Captain Andrew Parks On Leading Marines Through Chaos and Combat | Ep. 76

Summary

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show – Captain Andrew Parks: Leading Marines Through Chaos and Combat (Ep. 76)

Release Date: November 17, 2025
Guest: Captain Andrew Parks, Bronze Star recipient
Host: David Rutherford (filling in)

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers on Captain Andrew Parks’s experiences as a Marine officer during the Iraq War, focusing on leadership under fire, building unit camaraderie, and adapting to complex combat environments. Parks reflects on his personal journey from a Marine family legacy to the intense realities of leading fellow Marines and Iraqi soldiers in one of the war's most dangerous sectors.

The conversation serves as a template for young Americans seeking meaningful life influences and offers a window into the mentality, tactics, and brotherhood of the Marine Corps. It is especially relevant for those interested in military service, leadership, or understanding the evolution of U.S. counterinsurgency strategies.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Family Legacy and Drive to Serve

• Parks’s father was an enlisted Marine in Vietnam, influencing his upbringing and his eventual decision to join the Marine Corps.
• As a child, military movies and stories from Vietnam-era veterans formed the backdrop of his formative years. The camaraderie and expectation within Marine Corps units were particularly attractive.
• Initial ambitions to play Major League Baseball ultimately gave way to the inevitable call to serve as a Marine officer.

Notable Quote:

“I could recite Full Metal Jacket cadences at ten years old. So yeah, I don’t know that there was ever much of a choice for me.”
—Parks (06:25)

2. The Path to a Marine Officer

• Initially offered a spot at the Naval Academy but did not meet admission criteria; his first real exposure to “real Marines” was at the Naval Academy Prep School.
• Eventually found his route via the Officer Selection Office while attending Ohio University, partly inspired by an environment filled with children of Vietnam vets and law enforcement professionals.
• Mentorship, legacy, and physical preparedness played key roles in starting his officer journey.

Notable Insight (08:44):

• First impressions and role models matter; for Parks, seeing a Marine officer look and act the part was key to his decision.

3. Leadership and Training—Lessons from OCS and the Basic School

• Marine Officer Candidate School (OCS) and The Basic School (TBS) are physically and mentally grueling, with a focus on finding recruits’ “why” to persevere through adversity.
• The era’s high attrition rates (40–50%) underline the difficulty and expectations.
• Leadership is formed not by appearance, but by being "tactically sound and technically proficient."
• Parks recounts early misconceptions about image (“Billy Badass”) and how real respect is earned.

Notable Quote:

“All Marines care about is that you are technically sound and tactically proficient. And you can make the right call, you know how to employ the arms. You know, your Marines are your best asset. All you gotta do as an officer is really put them in a position to succeed most violently, and they will love you for it.”
—Parks (24:17)

4. Inflection Point: 21st-Century Combat Readiness

• Post-9/11, urgency and relevance consumed military training. Instructors coming straight from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan gave new officers current, brutally honest guidance.
• Understanding the “why” behind operations and the concept of commander’s intent became vital—especially for empowering junior leadership if higher command falls.

Memorable Moment:

“If you cut the head off that snake, their [Iraqi] Jundi, the young soldiers, they had never seen an operations order. They didn’t understand a why.”
—Parks (30:29)

5. The Odd Career Twist: Assignments and “Luck”

• A disappointing “quality spread” at TBS sent Parks not to infantry but to Low Altitude Air Defense (LAAD); he trained for Stinger missiles—a largely redundant MOS in Iraq.
• Through perseverance, became a platoon commander and seized every opportunity to train hard, which set the stage for later combat leadership roles.

Timestamp: 37:29–41:50
Parks shares the “numbers are the numbers” story of his unexpected LAAD assignment and how he ultimately used it as a stepping stone to more desirable combat roles.

6. Building an Advisory Team: Merging Special Operations and Marine Corps Culture

• In 2005/06, the need to train Iraqi forces led to assembling “military transition teams” (MITTs) drawn from battle-proven Marine officers, senior NCOs, and specialists.
• Unique bond developed among his 12-man team—fueled by their experiences at Fallujah and the necessity of flexible, “special operations” style leadership, mixing hard training and tight personal camaraderie.

Notable Quote:

“Our boss was smart enough to realize this is going to be important over the course of the next year… so we got to start it now.”
—Parks (59:35)

7. Deployment to Iraq: The “Scariest Environment Imaginable”

• The team’s area of operations was the volatile, contested region between Fallujah and Ramadi, at the peak of insurgency activity.
• Their orientation consisted of real talk from the outgoing team, whose casualties were a wake-up call.
• The mission: leading and fighting alongside Iraqi soldiers, many of whom had little training, no NCO corps, and strong cultural inhibitions—especially regarding “face” and pride.

Notable Quote:

“Scariest environment imaginable. That’s how we found out where we were going.”
—Parks (65:29)

8. Operations on the Ground: Leadership, Violence of Action, and Building Iraqi Capability

• Early guidance: “90% solution executed violently wins most of these fights.”
• Intensive “train the trainers” focus: identifying potential Iraqi NCOs, instilling basic discipline and initiative, teaching marksmanship, and running daily hot-washes and feedback sessions.
• Cultural barriers: Iraqi officers often refused to lead from the front or participate in rehearsals, requiring creative but forceful American intervention (including making them treat enemy wounded to instil responsibility).
• The team’s “American style” NCO culture was critical for field success.

Notable Story and Quote (86:22):
Parks describes forcing a recalcitrant Iraqi major to care for a wounded insurgent, illustrating both the challenges and the standard Marines sought to instill.

“Courage on the battlefield is contagious, just like cowardice is… the few good ones we did find, man, we really rode them… they ended up being great leaders.”
—Parks (92:26)

9. Combat Rhythm, Innovation, and Partnership with U.S. Special Operations

• About three months in, their efficiency peaked: rapid QRF deployment, effective use of artillery and air assets, and trusted medics boosted not only survivability but morale.
• High operational tempo prevented most morale drop-offs—seven-month Marine deployments were long enough to build unit cohesion but short enough to avoid crushing fatigue.
• Notable partnership: SEAL teams joined them for operations—Task Force Bruiser’s (Jocko Willink’s unit) snipers set up overwatch, a mark of mutual respect and recognition.

Notable Quote:

“You want to talk about a guy that looked the freaking part? …the fact that you guys were operating at the level you were, for them to come out and be like, ‘hey, we want to come fight with you,’ man, that speaks volumes.”
—Host on SEAL Team involvement (101:21)

10. The Costs and Meaning of Brotherhood Under Fire

• Intensity of combat: 12-man team, 15 Purple Hearts awarded under his leadership.
• Bonds with Iraqi soldiers grew strong—losses were deeply felt; replacing leadership and maintaining hard-won progress was emotionally taxing.
• Disregard for rigid command requirements in life-saving situations showed the Marine ethos of mission-first.

Memorable Story (106:17):
When protocol demanded he stop for weapon checks while medevacing wounded Iraqis, Parks disregarded orders, racing to the hospital and relying on relationships with Navy medics over regulations.

11. Legacy, Transition, and Advice to the Next Generation

• On transition: After seeing the toll of repeated deployments on families, Parks chose to leave the Marines post-combat, but trained future advisors before his departure.
• On life after service: Once you’ve led under fire, “everything else is easy.”
• Parks finishes with advice for prospective recruits and young men:
  • You’ll never know how good you can be unless you try.
  • Hardship is a “marble in the jar” that you’ll draw from your entire life.
  • If you work hard, the opportunities in military service are boundless.

Notable Quote:

“You will never know how good you can be unless you try. The folks that do sign up, answer the call—you never have to question that you did it. And the opportunities are boundless.”
—Parks (112:13)

---

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• “I could recite Full Metal Jacket cadences at ten years old.” —Parks (06:25)
• “Just don’t quit. Your body will allow you to do a lot of stuff your mind doesn’t think it can.” —Parks (17:35)
• “All Marines care about is that you are technically sound and tactically proficient.” —Parks (24:17)
• “The why becomes everything. Why are we executing this patrol?” —Parks (30:29)
• “If you want something bad enough, there are absolutely opportunities in that great meritocracy… There’s literally nothing you can’t do if you want to work hard enough.” —Parks (48:20)
• “Scariest environment imaginable. That’s how we found out where we were going.” —Parks (65:29)
• “90% solution executed violently wins most of these fights.” —Advice from Marine gunner in Iraq (71:36)
• “Courage on the battlefield is contagious, just like cowardice is.” —Parks (92:26)
• “Hard thing you do is like a marble… later in life, you’re going to draw from that.” —Parks (113:30)

---

Timeline of Major Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|-------------------------------------------------------| | 03:08–06:25 | Parks’s upbringing, family legacy, decision to join | | 06:25–11:09 | Early influences, Vietnam vets, initial attempts | | 16:04–21:54 | OCS, mentality, and never quitting | | 23:55–28:36 | Leadership lessons, The Basic School | | 37:29–41:50 | Disappointing assignment, adapting, making the most | | 56:18–73:27 | Deployment, team formation, first combat | | 83:00–98:28 | Building Iraqi capability, culture, relationships | | 101:21–102:48 | Inter-service respect, SEAL partnership | | 106:17–108:01 | Stories of loss, leadership in chaos | | 112:13–114:28 | Final advice, meaning of service |

---

Episode Takeaways

• Leadership isn’t about bravado—it’s about expertise, decision-making, and putting your team in a position to succeed.
• Combat creates bonds that last a lifetime, but it also inflicts deep personal losses and challenges, especially when shouldering leadership responsibilities.
• The willingness to adapt, humble oneself, and serve selflessly enables both personal growth and organizational success—even in the most chaotic circumstances.
• For those considering military service, Parks’s story urges action: the crucibles you face build a reserve of resilience and meaning that will define your life.

---

Listen if:
You want a raw, practical understanding of Marine leadership, the reality of combat, the process of building new fighting units from scratch, and the personal journey of a modern American warrior.

Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast. Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Anabe. Annabe is the only machine washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabric. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallic, allergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Shop washablesofas.com for early Black Friday savings up to 60% off site wide backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade [e-mail] Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. No, it's not too soon to start holiday shopping. Ulta Beauty's early Black Friday event is happening now through November 22nd. Shop $10 beauty minis from brands like Mac and too faced. Take 30% off Lancome and Touchland fragrances and body mists. With new offers dropping every week, our associates can help you find the perfect gifts. Head into Ulta Beauty today to shop our early Black Friday event. Ulta Beauty Gifting happens here. Saks off 5th is revealing the season's most wanted holiday steals. Whether you're gifting someone on your list or treating yourself to a designer score, find deals on McQueen, Valentino, Versace, Stuart Weitzman and more at up to 70% off every day. Outshine at every event and outsmart your budget. From shimmer ready party looks to luxe layers and cozy giftable accessories, Saks Off 5th is your secret source for celebrating in style. Your holiday shopping mission starts [e-mail] or a Saks off 5th store near you.

[B]

It never happens at a good time.

[C]

The pipe bursts at midnight, the heater quits on the coldest night.

[B]

Suddenly you're overwhelmed. That's when HomeServ is here for $4.99 a month, you're never alone. Just call their 24.

[C]

7 hotline and a local pro is on the way.

[B]

Trusted by millions, Homeserve delivers peace of mind when you need it most. For plans Starting at just $4.99 a month, go to homeserve.com that serve.com not available everywhere. Most plans range between $4.99 to $11.99 a month. Your first year terms apply on covered repairs.

[C]

Managing multiple accounts and logins for your marketing needs is like managing multiple announcers for one ad. Confusing.

[A]

But with Mailchimp's new SMS features, you can reach all your customers in over 10 countries, all from one account, giving you more time, driving more conversions and improving campaign performance. One platform, many audiences, endless poss. That's how you mailchimp your marketing with sms. Tap the banner to learn more.

[C]

This week on the David Rutherford Show, Captain Andrew Parks, bronze star winner from his time in Iraq in 2006. This is one more in my series of interviewing the real grunts of the gwot, the guys that were in the trenches, doing the job and getting it done. Semper fi. All right, all right. So again I, I, I'm so excited to welcome everybody back. You know, I, again I want to reinforce this called action that emerged out of Clay Matthews, my, my, my g Green beret buddy who said, you know, there are, there are a lot more stories out there that are important to understand, not just the history of the gwat and the challenges that were faced. At every level there's a than just the soft community that is for sure. In fact, I believe continuously and Jordy was joking with me before, he's like, hey man, people are going to start to think that you have some weird fascination with Marines. And the reality is I do. I don't think any other unit builds a camaraderie and a brotherhood better and more in a faster way and, and really expects more of each other than I than, than the Marine Corps units do. And so in continuation, promise to want to get out and bring other stories, other historically relevant story, but more important, more stories directed towards the young man of America who are seeking the right types of influences. And that's why it was a no brainer when Annie Parks reached out, direct messaged me on X and said, hey, I would love to come on and share my story. So without further ado, Andy, it is such a privilege to have you on my show.

[B]

Such a pleasure to be here, Dave. And I want to save you some, some heartache. I think you said Clay Matthews, the football player Clay Martin is killing me.

[C]

He's gonna kill me. I'm sorry, Clay. I got home Last night at 1.

[B]

Can't have this guy throwing any grenades.

[C]

I deserve that. I'm just like exhausted right now, so I apologize. Clay, you can definitely beat me up in the comments. I love you, buddy. Thank you, Andy, for correcting that. All Right, brother. Like, I guess I was thinking about reading your citation, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to post the link to that once we release the show just so people can read it for themselves. And I know you're like, hey, man, I didn't do it to get the award, but it is, in my opinion, it's indicative of you as a leader in combat. And I think for me, that's really the inspiring stuff. But before we get into that incredible deployment that you. I've learned a little bit about. Can you just. Let's start at the beginning. Like, why would you ever want to join the military? And in particular, to become a Marine, and then on top of that, to bury Marine officer.

[B]

You know, I think my story is. Is weirdly typical. Especially in the Marine Corps, there are a lot of family lineages, and I'm one of them. My dad was. Was enlisted Marine in the Vietnam era. And so I just grew up watching Sands of Iwo Jima and shit. I could. I could recite full Metal jacket cadences at 10 years old. So, yeah, I don't know that there was ever much of a choice for me. Although along the way, I certainly thought I was going to be a Major league baseball player. And so. And so I went to college, got to play ball in college, kind of bounced around a little bit. In fact, my. The first stop I made, the only Division 1 offer that I got out of high school was to the United States Naval Academy.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[B]

And the reason you don't know that is because I didn't make it through the United States Naval Academy. In fact, I never even got in the front door of the Naval Academy. A lot, a lot of the athletes out of high school, if they don't either make the mark on the SAT side of the house or the GPA side of the house, the Navy sends you to a place called the Naval Academy Preparatory School. And it's actually a pretty awesome place. You got kind of a mix of half athletes and the other half are guys coming right out of the fleet. So a lot of enlisted folks that have. That have gone through those enlisted meritorious commissioning programs. So you got, you know, a bunch of enlisted sailors and enlisted Marines. And that was kind of my first real taste at hanging out with real Marines. And they didn't let me down. The boys that I met there at Naps were some hard chargers, and I really, really, really became good friends with quite a few of them. So when I left and just continued to pursue baseball, I still knew if baseball didn't work out, man, I think that's still the route that I want to go. So that's exactly what happened. I realized I probably wasn't the next Mickey Mantle about my junior year in college and said, oh, I'm going to have to find a job at some point. And that's when I went out and found an officer selection officer. That's kind of the mechanism for, for young men that were young men and women that want to go become officers in the Marine Corps.

[C]

And where were you at, what school were you at, where that was available to you? And how did that process work? Was it seamless or was it. Did you have to do some work to find that, that guidance?

[B]

You know, I think I made a call. I think I got on the website and made a call and they said, hey, you need to find your officer selection officer. There's one on your campus. I was at Ohio University at the time in Athens, Ohio. And if I remember the captain's name, I think the guy's name was Captain Esprit. And he looked the part, jacked up, brother looked good in his uniform. And. And you know, at that point I was in pretty good shape. And I think that's. That we don't need to lie about it. I mean, that's the first impression you make. What does this do look like? Yeah, and I think he liked what I looked like. And I said, man, my dad was a Marine. My dad had since passed away, but he, he had a pretty successful career in the FBI. So I had a lot of, A lot of his friends that were able to kind of guide me in the right direction. A bunch of Vietnam Marines, Battle of Ksan guys and things like that. So.

[C]

So you grew up with, with the pipe hitters of the mar from Vietnam as your uncles, your influence. What, what were, I mean, did. Were you sitting around while they're, you know, smoking cigars and telling stories? Did you have access to that? Or was your dad a little bit more protective of you or how did it work?

[B]

You know, we did, but we were always on the periphery. You know, the grownups back in those days, grown ups and kids didn't really hang out too much together like nowadays, you know, shit, the mom's got all the kids involved in every conversation. You know, it was very, very separated at that time, but it would be me and my crew of buddies and all of these guys, Green Beret dads, Marine dads, all Vietnam dudes, you know, so. And then guys that went on to start HRT for the FBI, the original SWAT guys in New York City and la. So we would hear the stories and then we would go and run out in the woods, get our BB guns and have BB gun wars and you know, we didn't want to be the kid to come back crying so, so they, they would just let these little maniacs do their thing. We're gonna have a chat and that's kind of how it was. So nothing was ever really pushed on me. But I grew up with the influence and that it was just always attractive. I don't, I don't know why it wouldn't be to a young man or woman, frankly.

[C]

Okay Andy, this, this is awesome. But before you, you get into going to ocs, I just gotta give a shout out to one of our great sponsors who we truly love, who and exactly the ideas that we're talking about. American Patriotism Service man, I'll tell you what. You know, freedom has never been free. And lately we've been reminded of just how high the cost actually can be. Growing violence is meant to shake us. But you know what? It only strengthens our resolve to never back down. And you certainly learned that in the core, didn't you? And that's why Patriot Mobile exists. For over 12 years they've been defending faith, family and freedom while providing the same better premium network access on all three major U.S. networks. Unlimited data mobile hotspots, international roaming, they simply do it all. Now when you switch you don't have to sacrifice quality or service. Hundreds of thousands have joined the movement by switching their cell service to Patriot Mobile. Now every time they pay their bill, they're supporting the first amendment, the second amendment, the sanctity of life and our veterans and first responders. Switching is easy. Keep your number, keep your phone or you can upgrade across everything. Their 100% US based customer support team can activate you in minutes on the phone. Simply call 972-PATRIOT or visit patriotmobile.comrutherford today. All right, here's the deal. I want you to use the promo code Rutherford R U T H E R F O R D and you will get a free month of service. Talk about that, huh? Patriot mobile. Yeah, that's patriotmobile.com rutherford or call 972-PATRIOT and make the switch today. Hoo ya.

[A]

There's nothing like sinking into luxury. Anabe sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. Annabe has designed the only free fully machine washable sofa. From top to bottom, the stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Anna Bay has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Sofas start at just $699 and right now get early access to Black Friday savings up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop [e-mail] Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. No, it's not too soon to start holiday shopping. Ulta Beauty's early Black Friday event is happening now through November 22nd. Shop $10 beauty minis from brands like Mac and too faced. Take 30% off Lancome and Touchland fragrances and body mists. With new offers dropping every week, our associates can help you find the perfect gifts. Head into Ulta Beauty today to shop our early Black Friday event. Ulta Beauty Gifting Happens Here.

[C]

The world is buzzing with AI tools, but instead of making things easier, they've made things overwhelming. There's a better way. Meet Superhuman, the AI productivity suite that gives you superpowers so you can outsmart the word chaos with Grammarly mail and coda. Working together, you get proactive help across your workflow. No matter how you work, experience AI that meets you right where you are. Learn [e-mail] podcast that's superhuman.com podcast if.

[B]

You'Ve been in business for at least six months and have a decent credit.

[C]

Score, you could get business funding in.

[B]

As little as 24 hours.

[C]

But you don't have to to spend.

[B]

A ton of time going from lender to lender to find the best match for your small business. Drive your business forward with Lendio. Just let Lendio do it for you. At Lendio, we've built a marketplace of.

[C]

Over 75 lenders and funding partners who know what you need and can get.

[B]

It to you quickly. See what your business can qualify for in just a few [e-mail] that's L E N D I O Lindio.com hi.

[A]

I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of meaningful beauty. When Dr. Sabah and I decided to do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are going to give women meaningful beauty. And I said, that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty. Which means each and every product is meaningful. It has a reason to exist. It's efficacious. You're going to get results, and then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful beauty. Confidence is beautiful. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.

[C]

Well, that's. That's what it was like. And I, you know, I have service in my family, but it's very disconnected, you know, through two generations ago. And. And then everybody became, you know, a professional. A lot of lawyers in my family, and I knew early on there was no way in hell I was gonna want to be a lawyer. I just couldn't do it. And. But there was always this allure, right, this, this thing that. That was being portrayed, whether in film or books. And it was. It was that. That sense of like, oh, this is what a man is. Like, this is what a man does. This is this ability to have other people believe in you in the most complex, scary situations imaginable. And yet everybody's just like, let's go. And. And for me, like that. That. I think you. You experience some of that in sport, but it's not quite the whole thing. And, you know, that. And, And I think I was the same thing I did once I realized, well, my. My athletic career is. Is pretty much over in college, and what am I gonna do? Because I don't feel the sensation, and I know I want that feeling, and that's what that pulled me into. So did. Was it. Was it after this call, did. Did it feel like it was an insurmountable task or it was just like, all right, it's just, just checking off the box. These are what I have to do.

[B]

I. I think at that point, I was. I just knew it was gonna happen. I couldn't see my life going any other direction. Yeah. You know, frankly, so I. Then it was just, you know, don't quit. That's all you got. I mean, that's. That was the guidance that I got from anybody that had been there and done that. Like, yeah, you could do it physically. Just don't quit. And I think, generally speaking, that is the correct message to give to any young man or woman. I mean, physically, your body will allow you to do a lot of stuff that your mind doesn't think it can. It can. Just don't quit. And I mean, you guys and your brotherhood know that about as good as anybody, because in terms of gut checks, you know, ain't really much out there, like buds.

[C]

Well, I. I mean, I. I certainly believe, you know, that. That 21 days in the swamp at Ranger School. There are aspects of the Q course that are kicking the nuts, right. Every, you know, MARSOC's program has gotten phenomenally difficult, right? And, and it's. I, you're right though. It's, it's, it is that simple. And I mean I'm, I'm sure you, we chat a little bit before you came on. You try to mentor young, young men into the recognition that this could be a phenomenal footstep towards the, the development of your life and the meaning and of your life and whatever other pursuits you want to engage in professionally after your service. But there's something in it that teaches you that where that space is of quitting, right? It, I, I think as a, as a young person, it's so relative to the tangibility of physical pain or discomfort, right? You feel it and you're like, okay, I'm going to push back. Well, in these programs, the physical pain, the physical existence of pain is perpetual by the nature of the job itself. So you're automatically forced to do that deeper, the deeper evaluation of what you believe. The mental never quit spaces. And that for me is like the most, the coolest thing to witness in part and see as whether your peers, you're going through it or when you become an instructor or a senior level like, you watch it unfold, that expansion of perspective that says, oh wow, that there is this whole other gear that's available to me. How soon did you really start to feel that in yourself after you got engaged in the program?

[B]

Well, I, you know, pretty early on. Marine Corps ocs, there's a couple different avenues you can get commissioned through the Marine Corps. I went through a program called PLC Combined Platoon Leaders Class Combined. Essentially that, that's a program you do the summer before your senior year in college. And it's a, it's the full, it's the full program. So you got 12 weeks combined PLC junior seniors. You do six weeks before your junior year and then another six weeks before your senior year. Slightly different approach. But regular OCS 12 week program. And I think, I mean it is a, it is a physically grueling event. You don't learn a whole ton. You learn the basics, you learn to march, you know, you learn drill, immediate response to orders, those types of things. But basically it's like, you know, how much shit can you do in a day, boy? And survive? And that's really it. And I was talking to a buddy the other day when I told him I was going to do this program, I was like, dude, do you remember what Our attrition rate was back then and I think regular ocs, which doesn't get a lot of hubbub. I mean, I still think OCS is about a 50% attrition rate. 40 to 50. I mean, it's significant. So you get a lot of folks in there that I think they, they come in there in shape because there's minimum requirements for showing up. They think they're in shape, but it's just like you said, it's working past being in shape. Everybody's in shape now, everybody's exhausted, your muscles don't work anymore, you can't do any more push ups. What do you have to keep you there? And a lot of folks talk about the why now. And mine was just, I gotta get that ega, you know, I can't let the old man down, the legacy, that kind of thing. So I think, I think that was definitely a driving factor for me.

[C]

Well, I, I love that. One of the things that the, probably one of my favorite aspects of my service was when I became an sqt, a reluctant SQT instructor. I always found it fascinating, right. I think what I love so much about our program is that officers are integrated from the beginning and every, you know, and, and they actually take, you know, more punishment than, than the enlisted guys do. Just as in that, that, that has to be the case, right? Because the, the responsibility is exponentially greater when you're, when you're responsible for other people's lives. And what, what, what? I think I had this great opportunity. My boss, my senior chief, Bruce Cunningham, was like, hey, why don't you start working with the junior officers? Because one of the things that, you know, I've seen over my 20 plus year career is that junior officers sometimes get rooted in a particular frame of leadership that doesn't evolve into their own. And I think that was the thing for me that really was fascinating is that being a leader of other men in these units, whatever combat unit you're part of, or even just a supportive unit too, like, you really have to figure out who you are, like how, and, and to get other people that are your peers, your same age to want to follow you. Like, and not just like, hey, follow me. Clean the head or clean the shitters. Like, it's, it's like, no, hey, we're gonna go assault that building that has a bunch of savages in it who want to kill us. Trust me when I tell you, follow me. How quickly did you start to realize that that was going to be a huge component of this? Like you needed to assimilate not just the legacy of Marine Corps leadership and what had been the lessons learned, but also your own, yourself and growing.

[B]

That's a great question, man. And I think. I think that's the answer to that question is something that every young Marine officer has to figure out on their own and in their own time. The Marine Corps does a phenomenal job of hammering this idea into your head from day one. You got to be tactically sound and technically proficient. You have to know your job. You can't fake it. There is no faking it, not in a life and death scenario. So that's number one. You got to be tactically sound, technically proficient, but you also have to do it in your own way. I personally thought, and I actually did this at ocs. This is kind of a hilarious story, but right when you get there, like any boot camp, if you. If you have glasses or contact lenses, they're going to issue you BCGs, birth control glasses. And I legitimately thought, if I put these glasses on, these drill instructors are going to jack with me even more because I'm going to look like a nerd. So I wore my contact lenses for a month straight. I would wake up in the morning, and I didn't tell anybody, of course, but I would wake up in the morning, I couldn't see shit, My eyes are so dry. But I did it because I didn't want anybody knowing that I had, like, a weakness that they could pick on. And so that was my kind of concept. Like, you had to look like Billy Badass for Marines to respect you. Rule number one, once I got done with my tour that we're going to talk about here in a second, I realized that that is total. All Marines care about is that you are technically sound and tactically proficient. And you can get them. You can make the right call, you know how to employ the arms. You know, your Marines are your best asset. All you got to do as an officer is really put them in a position to succeed most violently, and they will love you for it. I didn't really get that until I had come back. And then I'd seen some dudes who maybe I thought were kind of nerdy kick ass. And then I was like, okay, doesn't matter what you look like, it matters what you do and what you act like. And so that took me some time to figure that part out.

[C]

And that's the beauty of it, right? And I really think that you're like, that's the. That's the beauty of leadership. When you have the self awareness to say, all right, what I'm doing right now is not resulting in the level of commitment from those I'm in charge of. Like, I'm not seeing it. And to have that self reflection go, what am I doing wrong? What am I not doing to help this young Marine improve their ability, make them better, and to prepare them for those, you know, more difficult situations. Was there a particular part of your training and that in OCS or anything that kind of stood out to you, that, that really kind of. You like those light bulb moments, right? Those are my favorite moments in, in, in any educational process is like you look at like you, you deliver a piece of, of, of a message or an idea or training module or whatever it is, and you see the person. Oh, like they get it and it just. And then all of a sudden you watch those, you know, those, the ascension of their abilities improve more rapidly. Right? Did you have one of those moments?

[B]

Yeah. You know, after ocs, that's when the real training comes. You go to a program. Every Marine officer. You could be a lawyer, you could be a pilot. It doesn't matter. And this is one of the really cool things that really makes the Marine Corps unique and special. Every Marine officer goes to something called the Basic School, and that's in Quantico, Virginia. That's six months. Regardless of what your MOS is, Marines have funny little nicknames. You know, the, the acronym tbs, the Basic School. A lot of guys will call it the Big Suck. I mean, there's a lot, there's a, there's a lot of things going on there. Man. My, my, my class was so blessed. I went, I went to TBS in, got there in November of 2003 and stayed, you know, through the good part of 2004. All of our instructors, the majority of our instructors were captains that had just got back from either a platoon commander or a company command tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. So we had all of this awesome real world, real life experience. And having some of those folks is what really opened our eyes and made us real. Okay? This is real. We're getting it right from the dudes who've been there closest to the position we're about to, you know, enter into. And they either succeeded or failed. And they can give us all that information.

[C]

That for me, like, that was the change of the whole time. For me, like, that's when everything altered because I remember, like I'm going through. I was lucky if I had. I got to spend times with guys that were in Panama a little Bit, right. I had some guys that we had this warrant office Bougilais, who was the guy that actually did the combat swimmer op that blew up Noriega's boat, which we would care that, you know, and. But it was like onesies, twosies, right? And. And the real big days were when the team guys from Vietnam would come in and tell about their knife, like their five knife kills. And you're like, what?

[B]

You know, like, we have some of those dudes from Korea even come in. Right, right.

[C]

And so, like. But there's this distance from it. And, and, and also, obviously, as we now know, and I, I can't even imagine what the, the young guys are being taught now in terms of drone warfare, the integration of drones just changing everything, you know, is like, now you're in the midst where your peers that people that are your same age or year or two older, you know, who just six months before, were in combat for the first time in a lot since the Gulf War. And now like there, there must have been like this excitement, like this newness to everything that it wasn't before. Like, oh, we're going through training. We'll have fun and party on the weekend and, and you know, maybe someday we'll, you know, we'll do some kind of FID that is little has a potential, something connect. But now it's like, no, you are finishing and you are going to combat. Describe that sensation with the, with the, the information. Like it was palpable, I would imagine.

[B]

Yeah, it takes the, you know. You know that term notional. Hey, this is a notional exercise. It used to disgust me. You know, you're. You're on the objective now. What are we doing notionally? You know, now when we were at tbs, these guys would stop you in the middle of a patrol and ask you, why are you doing this? And the why becomes everything. The why. This concept of commander's intent. Why are we executing that, this patrol, why are we conducting this assault? The why has to be understood to the lowest man or you lose the effect on target. You lose. You lose your ability to win in the absence of order. You lose your ability to win if the whole command suite gets their ass kicked and killed. And that we saw firsthand in Iraq. Iraq, you had a country of population. I think they had 10,000 generals. I think they had the second most generals on planet Earth at the beginning of that thing. And we saw if you cut the head off that snake, their Jundi, the young soldiers, they had never seen an operations order. They didn't understand a why they knew what you go to that wall and look that way. That was the extent of the orders process. We got firsthand the lie from these guys. As we're running a patrol, as we're on the objective, as we're setting up a support by fire position, we would always be stopped. Why are you doing this? You would give them an answer. Didn't matter if it was right or wrong. They just wanted the opportunity to say no, no, think of it this way. And man, when they could give you that real life information, eyes wide open, moments every time. Oh my gosh, geometry of fires. That's why I don't want to set up my support by fire position here. Because I got guys running in right here. Maybe if I moved it over 50 meters and got on this high ground that's going to give us way better effects on target. And so that kind of stuff was the good stuff, man. That, that was, that was really, really what, what hit home with a bunch of us.

[C]

So it, I always thought of it like this is the closer you could, you could connect to the actual outcome of what the effort you were putting in. Right. If I invested countless hours conducting close quarter battle or close quarter combat, whatever the fuck you want to call it and then if I know that's going to happen, I'm getting the feedback, oh, this is the way it goes down. From somebody who was just there and it's like, oh, now I believe it. There's an inevitability that I'm going to be tested on whether or not I paid attention. Right. Whereas prior to 911 you never knew. And so it lacked this. Not that the training wasn't great and everybody. But there was this something missing and now it wasn't, it was fulfilled like you were going to fulfill that, that requirement and it was going to happen sooner and later. What, what was the sequence after you graduated ocs? How did you get assigned where, what, what, what was the next sequence before you were in your unit? To where like oh, this is a group, we got to start training to go to war and we'll talk about that.

[B]

Yeah brother. So you know, you go to ocs, you come back home, graduate college, you get your commission, then you wait on a school slot to open a TBS. I think every TBS company probably has, has, I don't know, 250, 300 folks in it. You graduate that at the end of six months here I've heard, I've actually heard Jocko, he's like the only guy that I've ever heard that has explained this. And I was, I was a sob story from this process. So at tbs, there's something called, called the quality spread. And what the quality spread does, it breaks down the company into thirds. The Marine Corps is trying to make sure that every mos. Every mo. I think there's 22, 25 military occupational specialties that you can get as a Marine officer. You rank them 1 through 25. The Marine Corps wants to make sure that higher achievers get spread out through the, the entirety of the force. And brother, I was that guy, man. So I was in the top third. But I think I was like 68 out of 70 in the top third. Something like that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I list my 1 through 23 and the, and the instructors will tell you, you know, you want to be at the top of any third, you can be number one. In the bottom third, you're getting your pick first shot 100% of the time. So I rank my one through 20, whatever. And I remember I had my SPC. Staff Platoon Commander call me in and, and he. And, and I didn't even realize it, dude. I. And I love being a Marine and I love training hard, but I also love playing hard. And so I just kind of. Man, I just kind of thought it was all going to work out. Like, surely they recognize that, like I'm an infantry guy and then I'm a fourth recon guy and that's just what it's going to be.

[C]

Yep, yep.

[B]

Dude called me in the office and he goes, hey, Parks, just want to make sure your top five, you're good with anything. So then I was like, well, I'm not gonna get my top. My, my first pick was infantry. My second pick was something called ground intelligence. Ground intelligence officers go to infantry officer course. Then they also go to. They're the ones that are like the scout, sniper, platoon commanders. They also usually will then go on to recon. So. So those are my first two. But then it was like tanks. I was like, if I'm not infantry man, I'll be a heavyweight champion of the world tanker. You know, I could do that. And then tracks. I actually had my fifth pick I had in front of artillery. Looking back, maybe I wouldn't have done that, but I was like, artillery man, you're kind of in the rear a little bit. You're still, you're still in the fight. At the time it was an all male mos, which in my mind represented like combat there. You know, you got to be in one of those to get to get some. My number fifth choice was something called low altitude Air defense Stinger missiles. And I'd heard that those guys, because there's no air threat, they were just using those guys. It was an all male mos, and they were only using them as like provisional rifle companies in Iraq, right? Like, go. You're gonna go guard something. You're. You're basically an infantry guy. Basically. But you're not. Anyway, School Circle SPC's reading right down the list. And you could have heard a pin drop when he said, Parks 7000, 204. Every eye in the room turned and just looked right at me like, what? What is that? And I was the same way, man. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna miss this whole thing. I mean, that's really what I thought. I thought the whole reason I joined was to. To go to war, man. And I'm gonna miss this whole freaking thing. Holy smokes.

[C]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

And so that's how it worked out for me, man. I. I was a lab guy. There's. There's no fighting it. There's not like. Like, hey, sir. Y' all jack this one up. What are you talking about? The numbers are the numbers. You know, the numbers are the numbers. And that's where my thing shook out. And so I went to. Got to go to Fort Bliss, Texas, for Stinger Missile School. There was three officers. It was a gentleman's course if there ever was one. I mean, you show up to class 10am if you want to. There's one gunnery sergeant there teaching. You're basically learning to identify enemy threat aircraft just by their profiles. And at the end of six weeks, you get to go and shoot a Stinger missile. That was the. The main part of the training. I mean, I hate to. I hate to bash it like that, but there was. There just wasn't a lot to learn on the back of what we learned. You know, you kind of learned that you got. You're going to want to tie into the radar at some point and. Okay. And, you know, I. I just grew up liking aircraft and threat vehicles and stuff, so I was the honor grad of that school. So I got to. I got to pick where I wanted to go. I got to go. So I was like, well, at least I want to go to Camp Pendleton, California.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So I got to go out there to 3rd Lab Battalion. This is where my story is so weird. I show up and my battalion is deployed. They're. They got about two months left on deployment. They're not going to send me out there to meet them. Forward. There's no need.

[C]

And what. What year and what time frame in the year is this?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. This is late 2004. Okay, so all winter 2004.

[C]

Yeah. So Fallujah's already gone down the.

[B]

Yeah, I love that you bring it up. So 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, where I end up going.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

They're one of the six assault battalions in. In Operation Al Faja, the Battle of Fallujah. Two of my closest personal friends that I'd gone to OCS and TBS with are there.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[B]

And, like, you know, you have your hierarchy as a group. It was always understood that Parks is like, the dude. And now I'm having to watch these guys just hook and jab, get it on. Yeah. You know, both bronze Stars out of the deal. And I'm just like, oh, my God, my gosh, what is happening to my. My career? What is going on? Yeah, they're just in it 100, but it ended up working out great, man. Lad is. Is actually a great unit. Like I said at the time, all male mos, and you had. You ended up having a bunch of folks, a bunch of Marines that were similar in mindset to me, you know, a little bit of that disgruntled, you know, what about us Kind of mentality. We can fight, too kind of deal. And because the mission had changed and we weren't doing a lot of stinger stuff, I spent pretty much my entirety as a platoon commander executing kind of infantry stuff with my guys, tons of patrolling, ambush training. We did a battalion package to the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training center in Bridgeport, California. You know, up at 10,000ft. That's a. That's a hell of a course that the Marine Corps has. So we got to do all of that stuff. Good, hardcore training. And then this brings us to probably, you know, late 2005, my platoon commander tour is over. I am now an xo, and the Marine Corps at large has decided, okay, we are now in a counterinsurgency fight. We got to do this thing a little different. And that's where this whole military transition team concept came about. It came about late 2005. The Marine Corps and the army together decided we're going to start chopping up small teams, very similar to what the Marine Corps did in Vietnam with the combined action platoons, where, you know, just a couple U.S. marines would partner with, you know, 20 or 30 indigenous folks, and they would. In a small area, they would work to pacify the insurgency in that area. And there were times in Vietnam that those guys were getting into more fights than big. The 101st Airborne, for instance.

[C]

Oh my. One a guy went through boot camp with who ended up passing unfortunately early, but his father was one of those guys in Vietnam and that, that career leveraged him up to where he ended up becoming a part of macv sog. Like, because he was so good with his units, they, they inflicted so much havoc on, on, on their, their areas. Like, they're like, these guys, like, they're, they're, they're crushing the, the LARP stuff and, and like they, they are, they set the standard, the standard operating procedures for this. So I, you know, when, when I heard about it taking place, I was like, oh, this makes all the sense in the world, right? Because you're working with an indigenous force that somehow has to figure out how to take the weight and the bearing and, and who better to do that than, than Marines? Like, this is, this is how you fight. This is how you do it. And there's, and then also the camaraderie that just bleeds off you guys, I think is, is so much more powerful for indigenous people. They just see it right, regimented approach to how you conduct operations. Right. It's so much different than what the fit is within SF and all that, but it's, it's the same thing but even more intense because, you know, the, it's that hardcore combat role. I mean, you guys essentially took on a, a soft role in, in, in probably the most difficult time in the history of the Iraqi war.

[B]

It's, it's true. And we, we did it because there just weren't enough Green Berets to do it, man. I mean, they just didn't have enough. The, the, the, the space was, the battle space was too large. They didn't have the manpower. So what's the next biggest thing? And here's what the Marine Corps decided. Well, task, organize this thing. Let's, you know, if you got four Iraqi infantry companies in a battalion, here's what we need. We need, let's go throughout the whole Marine Corps and find basically executive officers, you know, lieutenants that have already done their platoon commander time that have done well. Let's grab those guys. They'll be the senior company advisor and let's grab Some badass O369 infantry platoon leader, usually staff sergeant or gunnery sergeant. We'll make them their number two and then we'll staff it with support guys, some law guys, com guys, corpsman, etc to make sure they can take care of their ass, you know, when, when there's an issue. And that's kind of how they form the team. And by the grace of God. I had some really great friends at 35 that told the guy who had been slated to be the team leader, hey, I got another guy that might be able to fill this role. He's in a totally nother unit. It's going to be tricky. You're have to call over there, get him to cut orders, chop this kid away from the unit. But I think you'll like him. And you know, you hear about crack, you hear guy, you hear you go to a vfw. Not that I go to a vfw, but if I did, you hear these stories at the bar that you're just like, that's horseshit. There's no planet that that would happen on. In my particular case. This is really how it happened. And so I got shopped and, and it was basically like a tryout. I got to go to what, what they call now or what they call then Mojave Viper, but it's basically like the, the month long workup at 29 Palms. Yeah, yeah. You know, you're operating every day. You're really executing those tasks that you're gonna have to execute in combat. And so I got shopped to this team. One of my closest personal friends was the intel advisor on the team. He introduces me to the boss. I think our personalities just mesh. I was kind of competing, I think, with a few other folks organic from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. And I just took that tech, you know, the technical and, and tactical proficiency stuff seriously by that point, because I really wanted it. I really wanted to go to war. And I was, I became our, kind of our fires officer. So I had to prove myself that I, that I knew what I was doing. Calling for fire. And you got to do it live a bunch of times. And you got all these instructor observers there that are, you know, make you better have your head and ass wired together or they, they will jump on you. And then I, I also did the JTAC primer stuff, so I got to learn how to do all that stuff.

[C]

Who gave you the inside skinny? That that's a guaranteed way to get on the battlefield. Did somebody tell you that? Did one of your buddies say, my.

[B]

Boss, man, my boss. My boss was like this. He goes, what are scripted stingers? And I go, sir, they're freaking surface air missiles. He goes, he goes, so you probably have to like do some coordination with aircraft And I go, oh, yeah, for sure. You know, I mean, big sky, little bullet is what we tell the pilots, but they don't want to hear that stuff. Yeah, time and space, you know, and, and so once I could speak the language to him, he was like, all right, yeah, you're gonna be our guy. Good, well, go, go do it. Prove to me you can do it. And, and I was able to. And that, that's really how I earned the spot on that team.

[C]

So it's funny, even though, you know, it spiraled out, it ended up spiraling back.

[B]

Better to be lucky than good, man. Better to be lucky than good.

[C]

I mean, yeah, I think that's the way all, you know, great, humble leaders describe themselves. But obviously, from what I'm hearing, you had a reputation amongst your, your peers that were like, hey, this guy. We need to have this guy in a leadership role in a combat situation. And so, you know, you created that luck for sure with how dedicated you were toward to really being proficient at whatever they put in front of you, regardless you want it or not. You realize that I'm going to have to do it the best I can, do it to get to where I want to go. And that's part of that meritocracy that I think is so critical for young people to realize that you can enter into the service. And if you drive yourself, you establish yourself, you work hard, you learn the skill set, and you're, for lack of a better, you're gung ho about your career. Like you, it, it works that way. And that's the thing that I, that's the beautiful aspect of, of the service.

[B]

That was always my message to my Marines, and that has always been the message that I, you know, try and push to my son, his peer group. It doesn't matter what you get assigned in initially. If you want something bad enough, there are absolutely opportunities in that great meritocracy that you talk about. And that's always been the most beautiful thing about our nation's military, as far as I can tell. And I hope it continues down that road. You know, we've seen some challenges over the last 10 or 15 years where maybe we're getting away from that merit based solution. But if they just stay on that track, there's. There's literally nothing you can't do if you want to work hard enough and try hard enough in that space. And that's what makes it so cool. That's what makes it the ultimate opportunity for young men and women. It really does. And I hope it Never changes.

[C]

I agree. And I think, you know, I think I. And this is a sidebar. We can talk later if you're interested. But like, you know, I think it just took the right person to go back in and re. Establish, hey, we are here for the war fighter. And that's what Pete and his crew are doing. I've got a lot of friends in and around him. You know, Sean Parnell, having him to articulate that at the highest level. He's, I mean, 485 day deployment with, with.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I just saw that the other day.

[C]

Army infantry, four army guys, man.

[B]

Extend, extend.

[C]

Rushed, crushed. And, and he's right there pitching this. The thing that made his law platoon so good. He's, he's expressing that now. You know, the big Veterans Day thing he did with Sean and I love to see what they were reinforcing and I think that's what we all want to do before we get into your combat deployment. I just want to make some time for one of our great sponsors, Hillsdale College. Man, I tell you what, one of the great incredible courses they got out there right now is this American Revolution course. And it's so good when I tell you if you really want to do a deep dive on how our country got started and why there's 150 years of history that led up to it, and Hillsdale College is a place that you can really understand if you're a real American patriot, then this, this is the course for you. All right? I'm telling you. All right, now let me tell you what. There is a brand new six part documentary series at Hillsdale College that professors will teach you the religious, political, cultural and economic ideas that shaped a uniquely American culture during the colonial period. You'll learn why the ide of liberty, especially religious liberty, inspired the settlers of America to cross the Atlantic. Right, Right. This is how Americans organize local governments to rule and protect themselves. And why America has been the land of where virtue can lead to peace and prosperity. And most of us know that the Declaration of Independence marks the beginning of America as an independent nation. But the Hillsdale course will focus on the forging of the American character that made the revolution possible and why it's more important than ever to remember and reclaim that character today. Exactly what Andy and I are talking about. All right? This Hillsdale College miniseries is completely free and easy to access. Plus Hillsdale offers more than 40 other free online courses, including a course on C.S. lewis, the stories in the Book of Genesis, the Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic, and you can go even deeper on the American founding and the Constitution all for free. All right, here's the deal. I need you to go to Hillsdale Edu David to enroll in a There's no cost. It's easy to get started. Remember, all this is free. That's Hillsdale Edu David to enroll now for free. Hoo yah Hillsdale. Way to way to go.

[A]

There's nothing like sinking into luxury. Anabe sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. Annabe has designed the only fully machine washable sofa. From top to bottom. The stain resistant performance fabric, slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Anna Bay has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Sofas start at just $699 and right now get early access to Black Friday savings up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop [e-mail] Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. No, it's not too soon to start holiday shopping. Ulta Beauty's early Black Friday event is happening now through November 22nd. Shop $10 beauty minis from brands like Mac and too faced. Take 30% off Lancome and Touchland fragrances and body mists. With new offers dropping every week, our associates can help you find the perfect gifts. Head into Ulta Beauty today to shop our early Black Friday event. Ulta Beauty Gifting happens here.

[B]

If you've been in business for at least six months and have a decent.

[C]

Credit score, you could get business funding.

[B]

In as little as 24 hours.

[C]

But you don't have to spend a.

[B]

Ton of time going from lender to lender to find the best match for your small business. Drive your business forward with Lendio. Just let Lendio do it for you. At Lendio, we've built a marketplace of.

[C]

Over 75 lenders and funding partners who know what you need and can get.

[B]

It to you quickly. See what your business can qualify for in just a few [e-mail] that's L E N D I O Lindio.com being.

[A]

A parent is basically a juggling act. Dinner, hockey practice, homework, a last minute science project, and someone's always, always shouting for you from another room. So, yeah, I'll take any shortcuts that actually works. And that's why I'm all hellofresh. Fresh ingredients, super easy recipes, and over 80 options every week. So everyone eats, no one complains, and I get to feel like I've got it all together, at least for dinner. And the best part, you're in total control. Skip a week, pause any time, pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. They even have 15 minute recipes, perfect for those nights when everyone's hungry and patience is officially off the menu. And with so many options, even my pickiest eater found something they love. Which means no more backup Mac and cheese. Try hellofresh today and get 50% off the first box with free shipping. Go to HelloFresh CA and use promo code Rescue50. That's HelloFresh CA promo code Rescue50. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of meaningful beauty.

[B]

When Dr. Sabah and I decided to.

[A]

Do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are going to give women meaningful beauty. And I said that that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty, which means each and every product is meaningful. It has a reason to exist. It's efficacious.

[B]

You're going to get results.

[A]

And then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful beauty confidence is beautiful. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.

[C]

All right, you now get into the place you want to be. 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. When was the, when did you get the team that you were going to go be going to Iraq with? And did you know, like walk, walk me through that, how you got the command and then when they told you when you're leaving and then what, what that whole process was like?

[B]

Yeah. So we probably ran that Mojave Viper exercise that I was talking about in October of 05. I think at, at the back end of that, I think Bill McCullough was my boss's name. Had Bill McCullough stayed in command of the Marine Corps. I own not my words. The last commandant's words upon his retirement. I was there. He retired as a colonel regimental commander, but I think he selected or had his team at the end of Mojave Viper. He made his selections at that point. We got to do some really cool stuff. We had a little, you know, got a little intel from the front that we're probably going to be a pretty active youth unit. So the Marine Corps is willing to spend some money. They sent us out to gunsight Academy. We became foreign weapons. We went through their foreign weapons instructor package. Civilian school, but really high end. You know, most shooters know about gunsight and Bill Cooper and that stuff.

[C]

Unbelievable.

[B]

Got to go out there for the, for a week and that was really cool because we really got to bond then and you know, our team, 12 folks at the core, I think we brought on, you know, three or four other support folks as the year forward went on. But those Core 12 guys, we got to train and shoot together, have beers together, have steaks together. We really started to realize, you know, so you got senior enlisted guys and then you got the junior officer types. But at that point, all pros. I was the only new guy, I was the only guy on the team that had not deployed before. These guys are all Fallujah vets, man. So it was pretty easy for me to just sit back and shut up and let them, let them talk about what needed to be talked about. Regardless though, gave us really good bonding time and it, it lasts to this day. I mean, we got our 20 year anniversary from this tour coming up this year. We got maniacs already figuring out where we're going to go, what we're going to do. You know, the recently divorced guys are the ones that have all these.

[C]

Exactly, right, exactly. Talk a little bit about. You talk about the shooting and the barbecues, the beers together. Why is that so critical? Obviously the, the training itself make, I think a lot of people understand. You know, obviously you're in a high stress situation. You're, it's, it's very taxing physically, mentally. Right. And you accomplish something great as a group, you feel that there's an immediacy to that, but there's underlying component that I believe, which is the real secret of, of what it means to be part of a really good unit. And that's that brotherhood, that bond that takes place. So can you describe a little bit of that? And, and obviously, you know, these guys were able to bring that really. I mean I, I believe that was the real kickoff to the whole thing was, was, was Fallujah. And what the Marine Corps did in that is nothing short of just, just, you know, one of the greatest feats in, in our, I think our nation's history and to have that influence. Can you describe that a little bit for what.

[B]

Yeah, listen, I mean, I think there is a big distinction between big army, big Marine Corps and kind of the more specialized operations that are required for what we had to do. We knew we were going to be away from the flagpole. There was no high so, you know, no saluting rank. It's all out the window. So we really embraced, and I think most of the teams really embraced this kind of special operations mindset. And it ain't hard to figure out what SF is great at. And it's kicking ass, but then it's also creating this brotherhood through all the extracurricular stuff you really become, you know, you know, you know, wives, you know, kids, you know, all that stuff. Stuff. And our boss was smart enough to realize this is going to be important over the course of the next year. So we got to start it now because, you know, standard battalion level infantry operations, I mean, it's relatively regimented. Chain of command has to be the way it is because you need immediate attention to orders when you're assaulting, you know, Mount Suribachi. We can't, we can't have time. I don't have time for you to turn around and say, well, sir, last night over beer years, you said, you know, blah. You know, it's got, it's got to be more, what's the term I'm looking for? More parochial, I guess. Yeah, yeah, it just has to be, it has to be that way. But on, on the special operations side of the house, and I'm not saying we were special operations, but the mission we conducted certainly became that.

[C]

Oh, absolutely. That, that, that. So that's the pinnacle of special operations. All unit leading foreign forces in their own war. I mean, that's, that, that's what special operations grew out of. That, that's the core mission I love.

[B]

That's exactly right. So we, we had to be able to put all the, all the flagpole stuff aside and really get to know each other as, as men and Marines. And there's no better way to do that than outside of work in a more flexible, kind of relaxed environment. That's when you really get to know the heart of part of the dudes you're working with. And so like I said, my boss was just a really sharp dude. He actually is the superintendent of Norwich Military Academy, Norwich University. I took that job in retirement and those, those cadets are going to be way better because of it. But anyway, he recognized that early and we took to it. You know, you didn't have to twist most of our arms to sit down and drink beer with each other. That came pretty easy, I'm sure. Yeah. So working hard during the day, playing hard at night, night, and, and then we'll get to how we, how we got to country. Basically, the team was split up kind of the enlisted guys, unlucky for them, they had to fly over with the battalion. And the battalion had a totally different mission. Same, similar ao, but totally different mission than we had. So they flew forward, we flew forward also on commercial aviation. And this is where the party really gets started. We, we got to get, get to go to Kuwait, get to Iraq. And for the mitt guys, they sent all the mitt teams to, to a place called Camp Taji close to Baghdad. And they had something called the Phoenix Academy. And I remember showing up and I was like, this is awesome. And I, I remember thinking like, oh, this is going to be like what Martin Riggs went through. Because I think he talks about Phoenix Company.

[C]

That's right.

[B]

Yeah. So, so everything, you know, back in those days, everything's a movie. You don't have, you didn't have your cell phone and YouTube. It's all whatever movie you got. So we're all watching the same movie.

[C]

That's right.

[B]

School, it's gonna be a high speed school. They're gonna teach us all the real that we're gonna need to do. You. We learned some calm stuff, some basic cultural stuff that we might have to face. But the real, the thing that every, you could ask any dude on my team, what do you remember from Phoenix Academy? Everybody will have the same story. It was like the last night we were there, we're on an Iraqi portion of the base and they have somebody from the team you're going to replace come back and give you kind of like a, just a real quick spin up data dump on what they're dealing with, a little quick intel brief. And I think we were the last team to go, at least that's how I remember. So everybody's coming through and you're going to go to this area and relatively pacified. And you know, the team's doing well. A couple firefights here and there. We get our guy comes up and he's a pilot and he's a major and I know rto. I'm like, what the hell is that guy doing as part of this team? And he goes, who's going to 131? 131 was our Iraqi unit, 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division. We all raise our hands and he goes on to just tell us the, the most graphic, brutal war stories any of us have ever heard. They started with 12 guys. There are four guys left on the team. Everybody else is two Kia. The rest have been wounded and medevac back to the US he had to come over because he was an air officer for the battalion, they weren't really doing anything. So now he was the number two on that team. We just sat back and we, we had just watched Armageddon and there's a great scene in Armageddon when Owen Wilson's character, he just stops the guy and he goes, oh, so scariest environment imaginable. That's all you had to say. Say scariest environment imaginable. We all, we literally said that to him. We go, oh, that's all you had to say. Scariest environment imaginable. That's how, that's literally how we found out where we were going.

[C]

We were like, okay, what a wake up call, man. It's like. And he wasn't holding anything back. He was, he's like, you are going to hell.

[B]

It's exactly what the story was.

[C]

All right. Honestly, when you heard that, were you little fired up? Yep.

[B]

Listen man, I, I couldn't believe it. I, I think I was engaged, newly engaged at the time. And one of the cool things about being on this team, we had sat phones, we had a couple sat phones so we could make calls home pretty frequently. And I, I remember, I think I called my, my wife and maybe sent an email to, or my fiance maybe sent an email to my mom and, and I was just like, hey, this is going to be awesome. And my, my, my wife now my fiance at the time. Oh, that's super. I'm so, so glad you're gonn, you know, just like, yeah, it's going to be fun. Let me tell you this. We had it. I told you. You know, it was mainly like the team was built around kind of eight infantry type guys. We were going to be the dudes going out and operating and then we had some support staff. Our S2 Alpha. So our intel number two was a recently meritoriously promoted staff sergeant sergeant and he was from Marine Corps Aviation. His job previous to joining our team, he would give like weather reports to pilots in the morning. His real job, he was on the all Marine Corps softball team. This dude would travel around the world. He had just gotten back from Thailand playing in some softball tournament. He came up to me that night, we hit it off. He had a great personality.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And he came up to me that night and I know he won't mind me sharing this. He's a great dude. But he was like, sir, I ain't ready for this. And I was like, dude, you're a marine, you're ready for anything. We got you, dude. Don't worry. About it, you know, bad guys in front of you, shoot that way. This ain't rocket science, you know, just bring the fight. And, And, And. And he ended up doing great for us and everything, but that. But that. That really did happen happen. And because he. He was like, man, I got this career. I've only been in six years. I'm already a staff sergeant, and I. I know I want to retire. And I go, dude, you're fine. Take a breath. Everything is great. But. But that's how it started for us.

[C]

Take a knee, face outboard, take a.

[B]

Drink of water, that ega on your chest. You're not some dude off the street, bro.

[C]

That's right. That's right. All right, so you get this brief. How. How long before you left did you guys have to do co training with this Iraqi unit you were taking out?

[B]

That. That. That unit was actively engaged.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[B]

So we got that brief. Let's call it Sunday night. Monday night, we got on helicopters and flew to Habania, which give you. Give you just a little background geography that. That time and place. So Fallujah had essentially fallen at the beginning of 05. Ramadi was in the midst of getting hit it right when we get there early 06, Ramadi was really building up. And so this place that we went called Jazeera was very close to Habania, very close to Camp Takatum. T.Q. but those air. That area falls kind of right in between Ramadi and Fallujah. Ramadi the north, Fallujah to the south. And we're right on Route Michigan, which connects those two cities right on the Euphrates River. And so. So we flew in helicopters, got on 53s, flew to camp Habania. And Habania, we go right to the Iraqi side of the base. Habania had a. Had a National Guard contingent, I think, from Pennsylvania and Utah at the time. I got a great story about some of those guys shooting for us here in a bit. But we went to the Iraqi side where we linked up with our brigade headquarters, okay. And the Marine Corps doesn't have brigades, but the Iraqi army has brigades. So we're talking in kind of Iraqi formation lingo. And I think we were there maybe one day where we got kind of the intel data brief from the. From the brigade intel guys, and, you know, hey, same story. This is as active as it gets, boys and girls, so get ready to party. That was kind of the message that. That. That part of the story is really funny. We. We always had like, a. A group of barracks At a place called the Alamo back on Habania. It was on the Iraqi side, but the American staffing it. And we would actually send guys off the line. Two marines try to do it every month. Two marines every month. Got to go back to Habania for two days. And it wasn't like any of the big fobs, you know, no great shower or anything, but it was just like, just a couple days to take a break, breath, a shower.

[C]

Just a shower. That's. That's what it was like. A shower was the.

[B]

And that time of year, the shower was your heater. Because January, I'm like, man, we're going to Iraq. It's hot desert. It was free. We froze for the first couple months.

[C]

All right, so you get in, you get one day. How quickly was the first operation? And just tell us a little bit about what you witnessed in your. Your people you were with. You said they were all experienced before. What was like kind of the mentality of, all right, let's go, let's start. Let's dig in and let's get going.

[B]

Yeah, we got. We got about three or four days, as my memory remembers, to do left seat, right seat, patrolling with the unit that was already there. And like I said, they had been attrited massively. They only had four of their original members left left. They got backfilled. I mean, they had a full team at this point, but a lot of backfilled guys. But there was a couple dudes that were extraordinary Marines. One of them was a. Was a gunner. The Marine Corps has these things called gunners that are chief warrant officers of the infantry. They're kind of the gods of infantry.

[C]

Right.

[B]

They're called weapons officers. That's the actual name. But a chief warrant officer from the infantry, those are. That's kind of like the tech, the subject matter expert on all marine gunnery and employment of all marine gunnery. And that team had a CW3. Man, I wish I could remember his name off the top of my head. Henniston maybe comes to mind. But anyway, this guy was as hard as nickel stake, and he kind of grabbed all of us. Team guy, all the guys that were going to run companies.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And really gave us the down and dirty. And he, you know, he just hammered all the right things, man. You know, hey, 90% solution executed violently wins most of these fights. Just whoever's more violent. Your. Your Iraqis are going to follow you. Don't trust any of them to. To lead the way. It's all on you. You want to close with and destroy. They're going to have to follow you to do it. And so that was, that was like, okay man, okay. That, that really, really opened our eyes. I'd heard stories from other units that maybe didn't have that same guide. They took a more hands off advisory role. Just didn't have the same kind of effects that we did in RAO at the time. So anyway, had that four or five days with him and then here we go. So, you know, boss comes down with the working schedule. You know, we have patrols out pretty much 24 7. You're either patrolling, you're on QRF or you're out on an ambush at night, repeat, unless there was a major operation. And then those things would happen. Some sort of intel driven stuff that took us a while to get there. But we did get there and some of your boys even wanted to join our party because we got to, we got engaged so frequently. But you know, I think we were probably there. I think it was maybe a week before we had our kind of first shooting engagement.

[C]

Wow. All right. Talk about that a little bit.

[B]

Yeah. One of the really cool things about rao, we were not in a built up area. So picture kind of collections, maybe 10 or 20 houses and then you know, a quarter mile, a half a mile before the next collection of houses. Yeah. And it's dead flat right on the river, man. Almost felt like Vietnam at times. A lot of palm groves. So very cool. You know, sometimes you just, you know, take a security halt and just look around and be like, man, feel like I'm in Vietnam. All the movies I watch is kind of like that.

[C]

This is the feeling. That's right. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, really. But one of the, one of the great things about having that kind of open space is that it gives you more access to effects from higher. So we had, you know, we had artillery at Camp Habania. We had some dudes from the Utah National Guard, a Paladin howitzer section there. So we had two paladin 155 millimeter self propelled howitzers. And it got to the point where they were kind of just working for us because, you know, getting fires cleared in the built up urban areas, really tricky to do, you know. And then of course we had all the fast movers for troops and contact situations. We had TQ and air base real close by. So we would get the, at least the rotary wing guys would be on us quick. And that was awesome. And our boss really, really made sure, hey boys, we need to employ all of our ass kicking ability. This isn't just, you know, this is not. You shoot, I shoot, you know, you shoot me with a 7, 6, 2 by 39, I'm gonna drop a 500 pounder on your. Yes, yes.

[C]

And that's a thing, right? To know that you're commanding off officer is like, hey, yeah there, there's this, this, this presence of ROEs over here, but we just went through Fallujah. Ramadi is blowing up, people are getting injured all the time. We're taking casualties, we're done. We're, we're gonna, we're gonna destroy the enemy. Did that give all of you guys this, this grander sense of that there was this.

[B]

It absolutely did. We, you know, again, time and time and place, luck of the draw. We certainly, in terms of roe, we probably had it as good as anybody in that Iraq war time. I mean the, oh three guys on the invasion, of course that's a whole different story. But, but you know, the lawyers were there, they were making sure, you know, there was some escalation of force criteria that had to occur. But we always understood that we had the support and the trust that, you know, the special trust and confidence that the President gives us as commissioned officers. We really felt that in a big way. So it took all the hesitation out of the game and I, you know, my heart broke for some of my teammates that then did follow on tours to Afghanistan, you know, and the, you know, early teens, 11, 12, 13, and to hear, to hear what they had to do just to get a javelin shot off, man, was heartbreaking.

[C]

I was there right around the Marjor push, I was operating with the agency in south central Afghanistan during that time. And one of the, one of the ground branch pmcos was a former high ranking Marine officer and you know, his son was a Marine officer that had gotten hit with these stupid overt daylight patrols in the same area that they had cleared the day before. And I remember just like him shaking his hand, this guy had, was a very, very highly respected guy within the court self. And now he's at this program with SAD and him just shaking his head like, like I don't understand this, I don't get this. And so, you know, I always love to hear the stories from 04 to 08, really, because I think that was the time where if you look at it, you know, yeah, the insurgency caused some challenges, but the adaptation for the COIN initiatives that spread out to units like yours and everybody else, they gave you guys the, the, the, the that support that overhead support that no go engage the enemy and Kill the enemy. And that, that, that's what America is, is about, right? That's when you have that sensation you're on the front and you know that the guy behind you, the officer behind you is going to be like, no, I told my men to go get in the fight. I. And I'm getting them the assets they need and deserve.

[B]

Couldn't agree more. It's the, in fact, it's the only way. It's the only way. And it just goes back. I mean, it's the special trust and confidence placed into you by the President of the United States. That's what everybody's commission document states. So then to go back and yeah, I know the President said that, but we don't really mean it. Ex wife. Get out of here, man. You invested all this time and money in my training. I'm fully bought in and committed. I'm the one in the boots here at this time with my ass in the breeze. Trust that I'm going to do the right thing. And, you know, you have a few stories. My lie, let's say, I mean, really one of the few that you can come up with in the last 50 years, you know, that some lawyer will say, well, maybe, okay, okay. You know, things happen, but we don't, we don't shut down the program. We don't shut down the trust that we give these folks because of one bad apple. And you kind of see that with policing here in the States in the last 10 years.

[C]

It's brutal, it's absurd. There's 3.5 million officer engagements a year or something even crazier than that. I mean, it's an astronomical number. And you look at the FDI crime statistics for cops firing on unarmed males, both white and black or Hispanic, whatever it is, and the numbers are so fricking low. It's a testament to the control and the responsibility placed in these people that are on the streets engaging in very hostile environment. You know, and, and I, I look back at all the stories from, you know, I, I never got to go to Iraq. And so, you know, it was a, a completely different experience than everybody else that had, you know, that. Those times from 04 to 08, man, in Iraq, if you had the, the, the luck and the unfortunate reality that that was your time, you know, that was what you had to work with, was the, the, the, the trust in the people, it seemed, that were behind you guys to allow you to go do this job, which was insanely difficult.

[B]

Yeah, man, exactly that. I mean, it just brings to mind the old quote from Colonel Jessup and a few good men. I would rather you just say thank you and move along. I think, I think most of us would do way better to just thank our local police department for doing what they're doing and. Or thank our Marines and SEALs. Just thank you guys. I didn't do it. I didn't have to do it. You kept the wolves at bay. Thank you.

[C]

Yeah. All right, now you're in. Within a few days, you're out. You're getting into your first ticks, you're getting the support. When did you realize, all right, this op tempo is going to be significant? And what were the things that you started thinking about from a leadership perspective for not only your team, but, but for the Iraqis too? Because what a lot of the listeners you have to this, this, this is the time where we, the, the, the head shed realized we have to inspire the locals to want to fight for whatever it is they're fighting for, which is, you know, to pull away from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein's regime. Right. And, and to be able to fight for that. It's. I don't know if it's independence, but it, the fight for the national pride of what was. Was emerging. Right? And that's what it is. You're fighting for this deeper construct of, of meaning. And, and for them, they, they didn't know what any of that is. So what were, what were the things that you were relying upon as the, the, the intensity increased? What were you telling your team and what were you telling the Iraqis?

[B]

Yeah, so this team was not in a training, you know, status, the operational from the start. So we had to look at it, okay, how, how much change can we really affect in a short period of time? Marine Corps does a pretty cool job of teaching leaders to back plan when, when, when you're doing any kind of planning things, back plan from the most deadliest scenario and then, then plan all the things that are most likely to get you kicked out, killed. You know, eventually you'll get to those, those things that are, you know, that you still need to train for, but they're not as important on the objective. So that, that's kind of what we did, you know, did a ton of shooting. Let me take it even a step back. We, we realized. Everybody realized that at this time there was no NCO corps in the Iraqi army. That didn't exist.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[B]

They had, they had sergeants, if you will. But that, that not like what we understand as an nco who here in, in the American military. And this is even true as you look at the American military versus the Russian or military, for instance, again, another very Chinese military for instance. These are, these are top drown down driven organizations that depend on all advice, instruction, orders coming from on high. Well, that ain't gonna happen when you got 10 dudes in the middle of a field in a firefighter fight. It's just you guys now what do you do, you know, so we had to instill that sense of pride and ownership of the operation to that very junior level so that when dad gets killed, you know, the rest of you don't die. You still understand the intent of the operation at the end of today, what needs to be done and you can move forward through the objective and win. And so that's, that's what my, my team of staff NCOs, we had a gunnery sergeant sergeant and three badass, four badass staff sergeants. And those guys really took it upon themselves to take time out of their day. So like I said, tempo was high talk. An average patrol would be four or five clicks. Well a four or five click patrol in Iraq, especially once we moved into the summer months, you know, that could take you three or four or five hours. And then if you had contact in there, you know, then it just extends forever. While you're not patrolling, while you're not, you know, up and you're in your QRF status. It wasn't just time to sleep and play video games. That's the time to get with your units and really talk through this stuff. And it's made even harder because you're talking through an interpreter. But that, that's where we really form these incredible bonds, some of which have lasted to this day. So my, you know, my staff sergeant, Carl Newman, who was my partner, he would go and talk to my, to my company's enlisted guys. They'd have powwows over Chai and just talking through, you know, you're running hot washes. Hey, what worked well in our, in our patrol today? What didn't go well? If we got kinetic, you know, did we get guns up quick? I better hear those machine guns immediately. You know, we have to get fire superiority immediately and I'll start telling stories here in a second. But that took some hard lessons to learn that for those guys. And then I'm with my company commander and we're walking through planning. I'm teaching them how to conduct rehearsals. You know, how do I run a rifle range? Do we even know if these guys rifles are zeroed you know, so there was a lot of things we had to build into our daily lives to get these guys up to snuff. We had to do that also. There's a lot of ego in that world, in that era of mine. Cultural.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, talk about that talk. Because I think for me, anytime I worked with a foreign counterpart, that was the most frustrating aspect of the whole thing. Our programs are all designed to humble you instantaneously, to knock the arrogance out of you right from the get go. Well, their whole culture is indicative of never losing face amongst your peers and, and talk a little bit about that struggle, if you could, before we get into some of the. Yeah, man.

[B]

So Afghanistan, this, this concept of Pashtun Wally that I learned about after. I couldn't have operated the same way in Afghanistan as I did with my Iraqis because of what you're talking about. This, this kind of cultural pride. If, if, if, if an Afghani man feels like he's been slightly, you know, that's where a lot of those green on blue attacks came from. Yep. Guy took offense and now he makes it his mission to kill the guy, that he was offended by the Iraqis, they will take offense. But I think just through force of character and the fact that we, we were marines, they respected that enough to realize, okay, maybe I should listen up and, and they, they basically did that. But I had a couple run ins, and I'll share one with you, we'll kind of jump ahead. Said once it became clear that we were going to be kind of the most fightingest unit in the area at the time. That's just what we did every day. So we're, we're taking LPOps, cover of darkness, we know where they're putting, planting IEDs, et cetera. And you know, we wake up in the morning, send a patrol out, security patrol out with the intent to get into a fight. And me, you know, we started getting real technical, using all the tools in our toolbox. But this one particular fight, I had this Iraqi major with me. He, he refused to shoot in front of his troops. He refused to come to any of the rehearsals. Just refused. Absolutely refused. And of course I tell my boss and he'd tell his boss and they'd smack him a little bit. But it's, you know, it didn't seem to be changing quickly enough for my liking at least. Anyway, send out a security patrol in the morning. I talked to Carl and I said, hey, dude, you guys take shots? We had an idea where the bad guys might be because they're Always doing the same stuff. And I said, hey, I want you to break contact. I'm going to call ahead. I'm going to get these guns laid. So we're going to have a fire mission ready to go as soon as you guys get into contact. We're going to have a trigger line at this road. As soon as you guys clear that road, I'm calling that fire mission. We did it. It worked perfectly. So they bang, bang, bang. Gunstar. We're all up on the roof, roof watching it happen. I see my guys, last guy, last man clears the street. As they're clearing the street, I get a bad guy. Truck comes hauling ass down the street, right, Adam? So now I know they're getting shot at from here. They're getting shot at from this truck. We engage the truck, truck crashes into a ditch. My guy's clear. I get that fire mission called. We had a priority target, which is hard to get, but we had those guys. So the guns were laid. So the time that I'd say, hey, fire priority target number 1001, about 30 seconds. First rounds are out. Wow. So bang, bang, bang. You know, 10 or 15 minutes goes by, it's quiet now. We're going to send another patrol out to look at the engagement area, do a battle damage assessment. And we come out on this BD8. The whole time, by the way, that we're in this fight, this major that refuses to come on on anything or acknowledge any of his soldiers is in the fetal position on the ground doing nothing. So I say, hey, major, you're on me. And I'm talking through my interpreter, and he comes walking with me. We're, we're going through the engagement area, and it's not a large area, but it's, it's. There's a lot of trees, so you can't really see it from where we were. So we patrol through. We find it was the most beautiful battle damage assessment I ever got to report back to my arty bro brothers, because we had two kia and we think we had another one that got it. We saw drag marks. The reason we figured he probably died is because we had the entirety of his leg from just above his knee laying there on the ground. So he probably lost that blood pretty quick and ended up expiring on the other side of the river. Then as we come back, and I hate to do this, but the Marine mine, in those days, it was all movie quotes, man. So. So we had just watched this movie, 7 Brad Pitt, cool movie. And there's a scene in it. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna describe what I do. So we're, we're coming through and I'm up on my gun and the last thing we do is hit this truck to make sure it's clear. And I'm coming up and I'm looking over the door and I can't really tell. The guy slumped over, over, and he's got his AK right down in his lap. And I opened the door and as I opened the door, he, he raises his head and his head is canoed. Oh, but he, he raised his head. He was just, you know, in, in the throes of death. He wasn't quite dead. Yeah, he had a pulse and he was still alive. So I made that Iraqi major treat him. He had this really high speed jacket on that he loved. Kept him warmer than everybody else. I made him take his jacket off. Off and treat this guy like he's alive. We don't murder dudes after the battle's over, so treat him. And he complained about that, but my boss didn't care and his, his boss ended up sending him away. We actually never saw him again after that op.

[C]

Dude, I, I, for me, it's, it's, it's, you realize just the nepotism of, of how profound it is when you're dealing with these like, and, and you get somebody like a terp who's good and you're like, all right, dude, what's the deal with, with this? Oh, that's the other general who's in Baghdad.

[B]

That's where you get all your great intel is through that turf.

[C]

That's right. That's, that's his first cousin, that's his other buddy. And you're like, oh, how much time does he have in combat? None. He just got here, you know, and it's just like, and you start to go, well, God, what am, how am I going to do this? How am I going to work with what I got? But it sounds to me like the other Iraqis that you had, they sounded pretty tough and they were, were, they were gravitating towards that, those, you know, your, your NCO influence to a pretty identified.

[B]

We made a conscious effort to identify kind of the best of the bunch, and we made them okay. Hey, you're the company gunnery sergeant. Yeah, you're the company first sergeant. Like, we gave them roles and responsibilities that forced the other soldiers to look at them like, oh my God, maybe this is the guy I need to follow. Hollow. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, these guys weren't all Rambo. In fact, you know, if I could just get them shooting generally in the same direction, that was kind of a win. We didn't care. We knew we were going to win the fight anyway. But the few good ones that we did find, man, we really rode them. Yeah. Them believe and made, and they ended up being great leaders. I don't know how much time we have left, but, but the guy that I was partnered with, my company commander, he was the best of the bunch. Everybody acknowledged that by the end of our time. And it had nothing to do with my, my guidance or leadership. It had everything to do. He was the only Sunni in, in our formation, the only Sunni officer. Everybody else was Shia. So the way that he grew up, his kind of sect was in charge. Yeah. So he kind of was used to being in charge. He didn't have to, like, figure out his way through it. And he was courageous by nature. Oh, that's cool. You. You know how it is, brother. Courage on the battlefield is contagious, just like cowardice is. So if, if you got, if you got some dudes that you really look up to and they're showing that real courage like he did, I, I think that's what made our unit in particular so, so successful and deadly to the, to the enemies we were fighting. Because the, the Juni that would have normally just been smoking a cigarette and hiding, trying not to die, they, they, they were willing to follow because they saw that courage from my advisor team and some of these Iraqis that we identified early on.

[C]

I love it. All right, so how, how far into this deployment for you did you feel like you guys hit that real efficient battle rhythm where it's just like, all right, we know the mission, we know what works, we know what doesn't. And then you, you, you what? You start to tighten up. Like the proficiency of your operational ability just becomes like this, it's this poetic thing that emerges when, when did you feel that? And, and, and, and, and what were some of the things that resulted of how effective you guys were?

[B]

Exactly right. So my boss was smart enough to understand after every engagement, we're gonna have a hot wash. We're gonna talk through this thing. Good things, bad things. How do we become more deadly on this battlefield field? And for the first three months, we kind of worked our way through that. How can we employ arms better? How can we get artillery shooting faster on our behalf? How is there, is there a way we can get helicopters up quicker? Maybe if we start doing intel driven operations, sending some requests to Hire they'll have units on standby for us in the form of Cobras, Hueys, things like that. And that took about three months. Months. In those three months we did a lot, we had a lot of practice if you will. We were fighting quite a bit and through those fights we really did figure out, you know, how to employ our QRF faster. Can we drive them here? You know, Cazavax, are we saving as many lives as we can? You know I mentioned before we got on air I was on a 12 man team. This 12 man team was decorated with 15 purple hearts.

[C]

Oh my God. Yeah.

[B]

So I mean in terms of like running guys to shock trauma, that was a, that happened a lot. And you know, the golden hour is everything on the battlefield. And so we started getting really drilling down on how to, how to make sure we're, we're getting guys to that second level of care better. We had an amazing corpsman on our team, a Navy doc, still a personal friend of mine. We all love him. Although he drops off the net here and there from time to time, he's a, he's a maniac, you know, if you could just bottle him up and just break for war kind of guy. Personal life all over the place as long as I've known him. But, but on that battlefield he is as cool and operators I've ever seen when it comes to treating dudes. And I think, I think really he became a force multiplier because the Iraqis became less scared to try out and get wounded because they knew if they did, man, we got doc Wig in the back and he's going to fix you up, up, at least fix you up well enough to get you up to, you know, TQ and go to shock trauma, things like that.

[C]

So well, that was him. It was the history of the, the Navy corpsman and the Marine Corps that really drove me to want to be a corpsman. Like that was the thing. It was like, man, I, I want to be, I want to have that, you know, I want to have that trust in my guys that, you know that I'm going to be there in the middle of it and I'm going to be helping save their lives. Because there's just something about that reality. And what I do is I commend the entire military for the advancements they made post Mogadishu and developing TCCC and tactical combat casualty care. People always ask, well, why were there so few casualties in the gwat? And my response is because the medical training that took place at every level, at every Unit, it was so efficient and so squared away that that was the results. That's why we, even though we were in a war longer than Vietnam, like, we didn't even get close to their casualty count of 58,000. Because, because I think the proficiency of those medics that were on the battlefield and then how they train their counterpart, how they train their team to address trauma and then, and then the response, right, those, those medical stations and aid stations that were scattered all over theaters, man, they were just incredible with what they did.

[B]

Yes. Two things come to mind. First off, you know this. I mean, you know, the doc on any team is the most protected member of that team. You are the most beloved. And we will whip anyone's ass who tries to mess with our doc. That's just number one. But number two, I will say that our doc, and just the training we got, and I skipped over it because the shooting stuff sounds sexual, sexier at times, but we did a full, you know, I don't know if they were calling it T Triple C at the time, but we went to, we did our pig lab. We were running IVs on each other. So he made sure we got really good at that early because, you know, you are your own first, best first responder in a lot of these cases, especially when you're operating like we were with just two dudes and 10 Iraqis.

[C]

All right, so now how long was the deployment and was there a moment in time where you start to see the fatigue of operations take place to, to present itself? What were some of the signs you were looking for? And then also like, how do you keep your guys motivated to stay in the fight? It sounds to me like your group didn't need any of that motivation. They were in it regardless. They, they were dedicated job. But obviously, as, as a leader, you're looking for those things, right? You're looking for or the, the cracks in the armor that could potentially jeopardize the safety of future operations?

[B]

I think our tempo was so high that it kind of, it kind of prevented some of that stuff from coming in. I also believe that, you know, the Marine Corps deployment cycle. Thank God I wasn't in the army, man. Like you said about Secretary Parnell, I mean, like 400 days, Marine Corps was doing seven month deployments. So, you know, by the time you really feel like you got it figured out, time to go home, boys. So, So I think we, we missed some of that, that fatigue. I'll tell you at the end, it started to get there, but, but our deployment was really broken down kind of into three. Three sectors, if you will. You know, the. The initial phase where it's just like, oh, my God, this is really happening. Everything is new. Every fight is new. Then. Then you get into the kind of the three to six month mark where you're like, man, I think I got this thing figured out. Not only do I have it figured out, I think other people are realizing we're doing such a good job, they want to become part of it. You know, I mentioned to you before we got on the air that we had parts of team one and team three that. That would shop parts of parts of a platoon out to us. One of the ways we started this interaction, action. There's a guy named Nick Norris was a young lieutenant on one of these SEAL teams that was out with us, him and Seth Stone. I know Seth Stone has since passed, but you want to talk about a guy that looked the freaking part? I remember meeting him, I was like, God damn, who's this guy? This guy's big, strong.

[C]

The epitome of a Navy officer. The epitome for the audience that doesn't know. Also, Seth Stone was a part of Task Force Bruiser, which was Jocko Willink. Seth and Leif Babin were platoon commanders running those guys in Ramadi. And so, you know, to. To, you know, the fact that you guys were. Is operating at the level you were doing. For them to come out and be like, hey, we want to come fight with you, man, that speaks volumes as to what you guys were doing in the efficiency.

[B]

We had a gigantic water tower in the middle of our combat outpost, so figured, you know, a collection of maybe 10 houses. We had the engineers come out, put a hesco around it, so we, you know, relatively secure. Right in the middle was this giant water tower. And I came home from patrol one time, I didn't know all the coordination that my boss was doing a lot of times. So he had Jocko out there, and they were chatting about what. What they could do to. To help us whip some more ass. And I come home from this patrol, and I just happened to glance up at the water tower. I'm like, man, those. What are these black spots up there? They knew. Anyway, some of your brothers had gone up there and cut out these spider holes. And so they started sniping on our behalf, you know, just providing us overwatch. As we're meandering through these fields now, the Bubbas are up on, you know, that whatever they were shooting at the time, they were up on the big guns. You Know, giving us a little guardian angel support. So it was, it was freaking awesome.

[C]

That's cool. All right, so you get to the end of the. It was, it. Was it hard to leave?

[B]

It became, you know, you know, the bonds, it's, it's just those battlefield bonds that become hard to leave. And so our Iraqis, they were, they were pretty emotional when we were leaving because, you know, just like it had been some big time fighting for us. You know, these were the biggest fights that any of these dudes had been into up to that point. And, you know, so that, that was hard. We had, you know, it became our task to introduce them to our replacements. And, you know, once we got a good warm and fuzzy that we had a great group of dudes coming in behind us, and we did. I think they were. My memory might betray me, but I think they were from 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, 3, 2, if I remember correctly. And, you know, a bunch of great experienced guys that came in on the, on the, came in to replace us. And so we once, once we were able to make those introductions and, you know, I could point, hey, this dude's already been in Ramadi or Fallujah or something. You know, once I kind of explained that they had a lot of, a lot of good operational working experience in country our Iraqis settled in. But you know, one. One of the real sad stories, you work so hard to bring these guys to a certain level. And I think, I think in my company, I probably had, I probably lost 12, somewhere around 12k. I ain't under, under my command, if you will, not Americans, but Iraqis. And they were doing, they were executing the fight that I was calling them on them to fight. So, you know, those are all hard losses. Well, let me just, let me just add this one story because I guess it paints a picture for the love that I really had for these guys and kind of, you know, even though we were the main effort, according to the president and the Commonwealth, not the rest of the normal formations in big army, big Marine Corps, they really didn't even know we were out there operating. So I had, I think, I think we had two kias and I had two urgent surgicals. And you know, for anybody in that AO to operate, it was, it was a doctrinal doctrine that you could not run a convoy on that route of Michigan, that, that particular stretch of route, Michigan, Michigan, with less than a 12 vehicle convoy. And it took two days of coordination to get anybody on the road there. I had four trucks on my whole team. We were running Guys with two vehicle convoys all day, every day up and down that road. Just, you know, little sign of the cross. Let's. Let's run it, boys. Let's go as fast as we can here. And anyway, I'm running a. I'm running a medevac to tq. I got blood all over me. I had a. I had a. I remember I had a T shirt on and sweatpants pants, because I. I was kind of, you know, on QRF status at the time when we got hit and running these boys up through. I got me and another American in my Humvee. And then I got an Iraqi Humvee behind me carrying all. All the wounded. Two wounded, two killed. And they stop us at the gate. We've done this many times before. And they go, sir, I need your Iraqis to all step out of the vehicle. I need them to show, you know, unload and show clear on their weapons and such. And I go, dude, time is money. I got two dudes bleeding to death. No, my name is lieutenant Andrew Mulligan Parks, United States Marine Corps. I will be at shock trauma. Send whoever you want to come and chew my ass. And that's what we did.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Pressed and we got there, and they got my guys in immediately. We had developed a really close working relationship with those guys at shock trauma. There was a Navy master chief petty officer that was running that thing. Thing. And anyway, I told him, I said, master chief, I apologize. You may be catching some hell over this. He goes, dude, you did the right thing. I'll crush anybody who comes here. Well, awesome. It wasn't 15 minutes later that this freaking army guy comes rolling up, I don't know, sergeant first class type. And he. Look, he's doing his job. I don't. I don't. But he comes up, where's Lt. Parks? And I go, I'm right here. Like I said, bloody T shirt, shirt and sweatpants with my flag of kevlar, you know?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And he goes, well, you're not gonna turn. Blah, blah, blah. And I go, please stop. I said, first of all, you're talking to an officer, United States Marine Corps. Secondly, I'll do what I did every day, twice on Sunday. Come chew my ass. That's fine. He goes, well, you're not going to talk to me like that. I'm just like. I just did talk to you like that. So take it up. I can run it up your chain, I'll run it up mine. We'll see who wins, dude. I mean, he. He wouldn't let it Go though he wouldn't let it go. And so he's yelling and this master chief comes out and just got in his ass and ran him the hell off. And I love that guy till the day I die for doing that. For me. He was awesome. That's cool. But anyway, you know, we, we love those guys and that's the only way you can operate in that environment. Of course you're going to form bonds with the dudes you're fighting with. Doesn't matter, you know, race, color or creed, it don't matter. Everybody bleeds red. And we're all on the same team here, you know, And I think that.

[C]

For me, that's the essence of this whole thing because obviously you go and you're in this high threat environment, people are getting killed, right? But you just, you keep going back into the fight. You just keep going. You don't quit, right? And that's what it is. What was it, what was it like when you came back? Your, your team gets dispersed, you made the decision to get out, out. What were some of the things that you were going to take with you that you knew that were critical for whatever that the next chapters of your life are going to be?

[B]

Yeah, listen, I got back in, what do we got back? Late 2006. And I was kind of a guy without a home at that point. I, but I had, I had made enough of the right people happy that I, I, I was at, I got to meet general Mattis and he said, parks, what do you want to do in the marine Corps? You, you get to write your ticket. Where do you want to go? And this is going back to just being kind of silly here, but my first two platoon sergeants had seven marriages between the two of them.

[C]

Oh my God.

[B]

And I just saw what a heavy burden the g wat was on a fan family. And I knew at that point that I wanted to get married and have a family. And I really felt like it was going to be hard to do that in that lifestyle. This is not to say that there are thousands of folks that did exactly that and it worked out perfectly. It just, in my mind, in my 26 or 7 year old brain at the time, I just didn't, I didn't see how it could possibly work. So I said, well, sir, I think I'm going to get out. And he was like, well, well, we're going to get as much out of you as we can before you leave. So they threw me, I got to be like the operations officer as a first lieutenant, entirety of the west coast training operation for all the new advisors going forward.

[C]

That's cool.

[B]

So, I mean, I had a major that was my boss, but he was a pilot, a Harrier pilot, so he didn't really, he didn't really have a lot of ground stuff to impart to the team. So I got to, I mean, me, I say, I. It was me and a collection of badass senior enlisted. I had a master gunnery sergeant, two master sergeants and a gunny. They were all seriously wounded guys. They were going through their rehab and it was like the five of us that would come up with the training plan for all these folks. You want to talk about feeling like you're way over your head? I mean, every team is led by, at a minimum, a major. At a maximum, a curb colonel. Wow. So it's Lieutenant Parks, you know, not ordering, but go. You know, basically in charge of all these senior dudes.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Anyway, to answer your question, that last year allowed me to leave the Marine Corps feeling like whatever came in front of me from here on out. And I kind of still feel like this, Dave. I mean, it's kind of easy compared to the stuff that I did back then. So, you know, in terms of, in the job that I'm, I'm a sales guy for a military company and, you know, so I do a lot of high level briefings, could be on, on the Hill or with, you know, senior level officers, generals, etc. You know, just communicate the point, know your stuff, be technically proficient, tactically sound, you know, know your stuff and you know, trust it, man. You know, nobody's going to shoot you over it. So it's all relatively easy. Easy. That's just kind of how it's been.

[C]

All right, last question for you. If it. What advice could you give to a young man right now that's contemplating joining? They're not quite sure if we're through the craziness of what we just went through. They're, you know, maybe they're a little nervous about what's out in front of us with some of the other things that are going on around the world in Ukraine or in the Middle East. Like what is the thing that, that you could, what information or wisdom that you could bestow on, on them that would kind of help push them over the edge to say, no, this is, this is a career or just a short portion of my life that will really be transformational, man.

[B]

You will never know how good you can be unless you try. And they're the great crucible. I mean, and this is. I fancy myself a bit of a historian. You know, I love to read and stuff. I mean, these are. These are almost biological kind of archetypes at this point. I mean, the heroic archetype, just to see what you can do on the field of battle. I mean, this is what ancient. Our ancient Indian tribal leaders would sit around campfires at night and go over this. You know, you weren't a man in some of these ancient cultures until you had, you know, proven yourself on the field of battle and been with a woman and had children. I mean, those were kind of the three pillars of manhood. And I'm not saying that every man has to do that or every woman has to experience these things, but I am saying it's not bad for you. And I mean. I mean. I mean that in the. In the biblical sense. Yeah, in the worldliness sense, it will give you a greater perspective for everything you do from here on out than having not done it. I have plenty of friends, friends that thought about doing it, that wanted to do it, that would have been phenomenal at it, but they didn't know there they didn't do it. And they always have that thing in the back of their head, man, I wish. I wish I would have tried it, man. I bet I would have been good. You know, the folks that do sign up answer the call. You never have to question that you did it. And the opportunities are boundless, as you and I both know. I mean, if you want something bad enough, enough if you get in the door, you make it through the original screening process of boot camp, which. Which is challenging for anybody. I mean, you know, it just. That. That's the first crucible. But all of. I think any hard thing you can do in life only makes things easier going forward. Yeah, I had an old, old leader. He was like, every hard thing you do is like a marble. And you're. You put a marble in a cup and, you know, right now you got like three marbles in there, but one day you're going to look at that cup and there's going to be 50 of them, because in the later part of life, you're going to have to start drawing from that because you're not going to be able to do hard things anymore, and you're going to. You're going to have to live off of those memories, and you want to come really full, so you got a great story to tell. And I was like, makes sense to me. Makes sense to me. Man.

[C]

Andy, man, that is true genius right there, man. Have a big jar of marbles that each represent something back. Badass. I love it. Hey, I, I, I thank you so much for coming on. You know, your story and the story of the guys that you went to war with and, and including those Iraqis. It's meaningful, it's historic and, and I, I just, I really appreciate you wanting to come on and share a little bit of your, your history with us. It means the world to me, man.

[B]

Thank you so much. Really special opportunity. Probably made even more special. We're two, two or three days removed from the birthday. 250 years and just big shout out to my brothers Mitt 35 Cowboys. We're legends in our own mind, if nothing else. And that's good enough for us. So can't wait to see you boys. Hope I did you proud. And thanks so much, Dave. You're awesome, man.

[C]

Giddy up. All right. Foreign.

[A]

No, it's not too soon to start holiday shopping. Ulta Beauty's early Black Friday event is happening now through November 22nd. Shop $10 beauty minis from brands like Mac and Too Faced. Take 30% off Lancome and Touchland fragrances and body mists. With new offers dropping every week, our associates can help you find the perfect gifts. Head into Ulta Beauty today to share. Shop our early Black Friday event, Ulta Beauty Gifting happens here. Saks off 5th is revealing the season's most wanted holiday steals. Whether you're gifting someone on your list or treating yourself to a designer score, find deals on McQueen, Valentino, Versace, Stuart Weitzman and more at up to 70% off every day, outshine at every event and outsmart your buy budget. From shimmer ready party looks to luxe layers and cozy giftable Accessories, Saks off 5th is your secret source for celebrating in style. Your holiday shopping mission starts now at saksoff5th.com or a Saks off 5th store near you. New school year, new routines, and somehow your calendar is already full. When life gets hectic, Caulifower's got your back. We make the food you crave make better for you. Like thin and crispy cauliflower crust pizzas, all natural chicken tenders and nostalgic pizza snacks ready in minutes in something the whole family can agree on. Cauliflower is available in freezer aisles nationwide. Visit eatcolipower.com to find a store near you.

[C]

Business owners know that getting a loan isn't always easy, but it can be fast if you know where to look. One of the fastest ways to get a business loan is through an online funding marketplace like Lending Lendio. At Lendio, we've built a marketplace of over 75 lenders and funding partners who know what you need and can get it to you quickly. Depending on the type of funding, money could be on its way to your bank account within 24 hours. See what your business can qualify for in just a few [e-mail] that's lendio.

[A]

Lendio.Com if you've got a move coming up, you really need to look into United Van Lines, the Do It All Moving Specialists. With United Van Lines, you don't worry about a thing. You have a dedicated moving coordinator, qualified drivers, and full value protection for your possessions. Compare that to a couple of dudes manhandling your family heirlooms or cramming your things in a container on your driveway. Rather than hope for the best, you deserve a hassle. Free move. Visit unitedvanlines.com Big moves Small moves All Moves Easy Choice this is an I Heart podcast.