you know there's something really weird and unnatural about taking a machine gun and just spraying an area, because it's like we're taught. That marksmanship is like you know, you're gonna see something, you're gonna launch a projectile and you're gonna hit that something right but like machine gun marksmanship is not quite the same it's its own thing, man machine gun.

Speaker 2:

Machine gunning is is kind of this weird art form like, uh, you know, have you seen those painters that just take paint and they flail their body around? They just do this and sling the paint everywhere. That's kind of what being a machine gunner is like you're just sort of slinging and you know where the canvas is generally in that area and you know you're going to sort of paint I don't know a little bit of a horizon little bob ross actually.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're going to paint a little, but it's just such a weird feeling like I think that one of the areas that I think civilians tend to get, you know, they don't quite see the side of it, is that imagine rolling down highway 75 right here, you know, modern highway right, and imagine, you know, being on a truck with a ma Deuce or a 240 and just going, well, there's no threat right now, but we're just going to shoot anyway, yep, and you know, and that's a weird feeling, like you're clicking off at safety and you're going I hope nobody's over there taking a whiz or fishing, or I don't know what they might be doing, but I hope they're not there. And in my mind I would would always think like I hope they're not dumb enough to be there because they know when we go by, that's what we're going to do, but that's the reason you do it. So they know not to, you know not to try you know, that's right there might be other guys that aren't gonna.

Speaker 3:

They're not gonna empty a belt and into that marsh there's no other reason for you to be wading out into a marshland and be hiding in the grass, yeah, other than if you had nefarious reasons well, I mean it and I guess that's kind of part of it, like when people say the skill sets for for combat, a lot of it really is the mental part of it.

Speaker 2:

It's, it's the, it's the mental, it's also sort of the mental drudgery, like you know. There might be a period of time that goes by for a week or two or more when nothing happens. Oh yeah, oh god. And that's the worst, because then you, then you begin to get complacent. Yep, and you know that's another thing is not be, you know, getting into a mode of complacency and, um, it's a tactic that the enemy uses.

Speaker 2:

They go, go, all right, let's cool down, re-equip, lick our wounds, come up with a plan, let's just ignore these guys for two weeks, and you're thinking, well, have they given up? Is the war over? I mean, you know, you think you begin as we were, you begin to think, well, are they done? Have they had enough? You know, and then all of a sudden, something pops off again and it's like it's those moments you've got to be really watching out for, because you're thinking well, maybe they've moved to another area of operations, or maybe they're out of equipment, maybe they're out of bombs or they're something. Maybe they're waiting on UPS to show up with a resupply, or whoever it is. What would be their version of UPS? I don't know.

Speaker 2:

They're waiting on the delivery man from Syria, the Syrian guy to show up in the camo jacket smoking a camel.

Speaker 3:

I guess that's their.

Speaker 2:

UPS man to show up with their Russian ordinance or whatever they're using. But I will say and look, I might catch possibly some flack for this opinion. I catch flack for a lot of my opinions. But the truth is I tell people what's on my mind and what's in my heart and I don't really quite really care what people think about what I have to say. But I will say that you know, looking back on that whole situation in retrospect, looking back on that whole situation in retrospect, I'm not going to sit here and say that I agree with any of their thought process, of what they're trying to accomplish, or I agree with their religious ideas or anything like that, or their religious ideals or their morals or principles or values or who they are as people. But it is very safe to say that you do have to respect their tenacity and their willingness to follow through on what they want to accomplish and the respect they have for their religion, because a lot of that is very religiously motivated for them and you have to remember that in their mind they're doing something that's morally pure to them. I don't have to like that. I have my views on what it means to be a Christian for me, you know, versus their religion. But I'm not over there thinking, well, I'm doing this as some crusade or some Christian undertaking, but they're thinking, hey, this is my undertaking to commit jihad or whatever. And you know what? As much as it pains me to say, you have to respect their level of commitment to what they believe in.

Speaker 2:

And when you look at today's world and all of the morality that surrounds religious movements, whether it's Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism or whatever, every religion has a moral statute that it kind of lines up with, and sometimes those sort of moral statutes they don't quite mesh well with Western culture. Okay, that's all good and fine. I can agree to disagree. I can say that I don't agree with certain aspects of a religious movement or whatever.

Speaker 2:

But one common denominator, one common thread between those different movements and those different religions, is that some people really do believe the Kool-Aid and some don't. And I will tell you, those folks have drank the Kool-Aid. They are head over heels on the path and I think that that's something people should view as being very dangerous, because those folks really believe what they're doing and that may be an unpopular opinion. I'm not saying I agree with them or I admire them, but I do respect them, and I think that's another thing that people have to remember with all of this. Stuff is like when you begin to dehumanize your enemy in a way that you know every war does it right.

Speaker 2:

I'm not going to say some of the derogatory comments, but you know what they call the Vietnamese soldiers. You know what they called the Germans in World War II. You know what they called the Germans in World War II. Every soldier, enemy soldier, has some nickname in an attempt to dehumanize them, to make it easier to hate them, and I think sometimes that's the wrong approach. I never fell into that trap. Of course there was names for our enemy too, but I didn't use those names.

Speaker 2:

I just, you know, for me, I think it's important to uh, to respect your enemy because they, they're willing to die for what they believe in. And, uh, you know, I think that you have to at least have the respect from human to human. Just ignore the political, religious, moral, ignore all of that and just go hey, this person has the stones to try to do me harm. You know, and I think from that aspect I mean you gotta hand it to them like they were brave, like to stand up to us, because you know we, we were way better equipped than they were, a hundred percent, way better but yet they still achieve some of their goals, and there's something to be said about that level of commitment.

Speaker 2:

So never underestimate the level of commitment your enemy has to the cause.

Speaker 3:

You know, I would agree and I think that there is a level of tenacity that they showed. Now, in retrospect, when you look at where Iraq is at now, current day, they are miles, light years ahead of Afghanistan. So, you know, if you look at, you know the cities in Afghanistan, how they're playing out, it still resembles what you would consider, in this day and age, a third world country. However, if you go and you know, you look at Iraq I've seen, you know, youtube videos and like documentaries of how Iraq is now and it looks very like the major cities at least look very similar to what you would find in like the UAE, dubai, kuwait very modern, clean, very modern clean. Um, they, they closely resemble what you would see in a modern, uh, a modern kuwaiti or uae country.

Speaker 3:

Um, very surprising, because when we were over there, we were like this place, no way this place is coming back from where it's at. Like it was like bombed out, dirt floors, no power, like no running water. It was, for all intents and purposes, it was a de facto third world country and now you look at it and you're like, holy crap, like this country made the like a very, very fast turnaround. Um, so you can't say you know we didn't help, we? I have a strong feeling that the us did kind of push them in the right direction as far as developing, developing the country. Now, government wise, I have no idea. I don't. I don't keep up with their government. I don't keep up with how they do. You know even what type of government they have. I don't care, I'm done with that.

Speaker 2:

You know I'm I do have enough problems, yeah.

Speaker 3:

We did our thing over there. Yeah, Boom, Um, but I would say that, um, outside of critical thinking cause it was a thinking man's war. That was a hundred percent thinking man's word. That was not a, uh, a brute force war, at least in my opinion. How we experienced it, it was like you had to be super sharp and if you weren't super sharp, usually it didn't go out. They kept you back.

Speaker 3:

Like they had those guys that just didn't leave the wire. They stayed inside. They sent the guys out. They knew what they were doing. Um, second, I would say is like a second, but like what would complement that, what would complement that critical thinking? It would be like just making good leadership, good leadership decisions, like being a good leader because how you, even as junior enlisted, you know when you're out there, how you interact with the civilians, how you interact with the local population, can determine how successful you were in that area. You know, lots of times the kids will come up to you. You know there's times where you see guys just like pushing people away, like they don't want nothing to do with them. They're like get away If you can make that decision and you can say, hey, these people are good that decision. And you can say, hey, these people are good. Um, you know you can help them out, they'll help you out. Um, that's just from my experience.

Speaker 3:

I will tell you there was one really weird experience. I'm not going to name names, but we were out in the middle of doing something. I think it was during the. Uh, like during the the voting, when they were voting the first vote after, like, saddam hussein had been like captured or something. It was super dangerous time to be outside, yeah. But and I and I remember we were, we were outside, we were kind of like blocking off something. And then people started gathering around the vehicles and we were like, oh crap, like this isn't good because, like they're civilians, like you're just gonna, you can't just start shooting people, right, they're civilians.

Speaker 3:

And one of these, somebody reached up and grabbed one of the dude's rifles. Like he was, like he had his rifle out, and the guy reached up and grabbed the barrel of the rifle. And I'm looking at it from another vehicle. I'm like, oh, my God, this dude is about to get shot. But that goes back to that leader.

Speaker 3:

It was a leader that he grabbed and he made that decision Like, hey, I could shoot this guy in the face if I wanted to, but I'm not, but you shouldn't, yeah, so he just pulled his rifle back, like pulled it back. I forget what he did. He definitely yelled at him, but it was just like to me that was the right decision. Like, yeah, the guy probably wasn't very smart by reaching up and grabbing the rifle, but he was really in no danger of losing it. He definitely had more points of contact, he had more control. He probably realized, like this guy but that's what I'm talking about like just having that common sense to like not do that kind of stuff. Obviously he wasn't a threat, right, he's just like grabbing it probably doesn't like a gun being point at him and then reaches up and grabs it, boom. But yeah, I remember that I was like holy crap, the guy could have repainted the vehicle definitely yeah and that, and we're not talking the type that I was talking about earlier either.

Speaker 2:

We're talking a very direct uh, brushstroke there. You know respect is universal and I think that you know. It's very important to remember that. You know, no matter what rank a person is in in the military, in in a war, you know when you're all in danger. Everyone's the same rank, really.

Speaker 2:

And that sort of goes out the door, and I know that sounds crazy, but when bullets start flying, you don't really care what someone's rank is anymore. All it is is hey, you're a set of eyes that has my flag on your shoulder. Therefore, you know your word's going to be gospel. If you say the boogeyman's around the corner, boy, I'm going to believe you, and it doesn't matter if I'm an E8 and you're an E2 or vice versa. All I know is I'm going to trust that person's word. If he says it's dangerous around the corner, I'm going to. I don't care what rank that person is.

Speaker 2:

At that point, when the bullets start flying, flying all that goes out the door, you start using first names. It's like you don't even at that point, you're just americans, and it strips away all of that formality. And the formality is important in garrison because it establishes the hierarchy of who is a designated person to be in control of the situation. Who's a designated, you know, leader, right? I mean, you have to have you know it's. It's no different than who's going to be the captain of the kickball team today or the football team, like we're gonna. All right, pick a, pick a team, you know, pick, pick two sides and pick a captain for each team. It's, it's the same thing. You're picking the captain for the team. But if you're playing dodgeball and the captain gets taken out, uh, in the first wave of dodgeball, well guess what? You still have to go on and play the game. And and that's what war is if if you're out there and the leader gets taken out, well guess what. You're the damn leader now, like everyone's the leader, but at that point the point is just to survive.

Speaker 2:

So there is a hierarchy of discipline that we try to achieve in garrison, but all that goes out the window when it's dangerous, and I think that you know leadership at that point really becomes about. Are you the person that's doing the right thing at that moment? That is the right situational circumstance, you know, is the right thing to be doing in that circumstance, and I don't want to, I don't really want to talk about this in a lot of depth, because I don't want to. I don't want to talk about it, but there was a situation that we were all involved in and and you know it wasn't something I did, it's something I didn't do- Sometimes it be like that, okay.

Speaker 2:

So it wasn't something that I did that helped the situation. It's something I chose not to do, just like your situation. Okay, could this guy have, all right, grab the rifle. Could he have probably shot the guy he could have. Would that have been the right thing to do in that situation? Probably not. Now all those people are going to be like what the heck and all hell is going to break loose. So by not doing something, he might have actually saved everybody's life.

Speaker 2:

The situation I was in we were hit with an IED, there was a lot of crap and junk in the air and we had kicked up a bunch of dust and it was, and there was a big old marshland out there with grass everywhere and the visibility was absolute shit. And uh what. You could have easily panicked and just started shooting whatever, like just laying down. You know, as a machine gunner you can just be like, well, screw it, I can't see a lot, I'm just going to. You know, pretend the enemy's there, but you're trying to maneuver these vehicles out of a kill zone in the middle of this marsh, which, if a one, one, three dumped into that marsh, there's no telling if you'd get that some bitch out or if it would flip over and fill up full of water, which happened to a Bradley crew by the over there, and you know.

Speaker 2:

So I made the decision I'm not going to shoot at all, we're just going to maneuver. And then I'm like I'm talking to the driver hey, pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot. Okay, and now straight, what do you do? You shift from? All, right, well, we don't see anything to do violence against. So the next best thing is we have to go. Let's get the hell out of here. Right, we're going to leave, we're going to, we're going to we'reate.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Hey, we're not hurt, Nobody's hit, the vehicle still running. That's what we have to go on. We don't know where they are. We don't even know if they're even still there. So you can't get drowned in the facts of well, I'm going to have to just start shooting, so it's what I didn't do. That ended up being the right thing, and that's why that common sense comes into play. You have to think logically on your feet in real time and do it without screwing up. That's right, and that's not indicative of past wars. It is, but in a much different way.

Speaker 3:

I would agree and I think that you know sometimes you have to do that because, let's say, for example, you did start shooting and you were the lead vehicle. What if I hit my own people? Well, what if the driver didn't go? What if the driver said, you know, I'm going to hang out here cause he's laying down fire? And then now you have the guys behind you, the second vehicle, the third vehicle, stuck in their position and can't move, and then you get hit with a secondary ied because you started shooting. So I mean, you just have to, you have to play the room. You know you got to get out your first. Your first goal is to get out, like to escape the kill box, and then you can do what you need to do imagine an infantry unit in World War II.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and they have an order to move forward and take an objective a small village or a town. Go to this town, see if the enemy's there settle in, set up a defensive perimeter, hold the town until reinforcements get there, move in the line. You know, hey, hopping along Frog leapfrogging Leapfrog.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you see a giant field in front of you. Are you going to cross that field? 200 meters Could be a machine gun nest every freaking 50 yards and the wood line pointing your way. You have no idea if the enemy could be there. So it's like that's a much different decision-making process than what we went through. And yeah, imagine being the person who's in charge of making that decision. It's like, well, if we go around, it might take an extra four or five hours and they may find us out, they may know we're there and then set up a bushwhack when we get over there. So it's like what do you do?

Speaker 1:

Wait till night.

Speaker 2:

Try to sneak in, maybe, like what do you do? Wait till night. Try to sneak in, maybe more often what do you do?

Speaker 3:

more often than not, in world war ii there was definitely machine gun nests set up because they were counting on you being lazy.

Speaker 2:

They were like, hey, these guys aren't going to cut four hours around, they're going to go through the field and we're going to cut these boys down and that's why france was such a bloodbath, because all the hedgerows and all those close-in hedgerows they had in france, you could have the enemy on the other side of those hedgerows and not even know it. It's like literally being in a death maze in that place and that's what happened and the tanks could barely get through, so you couldn't get armor in there.

Speaker 2:

So it's like you had to do it the old-fashioned way and put boots on the ground and walk in there and find, get your way through those hedgerows. It's like you could hear fighting. You know, maybe a few hundred feet away or something, and think, oh well, it stopped something you know. And then you get through the hedgerow and there's oh crap, there's germans.

Speaker 3:

You run right into you run right into and they're like me to you, you know so that had to have been a royally scary situation to be in.

Speaker 2:

let's see, like me, as a GWAT vet, I cannot imagine what that felt like for them to be in that situation. But they don't know what it would feel like to be in our situation and the type of mental gymnastics that we would have to play. So every war has its sort of unique and terrible things that the soldiers go through. So every war is different, and even every war is different for each soldier, depending on their version of that war that they got.

Speaker 3:

You know, what's funny is I was just thinking about this the other day and I don't know why, but it's like a shower thought. So you guys have like the shower thoughts, where you're like in the shower washing, you're like have that little thought, yeah, and I'm like, and I was literally thinking of this I was like, man, you know what we didn't have to worry about in Iraq with CQB, like room clearing. We didn't have to worry about people shooting through walls, because everything was like either like cinder block, concrete like, or really thick mud Wasn't conducive to like, you know, taking fire through walls. But then I was like, well, well, what about the guys in world war ii? You often see it, they just, they'll, just, they'll just rake the room right through the walls.

Speaker 3:

Vietnam rice huts, man, these guys are just shooting right through the house. But g what we have to worry about? That we knew like, hey, this is a solid brick wall, they're not going to sit here and spray this room, but conversely, we can't. A solid brick wall, they're not going to sit here and spray this room, but conversely, we can't spray the room either, because it's just going to bounce around like a, like a little meat shredder.

Speaker 2:

The difference is we know that we understand that distinction. They don't, they don't care, they'll just rip in the room.

Speaker 3:

They don't care. But I mean, that's like it's just so funny how you brought up that analogy, cause I was thinking in the shower. I was like man, that's one thing. I was like good thing, we have to worry about that.

Speaker 2:

Continue washing my hair you know and you know I know we're kind of getting on time on today's show, but I will say that you, you hit the nail on the head. Freaking perfect Matt shower thoughts like that completely closes the loop of this conversation in a way that that people sometimes will never be able to truly understand. Like yeah, having like 15 years later, having the thought of hmm, I wonder if I would have did this or did that and you go through these scenarios of.

Speaker 3:

Well, what if I?

Speaker 2:

wouldn't have did this, what would have happened? And that sticks with you and it screws with you and, quite frankly, those memories come up and sometimes those memories are not good. Okay, it's good when the memory is hey, we, no one got hurt, it was sketchy, but hey, we're glad we walked away with all our fingers and toes, everyone's alive. And you go, wow, what did we learn here? You know and and it's interesting to have that sort of internal after action review where but that after action review kind of happens for the rest of your life. Yeah, that's kind of the.

Speaker 2:

The nexus of it is that that after action review now becomes a part of your everyday life, whether you like it or not, and whether you want to call that you post-traumatic stress syndrome. I mean, that could be a part of post-traumatic stress, or it could just be being wiser, you know, being more learned in the subject, and you kind of you know, when you become a student of war, even if it's a limited war, even if it's, maybe you didn't see anything absolutely crazy, maybe you weren't a combat MOS, but maybe you were guarding a chow hall or guarding something on a dock somewhere or whatever, and you saw mortar land and hit someone and you had to help. That alone, I mean, that's traumatic. You're still seeing the effects and the terrible consequences of war and you know there were many situations where I think one of the camps that we were on it was one of the I think the commissary got hit by a mortar or something, or was it the px.

Speaker 3:

There was a that was liberty and they hit it was either striker it was, striker it was camp striker got hit by a mortar.

Speaker 2:

Of all places rockets. It was a rocket.

Speaker 1:

It was rockets that got hit and I remember anybody get hurt um, not that, not that was in our unit.

Speaker 3:

But you know, the wild thing about that little story is our platoon sergeant's wife happened to call. It was weird. They called my family and said, like I was in the px when the rocket hit which was a complete lie because I wasn't anywhere near it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but then I call home to talk to my family and they're just like freaking out, but I know exactly what you're talking about, because I remember that, caught up in this weird thing, I was out and nowhere in nowhere when that happened. See, again, it's like you think of these things. I haven't thought about that in 20 years. And here I am remembering. Okay, what would someone on post would have dealt with that maybe I didn't deal with, and that was one instance that came to mind. Mind, it was like you know, imagine you're guarding a px and it's like, and you're thinking I just load, and you know, unload and load my gun on duty every day, don't fire a single shot. It's.

Speaker 2:

But hey, someone's got to guard the px yeah I mean bottom line is someone's got to stand watch in certain areas, you know, and century duties, right, if you ever wonder those guys were mps, weren't they?

Speaker 3:

it was, uh, so the mps, no, the mps did like convoy stuff it was it was the air force special uh security forces, the air force security forces right were the guys that were doing gates, like the main gate, to come out and stuff those guys when we would leave camp.

Speaker 2:

I remember one time they were test firing their machine guns off the tower and they had m60s. Oh boy, they were test firing their machine guns off the tower and they had M60s. Oh boy, they were test firing their M60s. And I looked up there and was like is that a pig? And it's like these guys are running M60, man, like the Air Force guys had M60s.

Speaker 2:

I'm like okay, it's just weird to think like there's some, you know, grunt Well Air Force, grunt well air force grunt cleaning the gas puck on an m60, you know like those things get nasty, they do, you know. And uh, that's just wild to think like we're still using that freaking thing it's a little bit more complicated than the 240, you know yeah, I think that I think the bolt on that gun can be put together a couple of different ways on the early version.

Speaker 2:

So I think they they corrected that problem later on. But it was always interesting to hear that pig talk, you know, because I had a very distinctive rate of fire over the 240. Yep, good times, man. I mean like this could probably be a two-hour podcast if we really want to jump in the weeds here.

Speaker 3:

But just unintended just just so you guys know, when eric was like, oh, he was out and I was in, um, to give you guys an idea of the way the rotations worked, we would break down into different squads and each squad would go out for I think it was like four or five. It was a long, it was like a week. So we would do one week out and then we would come back for like two days, like two days. So we would do 48 hours like downtime and then we would rotate back out for like another, like three to five days, depending on what that mission was, um, and there was obviously four squads. So then we would all like rotate. So at some point in time there was like one or two squads out, one or two squads in, and when you had your downtime you just left to do, to deal with your own devices. There wasn't really too much to do, like, like, do your maintenance on your vehicles, clean your weapons.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't really downtime, I mean, you still had responsibilities to take care of. But I would say, um, you know, you could go to the gym work out If you wanted to. You could go to the chow hall, maybe to you could go to the chow hall, maybe go to the px and buy a you know dvd player or something. You know that little.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, at least have some sense of normalcy, but, um, there's a little black market that's outside the gate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah a little little black market. You know, um, yeah, it's just crazy. I could tell so many stories about even that side of it, but I won't because I know we're kind of running on time here. But but it's been a great show I've really enjoyed. You know the amount that we've got to kind of reminisce on some of this stuff and you know the point of today's video, I think, was just to talk about the sort of psychological factor of warfare and what it has on soldiers.

Speaker 2:

There's a book by Dan Grossman called On Killing. That's probably a good book to read if you want to read more on the psychological proximity of death and war. It goes to talk about the difference that, like, say, a bomber gunner you know in World War II would look down through the little gunner site and drop bombs on targets and things, talking about the psychological effect that killing lots of people with bombs would have little, very little effect on that bomber. But then the sniper, of course, who has a much more personal relationship with his intended target, right, the psychological effects of those things. It's a really good book. It's dan dan grossman on killing. Uh, that's a really good volume. I would recommend uh to some of you if you if you want to check it out. So, uh, anyway, some reading for you. If you want to get into that, check it out. That's a really good volume I would recommend to some of you if you want to check it out.

Speaker 3:

So, anyway, some reading for you if you want to get into that Check it out.

Speaker 2:

It's a good book, yeah, and there's also another volume I forget the author of it. It's called Ordinary Men. That's a good one too. That can kind of really put you into the psychological factor of warfare. It has to do with an SS unit in World War II on the German side, and it talks about how these guys, before the war they were just barbers and just regular people. You know what I mean. And it goes to show that when that group mentality starts to come into play and that indoctrination of extreme measures come into play, that even regular people can be led to do, and convinced to do, even the most heinous things in the name of oh well, because some authority said it was okay. So oh, my officer told me to do it.

Speaker 3:

therefore it's okay right and you know, and to them, discipline was a very huge deal.

Speaker 3:

And you know, and to them discipline was a very huge deal in their military, which is, you know, which is why the United States military specifically has a rule that says you may disobey an unlawful order. So that type of group think so, that type of mentality doesn't seep into the, the, at least in the army side. So if you have a bunch of guys and they're like hey, I want you to do this, and you're like no, that's unlawful, that's war crime, that's this, that's that, so you can, you can put the brakes on it versus having to like, follow, follow unlawful orders right.

Speaker 2:

So that would be another book that I'd recommend, if you want to check it out. It's called Ordinary man. I forget the author, but just look it up, you'll see it. I think it deals with the Polish SS unit. Very, very thought provoking book because it could really it really does drive home that sort of groupthink mentality with violence, and it's interesting, it's very interesting.

Speaker 3:

It's important to you know, to learn about this type of stuff, the history, the negatives and the positives, because if you don't, it will repeat itself. That's the prime example. Like hey, if history, you forget history, it will repeat itself. So we have ourselves as a responsibility to keep up with this, to read the books, to be familiar with history. Thus it happened again.

Speaker 2:

Yep, I totally agree. Thank you all so much for listening on today's podcast. I know this was kind of a deep subject matter, but hopefully enjoyed some of these stories and, honestly, we could probably do a whole nother hour of these if we really wanted to, because there's so many things that let us know in the comments.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let us know if you want us to talk more about some of our experiences. You know some of the stories are lighthearted, some of them are a little more, a little deeper, but it just depends on you know, if you guys want to hear some more stories or not. Maybe we can. We can break some things down and plus we also have some of our other buddies that we could bring in. I at least two or three I know of that would love to sit down with us and and share some crazy stories. Maybe we'll we'll do that in the future episode you know that might have to be over a couple of scotches or something.

Speaker 2:

It may have to. We have to get a few drops in there before they start spilling the beans.

Speaker 3:

So we were stacking the bodies three. Nothing like that.

Speaker 2:

Nothing like that. But, yeah, this has really been a great episode. And look, make sure you follow LLP on all the different places that your favorite podcasts are found Stitcher, spotify, apple Podcasts. Also every Monday at 9 am. Tentatively. If I upload the show on time every Monday at nine o'clock Eastern Standard Time am we put the show up on YouTube on IRAC Veteran 8888, over on there on the YouTube channel. Also, you can follow me on Twitter at iracveteran8888. Also, llp on Instagram.

Speaker 2:

We're over there Life, liberty and the Pursuit, which we need to probably post more content over there. I know I kind of use iracveteran to help push the podcast, but we do have our own Instagram page. If you want to follow us over there, maybe we'll put some little clips up and things. Follow us over there. Maybe we'll put some little clips up and things. But thanks so much for the support and it really means a lot to us. And big thanks to the sponsors that helped make the show possible. If you're interested in sponsoring the show, if you'd like a spot on LLP, send us an email. We'll forward you to our people and they'll chat with you and we'll make it happen. Anyway, have yourselves a great day. Many more podcasts on the way. Thanks so much, and Matt, you got anything else for the crew before we let them?

Speaker 3:

go, nope, only that. If you want to follow us on Instagram, it's LLP podcast underscore official. That's where you'll find us and we post all of our clips there, so check it out.

Speaker 2:

All right, y'all have a good one. We'll see you next week.

Speaker 1:

Bye everybody. Thanks for listening to Life, Liberty and Pursuit. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere else podcasts are found. Be sure to leave us a 5 star review. We'd really appreciate that you can support us over on Ballistic Inc by picking yourself up some merch and remember guys, dangerous freedom. Have a good one.