Marine Corps 250th Birthday Special: Sgt. Tommy James and the Dogs of War | Ep. 74

Summary

Marine Corps 250th Birthday Special: Sgt. Tommy James and the Dogs of War | Ep. 74

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Host: David R. (guest host)
Guest: Sgt. Tommy James
Date: November 10, 2025

Episode Overview

This special episode honors the 250th birthday of the United States Marine Corps with an in-depth conversation between guest host David R. and Sergeant Tommy James, a Marine Corps veteran and military working dog handler. The episode dives into Sgt. James’s personal story, the unique culture and challenges of the Marine Corps, his path to becoming a K9 handler, and his combat and post-military experiences. The theme centers on the enduring brotherhood, esprit de corps, and the legacy of Marines throughout American history—all told through Tommy’s vivid recollections.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sgt. James’ Path to the Marines (03:08–10:01)

• Motivation for Joining: Inspired by his father's Vietnam Army service and the September 11 attacks.
• Determination to Join the Marine Corps:
  • “If I'm going to do something, I'm going to put in my all. And I chose the Marine Corps because everybody else says, ‘Oh, I almost joined the Marine Corps.’ And I didn't want to be an almost guy.” — Sgt. Tommy James (05:41)
• Boot Camp and Early Training:
  • Joined in October 2006 at MCRD San Diego.
  • Quickly identified as a leader and made guide due to intensity (“kick so much ass, they had to drag you off there”).
  • Memorable encounter years later with his drill instructor on a golf course. (10:07–12:08)

2. Experiences and Lessons from Boot Camp (13:02–14:50)

• Mind Games and Mental Toughness:
  • Realized much of boot camp is psychological, designed to build resilience and discipline.
  • “Half of this stuff is mind games... every day there was multiple things to do for 13 weeks.” — Sgt. James (13:02)
• Transformation into a Marine:
  • Formation of deep camaraderie and the "devil dog" mentality during the Crucible.
  • “When we completed that Crucible... that’s whenever I really knew. …I felt like I really accomplished something.” — Sgt. James (21:05–23:39)

3. K9 Handler Journey and Memorable Stories (26:41–54:34)

• Assignment to the K9 Program:

  • Selected for K9 training out of military police school; Marines could apply straight from school—a unique privilege.
  • Early experiences with challenging dogs, including handling a 130-pound Czech shepherd with a history of unauthorized bites.
  • One dog he handled, Santo, became part of the Marine Corps Museum, showing the importance and legacy of military working dogs. (30:07–33:57)

• "Battle of Chaparral" Story (37:32–47:21):

  • Epic brawl between 23 Marines and 140 Army trainees over march formations—seen as a testament to Marine camaraderie and fighting spirit.
  • “We took their guide on… there were 58 of them that went to the hospital. Out of 23 Marines, only two went to the hospital.” — Sgt. James (43:24)
  • Commandant and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps recognized their esprit de corps, and a commemorative plaque was made.

• Training and Deployments:

  • Advanced training as a specialized search dog (SSD) handler, working with Belgian Malinois—off-leash, radio-commanded search work.
  • Describes intense operational tempo and how SSD handlers often supported special forces like SEALs, recon, and eventually MARSOC.
  • “SSD guys was kind of the high speed, low drag guys... we got attached with the SEALs and the recon guys.” (51:46–54:34)

4. Combat Experience in Afghanistan (58:22–106:00)

• Deployment Context:

  • Attached to 1st Recon Battalion for Operation New Dawn; describes the shift from Quantico/Pendleton to Afghanistan.
  • Immediate combat from day one, supporting direct action with his dog, Rona, often working off-leash and under fire.

• Details of Operations:

  • High-tempo kinetic environment: multiple daily engagements, constant threats, and reliance on advanced K9 handling to avoid IEDs and ambushes.
  • “Every day, it was multiple ticks [troops in contact].” — Sgt. James (76:11)
  • Describes the frustration of restrictive rules of engagement:
    • “It was like having your damn hands tied behind your back. You could not engage first... you had to be, you know, declare troops in contact before we can even engage.” (84:58–86:54)

• K9 Team Details & Challenges:

  • “If you get assigned an SSD dog, that's your property. …If you PCS to Pendleton, she's going with you.” (72:44)
  • Discusses the unique bond and operational synergy between handler and dog.

• Casualties and Sacrifice:

  • Recalls losing fellow Marines and friends to IEDs and enemy fire, with deep emotion and respect for the fallen—including the profound guilt when separated from his original team due to higher command decisions, leading to casualties he felt might otherwise have been avoided.
  • “That really pissed me off… I felt like Jonathan would still have his legs if they wouldn't have pulled me from them...” (100:55)

5. Coming Home and Transition (106:00–120:21)

• Decision to Leave the Corps:

  • Returned in early 2011; chose not to reenlist to be there for his daughter after a difficult divorce.
  • Transitioned into civilian life with challenges—struggling with re-assimilation, attending college, and reconnecting with civilian peers.

• Civilian Jobs and Military Camaraderie:

  • Eventually joined Union Pacific Railroad (resembling the military in culture and bureaucracy).
  • Found camaraderie with other veterans, still felt a disconnect from civilian society.
  • “You come back thinking you're going to go back to how it was before you left and joined the military. And it's like a wake-up call, man.” (108:14)

6. Reflections, Advice, and the Unbreakable Marine Brotherhood (120:42–125:35)

• Key Lessons from the Marines:

  • Integrity, values, and personal growth—from untested civilian to confident Marine in 13 weeks.
  • “There’s no greater brotherhood than the Marine Corps. …The people that you deploy with and the people that you train with... you create a bond with that's never-ending.” (120:42)

• Advice for Young Recruits:

  • “Do something that challenges yourself… Don't just join the cheer force because it's the easiest one. …If you happen to earn the title and earn that eagle, globe, and anchor, there's no greater feeling on earth.” (120:42–123:48)

• Marine Corps Spirit & Legacy:

  • Reflects humorously on why Marines always end up fighting—even at bars: “Marines are magnets to trouble, you know, they're just magnets man.” (124:40)
  • Strong closing recognition on the enduring, unbreakable bonds and the pride of service.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Choosing the Corps:
  • “I didn't want to be an almost guy. If I do anything, I do it to the best of my abilities… and put in 100% every time.” — Sgt. James, (05:41)
• Boot Camp Realization:
  • “After about a month or so, I figured out that half of this stuff is mind games.” — Sgt. James, (13:02)
• Pride in Graduation:
  • “Standing up there with five other Marines and retiring the guide on... when I got that eagle, globe and anchor pinned on me on that day, you know, I felt like I really accomplished something.” (23:39)
• Combat Mentality:
  • “You’ll never meet a Marine that wasn’t just itching and dying to get over there and get in a fight... because Marines don’t die. Our spirits live forever.” (59:16)
• On ROEs:
  • “It was like having your damn hands tied behind your back. You could not engage first... you had to be... declare troops in contact...” (84:58)
• K9 Handler Bond:
  • “Unlike the rest of the military working dogs… if you get assigned an SSD dog, that's your property… that dog’s going with you.” (72:44)
• Returning Home:
  • “You come back thinking you're going to go back to how it was before you left... And it's like a wake-up call, man.” (108:14)
• Advice to Young Marines:
  • “Do something that challenges yourself… there's no greater feeling on earth than when you get that [eagle, globe, and anchor] pinned on your chest.” (120:42)
• On Marine Brotherhood:
  • “If one of my buddies… call me, saying, ‘hey, man, I need you out here’… I'm shutting down my shop, putting sign on the door, and I'm gone in a couple hours.” (120:42)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and Sgt. James’s Background – 03:08–10:01
• Boot Camp, Mindset, and Leadership – 10:01–14:50
• Transformation at the Crucible – 21:05–23:39
• K9 School and 'Battle of Chaparral' – 26:41–47:21
• SSD and Deployment Prep – 51:46–54:34
• Afghanistan: First Combat Missions – 58:22–70:16
• Operational Challenges and ROEs – 84:32–86:54
• Casualties, Loss, and Survivor’s Guilt – 100:55–106:00
• Homecoming and Civilian Transition – 106:00–120:21
• Reflection, Advice, and Closing Brotherhood – 120:42–125:35

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Tone and Takeaways

The conversation is raw, direct, sometimes irreverent, and deeply authentic—true to the Marine ethos. Sgt. James’s storytelling is richly detailed, peppered with Southern humor and honesty. He openly discusses not just the thrill and pride of service, but the pain and challenges of returning home, loss, and the enduring bonds among Marines.

The episode stands as both a tribute and a firsthand history lesson, capturing the grit, the esprit de corps, and the unforgettable legacy of Marines—particularly those who have served on the front lines, both with two feet and four paws.

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Final Note

Sgt. Tommy James signs off:
“Tomorrow’s the Marine Corps 250th birthday and I just want to sign off with saying Happy Birthday Marines.” (127:40)

Transcript

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[David R. (Interviewer)]

250 years of the most aggressive, badass fighting force on the planet, the United States Marine Corps, Mr. Tommy James this week on the David R. All right, so one of the things that I learned really early on in life was the power of the Marine Corps. And that is because my best friend I grew up with, who was in five different high schools, didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, graduates, joins the Corps, goes to Parris island, turns his entire life around, and becomes one of the hardest working human beings I've ever known in my life. Now, that set the tone for me as I went in the Navy and then every opportunity that I got to work with Marines over the eight years that I was in, the time I was at Blackwater and the time that I was at the agency, every single time, they were the most hard charging, focused, dialed in guys on every opportunity, every op, every interagency op, everything I ever did, the Marine Corps was always the most gung ho. And so to honor them, to honor their stories, I had somebody, a friend of mine, an SF buddy, say, hey, we need to interview more grunts, more guys that were in the thick of it in a g wat. And so I put it out on X and I got flooded with people reaching out to me to come on and tell their stories. Well, this man today, Sergeant Tommy James, he did not reach out to me, but he was rogered up by one of his buddies because obviously him and his story and his commitment to the country had such an impact on his body that he felt like it would be an incredible opportunity from our audience, all of you, to hear Sergeant James story. So without further ado, it is a great privilege and honor to welcome you to the show, Tommy. God bless you, buddy.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Thank you, David.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Okay, here's what I want to know. Let's just start from the beginning. Describe what was the allure, what was the thing that brought you into the Marine Corps, and why the Marines?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, the way I've always looked at it, if I'm going To do something, I'm going to put in my all. And I chose the Marine Corps because everybody else says, oh, I almost joined the Marine Corps. And, and all these things, you know, are. And I didn't want to be an almost guy. You know, if I do anything, I do it to the best of my abilities. It don't matter what it is. We're cleaning the toilet, that toilet's going to be spit shine clean. It don't matter. Whatever I do, I try to do to the best of my abilities. Abilities and put in 100% every time.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Did you learn that growing up? I mean, where are you from originally?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

I was born in Oklahoma City, but we moved to Arkansas right after the federal building got bombed in 96. And that's what they used to call me in boot camp. And coming up, they always said Arkansas getting step. Yeah. Over the loudspeaker. I was a guide in boot camp and all that. I went to mcrd. Yeah. You know, because I'm west of the Mississippi. Yeah. In Arkansas. And, you know, I've had an accent my whole life, and it's just kind of followed me. And, you know, well, that's, that's what I always remember.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

I always remember the guys from Arkansas, Oklahoma, right. Mississippi, Alabama, like everybody who had those thick southern accents. It was like you were a magnet for, for the instructors, right? They just, they heard you talk and then it was, it was just pile on time.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

That's right.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

So tell me what year you went in and, and what was the reason why you wanted to join? Was it nine? It a family thing? Had people serve before you? What was the, the real catalyst that you. It was like, you know what? I'm gonna go serve my country.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

The thing for me is, my dad, he served into the army in Vietnam and all. He just, he was older dad, you know, he was born in 43. So I went in the Marine Corps in 2006, and I got out from active duty in 2011. And the biggest thing that, you know, drove me because. Was whenever I was a saint. Well, no, not whenever I was in high school. I'll never forget the day, you know, when everything stopped. The whole world stopped. And in every class they was playing, you know, the news. And for me to watch them planes, you know, you steer right into them buildings and all this, you know, I immediately wanted to do something. Of course, you know, I'd never been in Junior Junior OTC or any of that stuff like that. But I just, from that day, I just said, you know, it'd be awesome. If I could do something, you know, to help protect our country, I love it.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Now, when you decided to go into the recruiters, this, did you know right away it was the Marine Corps, or did you have. Have that little itch because your dad served in the army that you're like, oh, I'm going to keep the tradition going, or did you want to break that cycle? And it was as. As everybody always says, it was those damn uniforms that sucked me in.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, to be honest with you, I knew nothing about the military or the uniforms or anything before prior to me joining or even speaking to a recruiter, because it was. I didn't even speak to a recruiter to two or three years after I got out of high school. And so none of that really swayed it. You know, my dad would talk about it some, but he didn't, you know, he didn't just press in, you know, pressing us to join the military. You know, I have two brothers, you know, that lived and come up with me. And it's just something that I felt like, you know, I wanted to do, and if I was going to go and into any service, it was going to be the hardest one, you know? Absolutely. What?

[David R. (Interviewer)]

What? Tell me the path. So went to mcrd. Was it summer? Oh, six or fall? What. What. What period of time did you go into boot camp?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

I went to boot camp in October of 2006.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Okay.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

You know, it was getting towards winter, and we come out Blake 5. January of 07 is when we graduated. I was about two weeks in. We went to pugil sticks. And I didn't know this till after I graduated. And the drilling start to come and talk to me and my dad and said, you know, do you know why I made you the guide? And I'm like, no idea. And he said, because in bugle sticks, you kick so much ass, they had to drag you off there. I was like, I didn't even remember it, you know? Yeah. And. But that he made a big impression on me, that drill instructor that chose me to be the guide. And ironically enough, when I got back from Afghanistan and was back stateside with, had about five, six months left on my contract. I went to the golf course one day, we go to tee up. And who is it that I'm paired up with? My. My drill instructor from boot camp.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Awesome. That's so awesome.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

I immediately knew it was him. Whenever he spoke and introduced himself and said, hey, I'm, you know, so and so. And I'm like, man, that voice sounds so familiar. And then the more I looked at him, you know, about the third hole, he comes to me because I obviously made an impression on him. He said, was you one of my recruits? And I said I was, you know, because I, I didn't know where he's at in his career at that time is five years later, you know, all this. And so that was, that was pretty cool to five years down the road out of nowhere, you know, get paired up with one of my drill instructors. You know, that made a lasting impression on me. That was, that was cool to me, you know, oh my God, same for me.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

I mean, I, you know, I had, I ended up, you know, my first platoon in our sister platoon there was probably there, I think there were three guys that were instructors when I went through buds that were in that platoon. And that was really cool to see. You know, that ability to, how, how the ideas, the, the training just keeps passing down generations and, and what that means, right to, to come up in the ranks and then they have the opportunity then to give back as an instructor is such a, a powerful impact and in particular within the core. When you were in boot camp, when you were in boot camp, what were some of the things that really stood out to you in terms of the training, the attitude or the camaraderie that you felt with the, the guys going through with you?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, you know, I didn't, I didn't have a clue of what to expect before I went to boot camp. I didn't look anything up. You know, before that I never been a, an athlete or anything, you know, and I just went in blind and didn't have a clue what was coming up. But after about a month or so, I figured out, you know, that half of this stuff is mind games. You know, I would see them, we'd be, you know, marching a chow or this or that, and you know, I would see them always pull their cover off and look in their hat or in their cover and they had a schedule in there. And I figured it out real quick. You know, we're going to play some games if we're early and we got some time before we have to go to our next event. But it was slam packed. I mean, every day there was multiple things to do for 13 weeks. You know, there is never a day where we just sat around the squad bay, you know, and played the scrub brush 500. So it was always something. Every day. Before that, I'd never even shot with iron sights or anything like that. And I was lucky enough to be one be prior to where they went to ACOGs and all that. And it, it taught a lot, you know, on really good instructions on shooting and all that. You know, before I just looked through the crosshairs and, you know, that's all I knew, you know. Right. I never even shot a pistol before, which I didn't shoot a pistol to later on, but it was just deer hunting rifles and shotguns. I did a lot of duck hunting whenever I was younger and I love shooting them ducks.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Well, that's awesome. It's funny, you raw, dogged the Marine Corps like he didn't, he didn't look anything up. You didn't have any expectations. You just went in and you went in hard. And I think that's for me, what was always the amazing thing in that 13 weeks the Marine Corps produces, in my opinion, probably the greatest, the greatest basic troop. Right. Without any other training, you could take that group of young marines and you could put them into war. And that's because that training is so efficient, the mindset is so, the indoctrination is so well seated. And I think that's really what the unique aspect of it is. I want to ask you about when you were going through Marine Corps boot camp and whether or not there was this profound shift where you started to really feel like a Marine. That mentality, that devil dog emerged out of you. But before we get into that, I just want to pay some bills and really talk about one of my great sponsors I have in Patriot Mobile. Freedom has never been free. Obviously you know that as a Marine, I know that as a seal. And lately we've been reminding of just how high the cost can be. Growing violence is meant to shake us, but it only strengthens our resolve in the fact that we will never back down in terms of our dedication to this great country. And that's why Patriot Mobile exists. For over 12 years, they've been defending faith, family and our freedom while providing the same better premium network access on all three U.S. major networks. Unlimited data, mobile hotspots, international roaming, they do it all. And when you switch, you don't 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, just like we did when we went downrange. Switching is easy. Keep your number, keep your phone. Or you can upgrade. Their 100% US based customer service support team can activate you in minutes. The phone simply call 972 Patriot or visit patriot mobile.com Rutherford today use promo code RUTHERFORD R U T H E R F O R D for a free month of Service. That's patriot mobile.com rutherford or call 972 Patriot and make the switch today.

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[Sergeant Tommy James]

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[David R. (Interviewer)]

All right, Tommy, was there a time in that 13 weeks that you really kind of felt a shift? You felt that. What is it? You felt that real deep connection to becoming a Marine, right? What, did it happen quickly? Did it happen in the middle? Did it happen at the end?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, for me, it happened in the second month when we went from MCRD up to Pendleton for Crucible Week. And that was. That was just kind of the pinnacle for me. Going three days without eating, you know, and humping so many miles and miles up and down the mountains at Pendleton. You know, it was just me watching all these other people fall out, can't keep up, and I'm just like. I keep pushing, pushing, pushing. I'm on the drill instructor, but, you know, and look back and it's just strung out like a big slinky, you know, and I'm let's go. You know, and. And that's where I really got motivated. And I realized that it was. It wasn't really hard for me to stay up there and. And do things. That was real hard for a lot of the other guys. And it's almost like it was natural for me, you know, And I just. That's whenever I really knew. Whenever we completed that Crucible and got to go to the chow hall by herself, and I got more than 23 seconds to eat a meal because it's a guy, you know, you're the. You're the last person in, and as soon as the first recruit stands up, you're done. So it was many meals that I didn't even get a bite. I'd go to sit down and the first dude got up, I'd be so mad at him.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

For the audience who doesn't know it, what Tommy's talking about, as the guide, you basically keep the entire formation in step. You keep everything. Did you carry the colors?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

And so. And what everybody needs to understand is that this is one of the most historically admired positions in the history of the core. This is the guy that carries the flag, that keeps everybody in time as you march into battle, right? It's. It's. It's the. The symbolism that is attached to that. That individual is. Is. Is as deep as. As the legacy of the Marine Corps itself. And so to be able to get that honor is a really, really huge thing for. For anybody in going through boot camp. When you graduated, talk a little bit about that graduation ceremony and what. What was it like to, you know, get the globe in anchors.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Man? It was. It was awesome for me. I mean, obviously, I was the guide, so I was the only one in the whole platoon, 123 guys that got to graduate in his dress blues. So that was back before, you know, they started letting everybody wear their blues. So everybody else were in. Was in cammies. No, hold on. Charlie's. They were in Charlie's. And I was only wanting full dress blues. And I got meritoriously promoted straight out of boot camp, you know, because I was a platoon honor man as well. Wow. And being able to march, you know, on that parade deck at San Diego, was listening to the, you know, they always said, march to the. Be the drum. And it took me a long time to figure out what he was even talking about. You know, I never, you know, had to march or do anything like that. And, you know, they kept screaming, march to the beat of the drum. Getting step, Arkansas. And, you know, it was after about the fourth or fifth, I'll practice or whatever you want to call it, you know, getting ready for the, you know, the ceremony, that I actually learned what he was talking about. When that drum hit your left knee, left foot needs to be hitting the ground, you know, but me standing up there with five other Marines and doing. Retiring the guide on and all that, it was a. It was pretty good, pretty cool, pretty special, you know, and. And when I got that eagle, globe and anchor pinned on me on that day, you know, I felt like I really accomplished something. Oh, I bet. Laugh. Yeah.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

That's so cool, man. I. You know, there's just. There's so much folklore attached to the Marine Corps, right? You know, from. From, you know, all the way back to the Barbary Wars. It's funny, a buddy of mine that is a current MARSOC intel officer up at Pendleton and reservists, and when we worked together at the agency, he got a chance to be in Libya and go to where the Barbary wars, where the Marines that are still buried over there are, and he did this etching on one of the gravestones. And, you know, you look at that. You look at Bellewood, Belleau, Wood, the Devil Dogs. You look at the Battle of Tarawa, you look at Iwo Jima, you look at Khe Sanh, right? You look at Fallujah, you look at Al Ambar, right? You look at Marja push in 09, and it's continuously the core that rogers up and goes deep into the heart of the enemy's mind, right? Because you bring the fight to them. When you left boot camp, where did you go and, and how did the pride continue to build inside of you with your service?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, whenever I left boot camp, I went to three weeks of. I was basically teaching training you how to deploy because of course, we was in the middle of the fight and it was called Marine Corps training. And it was three weeks, three more weeks of additional combat training that we went to. And out of that, I went to Fort Leonard Wood for military police school, and I done nine weeks of training there. And whenever we got ready to graduate that military police school, about a week or two before they took the top 5% of the class and asked them, you know, if they want to go to K9 school to learn how to be a military working dog handler. And you had to fill out some, you know, questionnaires and stuff, basically submit application to it. And I called one of my good buddies, Rick Staggs, that, you know, I grew up with, and he went to the Marine Corps about a year ahead of me. And he was a military police officer too, but he was a field mp. He got to deploy to Iraq immediately after he got out of MP school almost. So he already had deployment under his belt. And I call him up, he's at Lejeune. And I said, hey man, they're asking if I want to go to K9 school. What I tell him? He said, hell yeah, you do. He said, them dudes In Iraq, the K9 had it made. They got, got an air conditioned hut when they back on base and everything else. And we're out here sleeping under these tents. And I said, you want to be a K9 handler? You know, so I was like, okay, well, I'm going to submit a package and see where it goes. So I left for Leonard Wood and went to San Diego at Lackland Air Force Base. And I had another three and a half months of training there, you know, a military working dog school. And it was crazy to me when, when I got there, it took about three to four weeks before I even get picked up in a class. And so we're just sitting in the barracks doing, you know, whatever the local staff wants us to do just doing crap work and all. Yeah. And finally get picked up. And there's like three or four Marines in the class. But it's mixed services. You know, we got Air Force, Navy, army and Marines. But the Marine Corps was the only service where a Marine can come straight through out of his training and go to K9 school. Every other service, Army, Navy and Air Force, you had to do a full, you know, enlistment of four years. And then, then you could request that as kind of like a B billet is what we called in Marine Corps. You could request a B bill and come to K9 school. But Marines were the only service that could go straight through because obviously we were a different breed, you know, so.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Well, your, your military bearing is definitely. I, I should say your military bearing when you're not on leave is exceptional.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

That's right.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

So. All right, so you're in canine school. You go through that, you graduate. What happened next?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, straight out of K9 school, I get orders to Quantico, Virginia. So I go to. Oh, well, I get a couple days leave, go home and actually see, that was one of the things that my recruiter straight up lied to me about. You know, whenever he got me to sign that five year contract, I was like, hey, you know, am I going to be able to have my vehicle? And they said, oh, yeah, man, you got like a, a year training. You know, you can take your motorcycle, your vehicle and all that straight up there with you. And of course, you know, I figured out real quick that he was full of. So I come back home and I actually get my, my motorcycle and my truck and move to Quan. Quantico, Virginia. And that place was awesome because we got to do a lot of training on the west side of base with the FBI and CIA and. And we're in the middle of everything up there, you know. Yeah, that base was so, so big. And, you know, we just. Every week it was something else. You know, the FBI guys and the CI guys, they was always calling, you know, trying to coordinate training activities and stuff together. So I got to do a lot of that, which a lot of other Marines, you know, wouldn't. Never got to experience, you know, unless they were stationed at Quantico and was in certain groups, you know, that they always wanted to train with the dogs. And when I got assigned there, when I first showed up, it was me and a buddy of mine, Mendoza, Joseph Miznoza. He's a master sergeant now. He stayed in. And last I seen, he was in Hawaii, stationed. There was one One of the other guys that was stationed with us in Quantico, we show up there, we go to PMO and was like, you know, what do we do? And they, they said, well, there's only one open dog. Because another buddy that, well, another guy that became a buddy of mine, Sergeant Paldino, he was getting out and it was this 130 pound check shepherd that had like 32 unauthorized bites, you know, you know, he would just fight and attack out of nowhere and you know, just this dude had massive paws and everything else. They're like, he's the only open dog and otherwise you're going to have to go to PMO and go to the road. And I was like, well, hell, I'll handle him. I don't want to go, I don't want to be a regular cop, you know, I'm going, I want to, you know, be on lease straight, you know, right off the bat. Yeah. And me and Donnie Paldino got together and you know, and he's told me, you know, what he does and you know, what to watch for and this and that because that's something. He was smart too. I'm talking a straight up Houdini. The first week I handled him, he broke out of his kennel and come into the office and cleared the whole some out. But I mean there were people staying on top of desk. He's like, get your dog, get your dog. And he just come to the desk I was sitting at and crawled up under my feet and laid down, you know, because Donnie's like, man, you're going to have to put in some, a lot of extra time and work, you know, to gain trust. Yeah. So he, one of the other things with handling Santo, he was non deployable because he had hip dysplasia and he was already an old dog. It was Santo Echo 050. He's actually in the Marine Corps Museum now. No, because I remember when we first got there, they was, you know, just putting all that stuff together and whenever I got out or whenever I PCs, nobody else would handle them, you know.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Yeah.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

So there's only, you know, in that case, you know, if nobody, nobody wants to adopt the dog whenever he gets ready to retire, you know, the only other option is he gets euthanized. Right. So my kennel master there, you know, reached out to the Marine Corps museum and asked them, you know, if they wanted him to be in there. So that was a. And I didn't know that till years later, you know, but about a year into my stay there at Quantico. Another school come up, another training opportunity, and it was called Specialized Search Dog School. It was six months of training and I got to go back down to San Diego or not. I mean, San Antonio to Lackland. So another six weeks at Lackland, and of course, this time I'm out of the fleet and I could stay at the, you know, the hotel there and, you know, have my own vehicle. And, you know, it was a straight up party, dude.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

I did my. I did my paramedic refresher time in San Antonio for three months. And I'll tell you what, that place is. Is definitely a lot of fun.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Oh, yeah, a lot, A lot of fun. A lot of good memories there. And so the, the reason why I wanted to go there, because I was non deployable handling Santos, and we only had six dogs there at Quantico. So you wasn't getting, you know, them dogs were like equipment. You know, they was a number. You just didn't get a new dog unless something happened. You know, he died or retired, something happened, you wouldn't go get new dogs. So the chances me deploying was zero. So that's why when that other school came up, you know, I was like, hell, yeah, I want to do that. You know, And I knew that I'd be put in the field. Then whenever I got through with that training, I would PCs to either lagoon or Okanawa or Pendleton and be in a deployable unit. And that's what made it so.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

So.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Good for me going, is I knew that there was no way I wasn't gonna get to get in a fight. After I got done with that, of course, I had no idea what SSD Dogs was. Whenever they asked if you want to go the course, you know, I just, I asked a couple buddies of mine and, you know, and figured it out, and I was like, yeah, yeah, you want to do that? Because you're gonna go to a field unit and, you know, you're gonna get in a fight and go get something. So I done that six months there, San Antonio, came back, and it wasn't even 10 days after I went back to Quantico. I already had orders to Pendleton. Oh, wow. So that was a 3,000 mile journey from Quantico, Virginia to Camp Pendleton, California.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Yeah, I made that one a few times myself.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Yeah, yeah, that's not something you could do in, in, you know, more than. In less than three days, in my opinion. Yeah.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

All right, so you, you go back out to Pendleton. What unit did you go with? And then what was your job at that moment and where. Where. What timeline were you on? What, what. What year was it? What month was it? Where was the g wat in Iraq and Afghanistan at that time?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

So I show up to Pendleton and December of oh, eight. And so I'm a couple years in, you know, and I'd already picked up corporal whenever I was in SSD school because. And it was one of the things that the mother guys couldn't believe is like, can he pick up, you know, corporal, can he be an NCO and training? And, you know, it was cool that I had a cousin that was one of the instructors there that I didn't even know was a cousin until I went back. And, you know, his. He. He was a Corporal James. Well, he was there in the first deployment or first time I went. That's when I first found out about him because a lot of the other guys was giving them shit, saying, you know, who's this other James? And he calls his mom and puts her on the phone and starts to ask me, are you related to this guy? This guy and this guy? And I'm just like, yes, no, yes, no. And then she's just like, yeah, we're can. So, of course, you know, my first three months there in that military worker dog school, you know, we talk and, you know, a little bit, but I'm straight, I'm fresh, you know, I'm still a boot to them, you know, so, you know, he doesn't give me any special treatments, you know, but we get to know each other a little bit. And there's another exciting moment that happened in that first three months. They called it the Battle of Chaparral. And it was, you know, we had about 23 Marines in CA between canine school and correction school, because corrections went there too. And we was that first military working dog school. It was. It was like the rest of the training before, you know, we were still treated like, you know, not recruits, but we'd march to the chow hall on Thursdays, you know, and hhow, and then come back, did field day and all that, you know, it was still strict. You couldn't have vehicles, you know, no liberty, all face, you know, on the weekends, that kind of stuff. But it start. The tension started building up. Going to chow is they. Is like a DLC or how. It was a bunch of army folks that would join the military, but if they didn't know English, they'd send them to Lackland so they can learn English and all that. And it's like 140 of them. Wow. And we're Marching to chow every week, and the tension just starts rising because they get real close to our ranks and, you know, one time they cut us off. And the master guns, it was at Lackland at the time was the. The most senior enlisted gun. Master guns in the Marine Corps. Wow. So he's salty. You know, I was in his office one day and he was dipping and he was spitting in his coffee cup, and it was a morning, and I see him, you know, I was like, well, maybe that's just a spitter. So I see him go over to the trash can and he dumps that dip spit out and then puts it under the coffee pot and gets a cup of coffee and, you know, goes to drinking this hardcore salty. Man, that is salt.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

That's pure salt. That's awesome.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

You know, I've never seen somebody do that stuff before. You know, I took an accidental, you know, sip of dip spit before and turned green on. Puke my guts out. Yeah. And this dude just pouring it out in the trash can and, you know, pouring straight black coffee in there, you know, and, you know, he's. He's hard, you know, and this stuff starts building up, and finally master gun shows up. And it gets through the detachment there. You know, it's just about nine or ten staff Marines station there, you know, and then just the training personnel, and they see it building up. And so master guns comes with us and marches to chow. And they gave us a little pep talk before we went, said, hey, you know, if they try to march in our ranks or anything, you know, this is the day we're going to let them know it ain't happening. We're Marines. And so we go to chow, you know, everything's fine. On the way there, we don't see him. But when we're marching back to the barracks, coming back, here they are, we're, you know, getting ready to turn, make a column right onto the little boulevard and march back to our barracks. And they're in a column left, and I'm up front, you know, calling cadence and all, because of course, we had every. You know, you had to have guides that marched them. The Marine, the instructors and stuff, they didn't do that. You know, they always had somebody assigned to do that. And they march into our ranks and they got about one person deep. And I yelled, fall out. And it was a huge battle, dude. We go to swing in and kick in, and it was crazy. You know, people like master Guns was over there, just kept tapping on his shoulders, you know, dodging blows and everything. And Then, you know, the instructors are trying to stay out of the fight, you know, with 23 Marines out against over 100 of them. And there ended up being a. A plaque made behind that. And they called, you know, PMO, and K9 Marines showed up, the Air Force, K9 guys. And we're just laughing like, yeah, send your dog on me. You know, I'll call them off, you know. Yeah, they didn't know that we were canine Marines and stuff.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Oh, my gosh.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

It was a huge thing, man. We took their guide on, you know, and everything. And, man, there was 58 of them that went to the hospital.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Oh, my God.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Yeah. And about. I think we had two female Marines, and both of them went to the hospital, but that was it. Out of 23 Marines and all them. And of course, there's a big investigation behind all that. And about, I don't know, four or five days later, I'm in training, and here comes cid. They picked me up, and I'm just like, you know, why are they picking me up? So we get down there and they start, you know, question me and all this. And there's like, we had 14 guys positively identify you as the one, you know, that hit them. And I was just like, so I'm the only one? And they're just like, yeah. I was like, well, what. I mean, how did they identify me? And it was like, off your DOD id, You know, my cat card. You know, I was like, wow, really? And so I'm in there for a couple hours, and here comes Master Guns. He shows up in there. And I'm thinking, oh, my ass is. Yes.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Yeah.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

You know, this. This ain't gonna be good. You know, why did. Why did not, you know, one of my instructors or something show up? Why? It goes straight to the top. Master Guns is here, and he pulls me aside and he's like, look, son, don't worry about it. I got it. And I was just like, sir, I'm going to take responsibility for my actions. You know, what happens, happens. You know, and he's just like, there's nothing going to happen to you. I promise you that. And that next day, you know, we always had a weekend safety brief. And this is a. I got arrested on the fourth day that after. Well, no, about the sixth day, because it was from Thursday. We're on to the next Thursday. So it's been a week. Whenever they come, you know, and detain me. I didn't get arrested. Well, no, they did put me in cuffs. But anyhow, the next phone up Friday Commandant of the Marine Corps there and the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps show up to Lackland because he wants to talk to this group of Marines. Because the word spread like wildfire of that battle, you know, that happened. There was blood everywhere. You know, people was on the balconies of the Gateway in, you know, videoing and, you know, yelling stuff. It was. It was pretty entertaining. And word got around, and in the fleet units, they were telling our story, you know, on the weekend safety briefs, about, you know, how 23 Marines fought 140 or something. So army guys and commandant and Sergeant Major, Marine Corps show up, and, you know, he. They want to talk to me and a couple other guides, you know, that was in the unit and everything. And he gives me a challenge coin and all that, you know. Know, man, y' all are, you know, motivating and glad, you know, the Spree decor is high right now and all that. And Master Guns ended up retiring behind that. Oh, wow. They wanted me to go down, and he. He looked out for me, and he. He basically saved my career. Wow. You know, and he ended up retiring, and the. Of course, I'd already graduated. I wasn't far from graduating when all that went down. And they present some of the other instructors that was still there. They had a list of all the Marines on a little plaque, and they had that pike from the guide on that we took from them, and they mounted that on there and said the battle sapper out. And in his retirement, they presented that to him.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

And I didn't. You know, of course, I had no clue any of this happened until I went back over a year later for SSD school. And I'm. I walk in the barracks and look and see this plaque, and I read it, and you. Of course, my name is plastered up there, PFC James at the time. And I was like, holy. I didn't have a clue. Then I asked my cousin because he was still there, and I called him, like, chris, dude, tell me about this plaque, dude. What's up with that? You know, he told me the whole story, and that was pretty cool, you know, for me to show up a year, year and a half later and be able to tell them guys, you know, that was their, you know, green, you know, coming straight. Straight out of boot camp and all, you know, that's me. And tell the story. That was a. That was pretty rewarding down the road.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

You know, that's like the pinnacle of the Marine Corps, right? It's like. It's like you're Going to do everything just hard as you can, right? You're going to defend the, the core, the unit at every, at every stage, right. Whether it's against, you know, meatheads going out drinking on the weekends or it's, you know, it's other units that are trying to, you know, flex on you. It's just, it's the mentality of the core. It's that camaraderie, that brotherhood that, that can't be broken no matter what. And I, you know, that, that just falls in line with, I think, the great allure of the core, right. That's why people have such profound respect for it because they know that they, you all stick together no matter what. After you finished that, when was your first deployment overseas?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

So we finished, finished that and I get PCs to pendant and then in June of 2010 is whenever I actually. Well, that was my first combat deployment. Prior to that, like when I was at Quantico and all with me being there with non deployable dogs. I got to do a lot of work with potus. So yeah, sos, I got to do a lot of missions, work with the Secret Service and stuff. We covered the G20 summit, we covered. When Bush went to Africa. He went to four different countries. Liberia, Tanzania, Ghana and one other one, maybe Liberia or something. And you know, so I got to do a lot of TAD stuff like that, you know, for a couple weeks at a time. They'd always pull me up and, and you know, we had HMX there, which was headquarters of Marine Corps Battalion. They had their own dogs and they got to do the local D.C. stuff, you know, searching compounds and buildings, you know, around D.C. wherever POTUS was going or VIPs, period, you know, so I got to do a lot of that stuff. And that was cool, you know, being able to work with the, the Secret Service and all that, you know, that was awesome. You know, I gained a lot of respect for them guys and of course, you know, they always loved it when that a Marine showed up, you know, to work with them because I didn't know it before then, but probably over 50% of the secret Service is former Marine Corps.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

That's right. Yeah.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

You know, so, you know, they get it. They know, you know, right off the bat, it's instant connection whenever you show up and, and they're there. So fast forward, I'm in Pendleton now. I'm there for, I'm a corporal when I show up and they immediately give me my own, I guess you could call it a fire team or whatever. I get you know, six to eight guys, I'm over and we're, we start training. And the longer I'm there, the bigger my leadership role gets. And I worked all the way up to chief trainer there. And so I'm training 60 dogs, getting ready for deployment, and we're taking the best 30. You know, we only deploy half the platoon at a time. So that was something else that was way different at Pendleton. You know, I go from eight dogs in Quantico and show up at pendleton and there's 60 dogs there, there.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Wow.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

So it's a lot more going on. And every day you're gonna put them dogs on odor, do some basic obedience, do bite work. You know, there's, there's multiple different K9 units within the Marine Corps. You know, you got your regular patrol dogs that are on the PMO and patrol with the guys that wear badges and guard the gate and all that. And you have, have explosive and narcotic dogs in that them units. You know, then you. Then we had another unit that just come up as I was coming up through the ranks. It was combat trackers. And these dogs were trained to track personnel and, and bite at the end of it. You know, it was a lot of bite work and stuff in that and a lot of tracking and that kind of stuff. And then. And as I was coming up, SSD wasn't even a thing whenever I was in K9 school the first time. And they was few and far between because SSD dogs were specialized search dogs and they were mainly Belgian malaws. We had a couple labs here and there and very few shepherds because. And we did all our training off leash. So when we got, when I got to Pendleton, we had just a hand. Well, several of the guys that come out of the same training that I went through, Lackland or. Yeah, Lackland was there with me. And there was like 23 specialized search dogs handlers in the whole Marine Corps. So they were very few and far between. And the SSD guys was kind of the high speed, low dragon guys. You know, we, we got attached with, you know, the SEALs and the recon guys and, you know, Force recon, all that. You know, they always put us with, you know, the SS basically, you know, MARSOC wasn't really, it was just coming around back then. And they didn't have any, any of their own dogs. Me and another buddy of mine, William Sucher, we kind of spearheaded that, that. Matter of fact, he's a, he got awarded the Navy Cross. Oh, wow. Over there. Billy Suture they called him. He was working with that. I believe that was the first time that we had K9 actual Marine Corps dog handlers attached with Marsite guys. Wow. And he was working with them and you know, he showed out one day and you know, basically doing the same stuff that we do every time we're in a fight. But, but one of the brass put him up and you know, he got awarded and I was really proud of him for that, you know. That was awesome. That's amazing.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Yeah, that's, that's, that honors just people. It's extreme. And to be able to, you know, serve your country at that level, man is just a whole nother, a whole nother level of courage right in the.

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[Sergeant Tommy James]

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[David R. (Interviewer)]

So you, you, you train, you're at, you're at this elite level of the dogs. You're, you're working with a bunch of guys. When did you find out you were going to Afghanistan? And, and because I, you got there in 10. And so the big margin push had happened, you know what, the fall of 2009 into 2010, that's when what, Kyle Carpenter got hit. And during all that time, I was actually in south central Afghanistan working for the agency and just listening to the daily reports of all the marines in Marja just getting lit up, doing daylight overt patrols. You know, when ROEs that are basically, you know, hand tying you guys from actively engaging the enemy. What was that like? Like knowing you're going into that environment.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, you know, it's, and I don't know why it is, but you'll never meet a marine that wasn't just itching and dying to get over there and get in a fight. You know, a lot of people ask me, you know, even since I've been out, you know, man, Was you scared? You know, was you. Were you afraid of dying? And I said, absolutely not. There's like, what do you mean you wasn't afraid? I said, because Marines don't die. Our spirits live forever. You know, it's always gonna be stories told, you know, about these legendary Marines and, you know, what they did, and it just. That's that esprit de corps, you know, your legacy lives forever, you know, and stuff like that, you know, and you just, you know, whenever stuff popped off, you know, everybody else would retreat, you know, of course, Marines were running toward the sound of fire, you know, so that was. That was always, you know, kept me motivated and everything like that, doing that. But come showing up. We get there around the 1st of June, and of course, you know, well, for y', all probably didn't have to do it. But almost every other Marine that shows up to Afghanistan, you get two weeks of, oh, it's getting used to the heat and all that kind of stuff. I forget what they call it, but. And about the week and a half in, they tell us, you know, because we show up there with 30 dog teams, and then we get separated out. We're IAS on different units all over, you know, so your individual augmentees with different, you know, units. And, you know, our senior leadership would always, you know, put the, you know, certain guys with certain, you know, units, you know, that he knew they would, you know, excel in. So about a week and a half into being in Afghanistan, I find out that I'm going to be attached with 1st Recon Battalion, and they're out of Penson, too. And so we go up there, and I'm kind of one of the leaders now. You haven't trained all these Marines, you know, to come up and all that. So I'm one of the. The spokespersons, you may say. I. I would always go around to different units and, you know, familiarize ourselves and introduce, you know, and let them know, hey, you know, we're force multipliers here. Here to help, you know, where do y' all need us the most? And they put us. Put me with Force Recon. They had. They still had a Force Recon Battalion because they'd cut them out there for a little bit, and they brought them back, you know, and that. I'm pretty sure that was the last deployment that a force company got to deploy. And then after that, they was, you know, like, whenever I got back from Afghanistan, I was being forced to join marsoc, and they were trying to force all the other guys, you know, the Force Recon guys, they was, you know, trying to force them to just join marsoc. They was kind of trying to downsize the Marine Corps, you know, at that time. And, you know, you had to meet certain requirements to be able to reenlist and stay in and all that. That. But they put me with Force Company and my first day out in the, in, in the fight was June 16th. So I'm about two weeks in and, you know, I meet these guys and you know, when I show up to meet these guys, it was kind of different because I show up there and I'm not Sergeant James when I get there. You know, I'm just Tommy and. Yeah, and you know, the, the captain and all that, he's not, you know, sir this or that, you know, he's just John. Yeah. And these, this 24 guys and first name basis and, you know, that was awesome. You know, being, being there with these guys. We had, I think like 12 or 13 snipers in the platoon.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Wow.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

You know, it was a, it was a stacked, stacked group of guys, you know, and first day in, we show up, we're, we are what spearheaded what they called Operation New Dawn. And it's a little different. They had Operation New dawn in Iraq that I later, you know, found out about. And we were the Operation New Dawn. That's what they called our first mission out. You know, for the first time we went out, we stayed out in the fields for 30 days. You know, we moved every four days. We would just go take these compounds. You know, four o' clock in the morning, our hands were tied. We couldn't, you know, do many hard knocks and none of that. Wasn't able to do a lot of that high speed, low drag stuff that recon guys and stuff get to do. We were just, you know, trying to do what we can. Every four days we're moving compounds and we couldn't knock on their doors to 4 o' clock in the morning. You know, we'd wake them up and it, it was so crazy. We're in a country with no electricity, no running water, living in mud huts, and three hours after we knock on somebody's door, the Taliban is knows we're there and we're in a tick. You know, it's just crazy. They had these dagum no kias like they come out with in the early 2, 2000s, and that was their new phones. And how they had cell phone service over there still blows my mind, you know, that they had cell phone service, you know, to be able to communicate, but we didn't have running water, none of that crap, you know. So first day in we're supposed to, we went there and get briefed. They're like we're going to set up the snap VCP on this main route that a lot of the high ranking Taliban officials are using. So we show up there, we insert about 3 o' clock in the morning and kilo insert and we go set up our VCP point. And basically we had one irrigation ditch. It was about, I don't know, 8 foot wide, probably 10 foot deep, but it's just, it's not deep in water so. And there's a little burn there. And later find out that we're the ones that dug all the mirror gas and ditches in the 80s there and for them to you know, be able to farm and stuff. So we're on the banks of this irrigation ditch, kind of spread out and the captain and guns, the Gunnery Sergeant Moss, I believe he just got out, Brian Moss, he's, he was the gunny in my force Recon group of guys. And they're the ones that's up there, you know, actually stopping the people. And we're thinking we're gonna have a bunch of people come through here and you know, gonna be able to talk to them. They had to turf with them, you know, to all that. And this dude rides up on a moped about 20 minutes after daylight and they talk to him and of course you know, he says he's nothing and blah blah blah and he drives off. And not even 10 minutes after that that we're in a tick. Yeah, now we're surrounded. We figure out real quick that they got snipers set up in every location. How they get intel that we're going to show up in these places is crazy to me. You know, you can't like everybody over there, you, you don't know who's Taliban and, and who's not. You know, they all wear the same clothes, you know, and you're just no telling telling them apart. You know, it's not like fighting an enemy like another military unit, you know, because they're all wearing man dresses and you know, they may might have an EK under the man dress or AK under the man dress or not, who knows, you know. So first day in we get pinned down by these snipers and it's all day affair, dude. We're just on these, you know, irrigation dishes. We're calling in air support. We didn't get air support to around child time, you know, 12 o' clock before we got Our first air support. And so they, you know, come showed up dropping hellfire and you know, took out a couple of the, the snipers. And then there's this other little half of a mud hut. It had about three foot walls on it behind the irrigation ditch that we was pinned down on. You know, all our guys were spread out out along that ditch on both sides of them. And captain comes on the radio and it's like, hey James, can you go clear that, that compound so we can get some better cover and you know, reassess, you know, our situation, all that. So it was pretty sweet. I, I got to send my dog, you know, that was one of the high speed, low drag things. I could send my dog off lease we're 99 of the other dog handlers in all the military are on a six foot leash or 30. 30 foot retractable leash. Yeah, you know, my, all my work's off drag. My dog has radios on her. You know, I got the mic and I'm, you know, little microphone, I'm, I'm giving her commands, you know, over her radios and have her search that whole thing. And you know, I, all I had was a little about 10 foot opening that I sent her in and I had her, you know, kind of cross that, you know, several times smelling and you know, searching for explosives. And then I send her, you know, she knows my specialized search dogs, know directions and everything. So I could stop her, send her left, send her right, send her forward, bring her back. You know, that was what made a specialized search dog so elite. And you know, that was no other military working dogs done that, you know, only the specialized search dogs. So, so I cleared it and then, you know, I ran out, run out there and I got a spotter everywhere. With being a dog handler, I'm going to have a spotter because my eyes are, you know, obviously on the dog watching right here and all that. And I always have a guy, you know, right beside me that he's my eyes and ears, you know. So me and my spotter go and you know, actually enter the compound and, and by, by around time, sun's going down, you know, the rest of the platoon finally made movement over there and then we regrouped and so it's an all day affair. You know, that day one, you know.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Day one, yeah, not even like warm up, shake out, nothing right into it.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

You know, straight into it. You know, we, we do several little recon things. They, you know, about the middle of the day they, they asked me, they hey James, you think you can go clear us a route to these compounds over here to the south, and so we can, you know, take the fight to them. And so me and three other Marines were walking down this ditch, you know, searching. I'm with the dog, I'm searching this and that. And you know, we did that and then come back and of course it's 140 degrees up there. People don't understand.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

People have no. Can't even fathom the heat. It's out of control.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Oh, man. Crazy.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

How did you keep the dog engaged in that level heat?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, I carried double the water from everybody else, of course. You know, I carried my whole load, my whole gear list, just like the rest of platoon. And I had to carry all her food and all her water with me as well. So we got allotted. I got one gallon a day and she got one gallon a day. And so I just. The Marine Corps dog handlers that we get so much training, man, like leading up to the deployment, you know, we're basically vet techs. When we get ready to pull, you know, we get a lot of training with the vets. We get to work with a lot of other agencies. All the three letter guys, you know, we work with, you know, all them dudes, they put us on HME when we on our pre deployment training, you know, work with ATF out there. Yuma, Arizona, you know, they had Mount Towns and all that set up there, which, that's another, you know, hell hole, you know. But yeah, they, they teach us, they train us, you know, to learn the signs, you know, all three of the signs of, you know, heat exhaustion, heat stroke and heat, or heat stress and heat stroke, you know, in our dog and be able to tell, you know, when they're getting too hot. And you know, that's what, that's one of the biggest reasons why the first two weeks when you get there, they make us acclimate to the weather. Yeah. So for two weeks we had to just do basic obedience out in the weather. Full gear, dogs, and full gear. And for the first two weeks you get your dog acclimated to the weather over there. And over time, you know, they get used to it, you know, and are able to withstand the heat.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

What was the name of your dog and how long had you been operating with that dog prior to leaving?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

So whenever I show up to Pendleton, I have a dog named Meki that I is a little low, about 55, 60 pound Belgian male that I trained. It was the. When we're in SSD school, you get assigned two dogs when you show up there and you're training two dogs the whole time you're there, you know, and then at the end of the training, the best dog out of the two gets assigned to you. And, and unlike the rest of the military working dogs, if you get assigned an SSD dog, that's your property. You know, if you PCs to Pendleton, she's going with you. You move to, you know, Lejeune, that dog's going with you. No other dog handlers in any of the military for that, you know, for, you know, know, for that, you know, nobody else. Like when you go to a base, you just got assigned a dog at that base and that dog lived at that base its whole life except for the specialized search dogs, you know, because it took so much more rapport to, you know, train them dogs. So I show up with Mickey and there's another guy there, Chris Beatty, he was one of the few Israel SSD handlers, they sent some select guys over there, there to Tel Aviv and instead of going to Lackland for their six weeks to train and they went to Tel Aviv and got to work with the Israeli guys, you know, on specialized work dogs, search dogs, and they got to, you know, learn the real training, you know, over there. They, their hands wasn't tied by the moms of America, you know, like it was in the fleet everywhere else. They got to really train a dog. They didn't ask a dog to do something, they told it, you know, and, and they was going to learn it one way or another, you know, but so I show up there with Mey and he's an okay dog, but he's just not great. You know, he was green when I got him and Staff Sergeant Beatty was get in the process of getting out. And so there's only so many SSD handlers at each, you know, each base. And so I get assigned with Rona Kilo, 4, 5, 8. That was my dog, her name was Rona. She's about a 55, 60 pound Belgian Malawa. She'd already been on two deployments to Iraq with Beatty. So she was, she was teaching me a lot of stuff because whenever we showed up on base, you know, when we're, we was in Lackland, we couldn't use, you know, e collars and a lot of that stuff. You know, you had to, you know, food rewards and high praise stuff, training. But when we showed up to sleep, you know, that's when the training really started. Right, right. You know, so I get assigned with Rona about a month or two after I get to Penton, and that's when we start building our rapport and getting ready for the deployment. It. So that was. Go ahead.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

All right, all right. So you're, You're. You get in. Go in country, get attached to that 4th Platoon, day one. It's kinetic. You're getting into it. Did it maintain that pace that time, that. That, that level of engagement through your whole deployment?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, the whole time I was with Force Company at the end. You know, we stayed out that first time. Of course, you know, Force, they would always put us in the hottest places and stuff like that. You know, we was. We were lucky for that because we got to stay in the fight. I mean, every day it was multiple ticks. You know, you always know he's going to get in a tick and then, you know, there'd be a break where they would pray, you know, 13 times a day or whatever, you know, and then after they got through, you know, it starts again. You know, it starts with small arms and all that. And, yeah, so he was out for about 30 days the first time. And of course, you know, none of us shaved and all that. So whenever I show back up to Camp Leatherneck, and I didn't know it at the time, I show up in country as a corporal and the first, we stay out for 30 days, and then I go back to the. The Camp Leatherneck, to our kennels there that was set up at Leatherneck. And everybody thinks I'm a turp at first because I'm full beard, you know, hair, you know, grown out for 30 days. You know, they're just like. Some of the guys just looking at me like, what's this Turk doing in our kennels? You know? And then some of the guys was, you know, call. Calling me sergeant once they figured out, you know, who I was, you know, they started calling me Sergeant James. I was like, what the hell was. You know, I've been promoted that I know of. You know, at that time, you know, you only got promoted by composite scores. And, you know, they had the level so high, you know, they wasn't looking to promote many, you know, corporals to sergeant. Right. Finally I figured out, you know, I asked Willie, I said, hey, you know, why some of these guys, you know, calling me sergeant? You know, Willie was a staff sergeant. That was the kennel master that deployed with us. Us. And we were, you know, good buddies by this time. And, like, what's going on? He's just like, oh, you hadn't heard? I'm like, no, he's like, man, you got meritoriously promoted. He said, you need to go down to the meth and take a promotion picture. And I was like, what? I was like, well, can I go just like this? They're like, you know, you can't, dude. You got to shave and, you know, go get a haircut and all that, you know, I was like, man, that'd be so awesome if I got to take a promotion pitch. Dick, full beard, you know, and they wouldn't let me do that. That's so.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Yeah, something similar happened to me too. My summer O2, my first trip to Afghanistan, my only combat deployment in the teams. And, and we got like this unsung hero thing. We went and met the general from SOCOM and, and you know, I was at SEAL Team 1 and they call it no Fun One and, and you know, I had had. The beard was out to here, the hair was long, you know, and they looked at us, they're like, go get your starch cammies on. Shave your face, cut your hair. And. And we showed up and it was funny. Every other unit, the SF unit that was getting recognized, the two guys, you know, long hair, beards, the, the mars was a force guys, they look, you know, they, they were out and doing it. And then the, The Air Force JTAC guys that had been there for like nine months had like ZZ top beards. They were wearing cut off BDU's and like TAs. And I'm like, this sucks, man. But I, I feel you when you got to get. You got your good combat flow going and, and you got to get all trimmed up, man. That's funny.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Yeah. Yeah, that was, you know, whenever I first got back, you know, of course I hadn't had a shower in over a month, you know. Yeah, a lot of people don't understand, you know, when you deploy, you know, there's not just bathrooms and shower huts everywhere. You know, when you're a Marine, you know, Marines are out in the field the whole time. You know, we don't get none of that luxury of coming back to a big bob every day, you know, and being able to take a shower and all that. So. But I got squared away and, you know, then held all the guys with force that, you know, figured it out already. Him before I even knew about it, you know, and, and so there's like, hey man, let me come to your ceremony and all that. And so we did all that crap. It was cool. And that's cool. That's really. Yeah. Going back out the second time you Know, we. We didn't hilo insert the second time we took VIX out. And I don't know why we took VIX out, because once we got to that little fob that we was. Was going to, we parked them there and we never got in the sun again, you know, so I'm thinking, why do we even drag these out here and have to, you know, deal with all this, you know, if we're not going to actually use them, you know, but that's the Marine Corps for you. If it makes sense, we're going to do the complete opposite.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Just to keep you honest, just to keep you hard, right.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

They're gonna keep you on your toes, you know, every time you left, left, you know, whatever little PB you were at, you know, or little compound you're at. Them irrigation ditches was everywhere over there. You know, we're in Hellman province, so we're almost in the middle of the country, and these, these irrigation ditches are everywhere. So as soon as you leave, your feet are getting wet. Because, of course, we don't travel over bridges or walkways or nothing. We're going, you know, try to jump these ditches, which was hell wearing nods and especially when you got a dog attached to you. Oh, every time I was ready to jump, she wasn't, and vice versa. And I woke up in the middle of the ditch most of the times all out on my hands and knees. Yeah, you know, it was because you could never judge the distance. I'm thinking, you know, when you first walk up to it, I'm, well, man, this ditch is only a foot and a half, two foot wide. I'm just going to jump it, you know, and you go to jump it, and you realize when you're about six foot across that you're not at the other side. You're in the bottom now, and feet sweat every time. 30 minutes leaving, feet are soaking wet. So you're wet feet, you know, hold that gum, you know, patrol. And then coming back, of course you're gonna get your feet wet, you know, right before you go back in.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

That's right.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

That was every day, you know, so it's. It's miserable. You know, you're only carrying, you know, a couple pairs of cammies in your, you know, rucksack, and then, you know, as many socks as you can stuff in there, you know, six, seven, eight pairs. And, you know, that was a. Just part of it, you know, And I always had, you know, 50 pounds on average, extra weight on top of me because, you know, of Course I got to carry my dog's food, my dog's water, and, you know, the same gear list as all the rest of the guys. Of course, you know, they spread out, you know, the stuff for the Barrett and all that. So I might have two or three mags in my rug too, you know, and, you know, we always get spread out the load, you know. So.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

How long, how long did that. Did you go out? Another 30 days on that second.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

It was about 45 days that second go around. Wow. And we had a. It wasn't near as kinetic as the first push we went out, but, you know, it was still, you know, we got at least one to two ticks a day. You know, it was always, you know, something every day. And we done all our movement at night. We done very few patrols during the day. We would always patrol at night and do, you know, or knocks, our soft knocks, you know, four o' clock in the morning, they had our hands tied. We couldn't just, just rush in. You know, we did get to do a couple hard knocks. That was sweet. You know, that was when the real fun, you know, went down. You know, it's nothing like doing a, you know, hard knock going in, you know, two o' clock in the morning. They don't expect it, you know. Right. You know, just, you know, you got the element of surprise at that point. You know, the, the rest of the time, you know, they, they see it coming, they expect it, you know, because they always knew where we were at that, you know, two or three hours after we showed up, if not sooner, who knows? Yeah.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

What was the feeling, what was the feeling in, in the core during that time with those roes? Why was there frustration? Now, obviously, because you're, with force, you're, you're getting to move at night. You don't have to do over daylight stuff. You know, what, what was the greater sense within the core about how constraining the ROE were and, and was. What was that mood like throughout?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Man, it, it was like having your damn hands tied behind your back. You could not engage first that, you know, you had to be, you know, declare troops in contact before we can even engage the enemy. You don't know who's who, so we're just out there on our, you know, toes and, you know, heads on a swivel the whole time because, you know, you don't know who's who everywhere there and was, you know, it was frustrating a lot of times, you know, we would look and, you know, get this intel, you know, intel would Come in headquarters. You know, it's like, hey, y' all need to go check this out, this and this. But of course, you know, you can't engage, you know, going in the door, you know, they have to engage you, you know, and the crazy thing about me, you know, I, I off point my whole deployment, you know, know, everywhere we go, no discrepancy on where I'm at, I'm going to be point man, you know, so, of course, you know, that didn't bother me. That's what I was trained to do, and that's what I wanted to do. And so anytime you was point man, especially with Ko K9, you had a bigger target on your head, you know. Absolutely. I was the one walking around with a target, and anytime we got into a ticket, sick, you know, the bullets was always flying at me first, you know, because they realize, you know, if I got a dog, you know, I'm a force multiplier. I'm the one finding all the right ids and, you know, all that and, you know, keeping them from being able to, you know, take mass cavities on us and everything, you know, I was, you know, always the one that they just, all the eyes were on me, you know, and I, I being, you know, all the training that we went through leading up to the deployment, you know, they got you mentally and physically ready for it. Yeah, you know, it was no doubt, you know.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Did you, did you guys take any casualties during that deployment?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, that first time we went out, we had no casualties whatsoever. The second time we went out out, one of our guys that's in the platoon, he was a sergeant at the time, Sergeant Roland, and he took, he took a shot, I believe it was the first. Yeah, it was the first patrol we went out on. The second mission we went out on, we went to go take this compound. And we're taking this compound. Four o' clock in the morning, we do our knock and everything. Nobody answered. Do our call out and all that. At nobody answers. And then right at daylight, HQ comes on the mic and it's like, hey, there's a lot of activity next door. You know, a lot of movement. They're digging up in the garden. He said, we need y' all to go check, check it out. So we, you know, of course, every time we took a new compound, every four days, you spent from 4:30 to daylight filling sandbags. Everybody carried at least 25 sandbags with them. And that, that sucked. Every time, you know, you had to fill sandbags and barricade the entryways rooftops for watch positions, you know, so you're doing that every time, every four days, you know, so.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

And sandbag sucks.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Do what?

[David R. (Interviewer)]

In sand filling. Sandbag sucks.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Yeah, dude, I don't if I never see a. No sandbag in my life.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Awesome.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

So. So we're in the middle of doing that. We had. We got maybe three sandbags high on our watch positions, and so they call us. And of course, they're like, hey, when you go check this compound next door. So we take a little fire team, we got about eight or nine guys, and we run out of that compound we took and go next door to, you know, see what the hell is going on over there. You know, they got. Of course, we got the ISR above us so that they're the ones who notified us. You know, it's like, hey, we're picking up a lot of activity on ISL all that. We go over there and, dude, it was one of the worst days that, you know, I remember being over there because we. We go to run by this door, and I don't run by the door, I run in it. And some other guys run by, and I get on the mic like, hey, we can't run by this entry without clearing it, dude. You all know better than that. Of course, they're just trying to get in a fight, find. Find what these guys are hiding and all that stuff. So I run in there, and then I got my spotter follows me. And then finally they. They loop back and they come in and we start searching this compound, and there's a couple people in there. You're yelling, you know, we had the turf with us. Of course, you know, he's always, you know, doing his own damn thing, you know. Yeah. And we had these. We had to carry these a A guys. Everywhere we went went. The first time we went out, we took four or five of them, man. Big pain in the ass, you know, we couldn't go nowhere without them. Then the second time we went, we said, hey, how many of these guys are we actually required to take? And they're like, well, you. You have to have at least two of them. And so that's all we took. And we got a lot better ones. They knew some English and stuff. Yeah. So we go over there and, man, we're not in. I hadn't got a quarter of this building cleared, and Roland was on the roof next door. You know, he had to bury it up there and everything. And we got into a big tick. They busted off with a damn RPG that buzzed inches from my ears. Wow. And that was, that was one of the first times where I'm just like, man, if I would have leaned back, done anything, you know, it's. With, you know, and, and Eric, it was all concentrated on me and. And Andrew Perryman. He's still in. No, but, no, I think he is still in. I. It's hard for me to keep up with these guys anymore because I unplugged about four months ago. I got all socials all together, so I used to keep up with them on Facebook and now I just, I, I got tired of that stuff and I, you know, know, I just unplugged from the rest of the world doing my own thing. You know, the older you get, the more you realize that, you know, you got very few friends. You know, in the civilian world, you know, there's still guys that I would go to war with today, you know, that I served with. But civilians, you know, they don't have the mindset that we have and, you know, they wouldn't take a bullet for you. Like, there. There wasn't a person over there that I wouldn't have took a bullet for for. You know, in my group of guys, we got really tight, really quick, and Roland's, he's raining down on. We finally figure out where the sniper fire and RPG comes from. It's another compound over. They had this high up spot with a open window that could. I mean, it's almost like they staged that whole scenario because they was already set up. And that was one of the worst firefights we've been in.

[Annabe Sofa Advertiser]

In.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Wow. And so we clear all that, and about 10 minutes into that tick, Roland takes a round in his back. And so when he did, they said, hey, we're abandoning this. We're going back and we got to support these guys. You know, of course we got to call into med back and all that. And. And that was the first time that we got the gloves taken off. You know, he come over the radio and said, hey, if it moves, it dies. You know, we ain't letting you know, this is. This is it. So that was, that was first thing in the morning when that went down, and it was like that for the rest of the day. We called in, man, I think seven or eight, you know, air support missions. And man, it was crazy. You know, we, we. Everybody was on the wall or on a roof. There wasn't just, you know, normally we only had two guys on overwatch, you know, and everybody else, you know, was doing whatever and, you know, but that day if there was a peephole or anything, everybody was on the walls, you know, looking from every direction. And we did. We weren't able to medevac rolling out to that night because we stayed, you know, of course, you know, with us being forced recon, we had our own doc with us, you know, and he was a Navy guy, but he's not a normal Navy guy. You know, he's got the training. I forgot what they called him. But, you know, he's got all the training, you know, and he's high speed, low drag, you know, and he deserved to be there with us, you know, Know, he, You know, he was bad to the bone too, you know, and of course he, you know, he was with us whenever we went on that raid next door. Of course, you know, and that's what caused us to cut that short and have to go back. Because when we, you know, whenever they come on, said, you know, Roland got shot, you know, of course we got doc with us. We got haul ass back. Yeah, we don't know the severity of it or anything at this point, and we haul ass back. And, you know, we get them off the roof and replace them. Of course, you know, we're. When we get back, we have. We realize we gotta, you know, get some more cover. Because that was one of the reasons why he got shot is because he didn't have no cover. You know, they're in prone position, but, you know, he didn't have enough cover to even, you know, protect himself there. Yeah. And so we. We have to get all that set up and sent a firefight all day. We didn't get. He didn't get a ride out that night. But when the gloves come off that day, and that was the only injury we had in the first two times. About the middle of the deployment, the army was getting ready for a big push in Kandor, and at the time, the commanding general for Afghanistan and was a dagum army dude and that pulled all the Marine dog teams that was there away from all our units and reassigned us to different units in Kandahar. So we had to pack up all our. And we left all the guys that, you know, you was with, you know, done built your rapport with and got to know and we got. Got stuck with, you know, these army guys. And, man, you don't realize how much training you actually have till you get put with a, you know, a hundred army guys. And I'll never forget the first mission we went out on. You know, they put me with the Ranger guys that was there With Hunter first, I think 1 dash 187 or something. It's on a couple of these combinations up here, right. But they put us with them rackathons or something like that. I forget. Couldn't even pronounce the dudes they was with. And we go to do a, you know, mission that first night, and they said, we're going. We're not going to go through any entryways. We're going to climb over the walls or blow through the walls. The first time we went out, you know, I get up there and, you know, I'm taking off, you know, falling. This my spotter. Then I get down over that, and I look back and, man, you see the silhouette of 30 or 40 guys standing up and running across this rooftop. And I get on the radio and I just start screaming. I say, hey, get down. Get down. And we had a butter bar with us. Of course, there's nothing like being with, you know, Marine officer that's in charge, charge. And I said, what are y' all doing? And he's just like, you know, we're assaulting. We're. I said, I mean, dude, one machine gun burst and you're all dead. How do you not realize that? You know, they're just gradually walking across. No discipline, you know, no sense of urgency, you know. And of course, these guys are all fresh, you know, this. Yeah, you know, a couple weeks, two or three weeks. And. And, you know, we'd already been there four or five months, you know, and they just. They didn't get it, you know. And after that, they brought me into headquarters and they put me as in charge. There was. We had, like four or five Marine dog teams. This was at Ramrod. We got moved to five Ramrod. Actually, it was five. Wilson first is where we went to. And then we. They. We spread out from there. And I got. I went to 5 Ramrod Squad, and I had about 4 or 5 Marines with me. And then we had some other personnel. You know, I had a female army dog handler, and I had a. A Navy guy and an Air Force dude that I was over there. And of course, I was. I was a sergeant. And some of the other guys was, you know, E6s and E7s, but I was still in charge of them. Yeah.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Right on.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

So how.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

So that was at six months. How much longer did your platoon. Did your deployment last, and when did you finally get out of there?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

We stayed there till the end of December.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Okay.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

And we didn't. We didn't get to fly. It was. I think we Left either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. And you know how it is if you're flying on a C130, if that some bitch stops anywhere it's broke down down. Yeah, I don't know how we got there, but anywhere it stops, it's going to be broke down for 24 hours or so. Who knows? They tell us at first six to eight hours, and then about 14 hours in, they're like, oh, we're gonna be here 24 hours. They got a problem, blah, blah, blah. But what. One of the things that really pissed me off is when they pulled all our, you know, we had guys with like some. All other different. Different branches of people with SF people and all that. And they pulled us off, put us all with the army guys we lost right off the bat. We lost Corporal Max Donahue. We lost him on, I think about a week after we got. Yeah, about a week after we got assigned to these other units. He was up searching a roadway and his dog responded or, you know.

[Annabe Sofa Advertiser]

Oh.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Alerted on an ied and of course we set up a, you know, he set up a cordon, you know, and everything, flagged it all off and they're setting up and as he's backing up to, you know, set up a parameter murder, he steps on an ied, blows him and Finji up. And that was on like August 8th of 2010. We lost him. And the first mission that my force buddies went out after I got pulled from them, they went to Sangin. So we left Helmar or they. We was in Helmore the first couple times and they went to San It. It was a big push that the Marine Corps was doing up there. And man, it wasn't two or three weeks in.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

One.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

One of the guys that slept right beside me on my second mission out with them, Jonathan Blank, he was a sergeant, he stepped on an IED and he got critically injured. He lost both of his legs right above his kneecaps down and several other guys. Roland, he got rolling, was like a damn magnet, dude. He was always getting hurt. That first day we went out, he twisted his ankle, had to go back to the five for a week. And then, you know, of course he gets shot. Then, you know, the second time and then the third time they go out, you know, he gets scrap. No from the ID that Jonathan steps on and a couple of other guys, you know, get scraped on, gets injured and stuff. But yeah, that, that really pissed me off, I bet because the whole time I was with them, we had zero injuries other than that time, you know, he zero injuries. IDs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I felt like, you know, I was helping keeping our guys, you know, safe and all that pissed me off so bad that I felt like it's always haunted me. I felt like Jonathan would still have his legs if they wouldn't have pulled me from them, you know, because Ronan would have alerted on that, hands down. You know, it was a big enough IED that she would have got on odor way before the actual explosive device, you know, so that really pissed me off. And Jonathan, he's actually works with the black rifle coffee now. You'll. You'll see him on their advertisement commercial. And it's this. I've always thought it's pretty cool to, you know, know the military guy that they're pers, you know, putting on their advertisement because, you know, they're not going to advertise who he is and all that. He got real lucky. Lieutenant Dan, was it Swayze dude? Yeah. Yep. He built Jonathan a damn house. That's cool. So he. He got a house, you know, built for him in Texas, where he was from. He, you know, he got out a couple a year or two after we got back. And, you know, then going back to our deployment, he's asking about the injuries and stuff. You know, Jonathan stepped on the ID first with the recon dudes, and we lose Corporal Donahue. And then in September, my actual roommate, that room that I was roommates with before our deployment, he stepped on a damn IED and he got injured real bad and he lost his dog. And his dog's name was Grief. His name was Alfred Brenner. He was a corporal. Matter of fact, he ended up writing a book, Surviving with Grief. Oh, wow. And ironically, it was. It's already a bestseller on Amazon. You know, he's been spreading a message and talking about what, you know, what people we had to go through and everything for ever since he got back, you know, he's stand up, golden dude, you know, And Chris Willingham, one of the other buddies, he was the kennel master. He stayed in whenever we got got out. Obviously, he was already a laugher. And he got to travel around, do a lot of, you know, interviews with different major news people and all that over his dog that stepped on an IED with a junior marine that was on our first deployment. And it's like two years later. His. His name was Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez. He got assigned with Luca was his dog's name. And she was so special to me is because Rona and Luka, local Luca, were out of the same Group of dogs out of Tel Aviv. Okay. She was. Both of them was Israeli SSDs. And their. Their tattoo numbers, you know, were 4 kilo, 4 5, 8, and kilo 459. They were one number off, you know, but she. She lost a leg. And stepping on ied. Wait, they'd gotten smart, you know, they changed, you know, their tactics once they figured out what SSD were. No, they would. They started putting the pressure plates behind the damn IEDs. So they set it up to where, by the time the dog responded, on it, you know, they would have a pressure plate or something behind them so that it would, you know, cause more casualties. And the whole, you know, group of guys ass out there, right. He was always changing, you know, the way they did. You could never figure them out. You couldn't stay on top of man. And you don't know how they was communicating and everything else. It was. Every day was a new day. Yeah. You didn't know going out, you know, from day to day.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

So after. When did you. So you came home in December 2010, and, and how much longer did you stay in? When did you punch out and. And tell me what that decision was like?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, we actually didn't get back till in sometime in January, about the first week of January. Of course, you know, it took us a week or two to them get back. You know, we was hung out in different places. Spent Christmas eating some out of gas station food, you know, the only. Only thing that was open on Christmas day with some gas station. And we ate, you know, sandwiches, baloney sandwiches and crap out of there, you know, trying to make our way back. And we got back about the first, second week of January, and I'd already made up my mind that I wanted to get out. Yep. And because I have, I got a daughter. She was born in 2004, July 2004. And I married her mom whenever I PCs, from Quantico to Pendleton, I had 10 days to make that move. And when I come through Arkansas, I stayed there a few days, you know, and I end up marrying her. And they went out to Pendleton with me. And of course, just like most marine corps marriages, they fail within four or five months, you know, and she left. She was in Pendleton with me for five months, and she left and, you know, told me she wanted divorce two weeks later. I didn't even know we were fighting, you know. Yeah. You know, calls a commanding officer, how she gets. Finds that information, gets me in a whole lot of. And I hadn't done a damn thing wrong and blah, blah, Blah. So we gotten. It took a year for me to divorce her. I fig. I went to the. I figured out I could file for divorce myself, didn't have to hire a lawyer. And I took a bunch of classes out there in California. And it was sweet, man. I got to do everything myself. And it took a year long process. But our divorce was final the day before we left for Afghanistan.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Okay.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

So I knew that I wanted to be in my daughter's life and I wasn't going to be able to do that if I was going to stay in the Marine Corps. So I had about. When we got back in January, I had 10 months left on contract because I went in 10 October 06 and was supposed to get out nine October of 11. But they had some. That's when, you know, part of that time that they were trying to downsize the Marine Corps whenever we got back. So they had a program out, you know, where they'd let you eas, they would move your easy up to 90 days ahead of time if you were going to get out to further your education. So you had to put in a package saying you're already accepted to college and this or that, and the Marine Corps would change your EAS date and, you know, up to 90 days ahead to, you know, allow you to further your education. So I decided I was going to go to college because I wanted to get out. 90 days earlier was the main reason. You know, I wanted to do whatever I could do to be able to get to my daughter, you know, sooner. I hadn't seen her in over a year and a half at this point. Wow. So I put it in the package, get all that accepted. And I already knew, you know, before we ever deployed that, you know, I wanted to get out. So I started saving up lead for terminal Lee leave. So I had 60 days saved up. So I got out in May. They changed my. The ironic thing. They changed my EAs from October 9th to July 9th, and that's my daughter's birthday. Oh, wow. So I. I'll never forget that date, you know, whenever I got out, you know, she was born 7-9-04. You know, I got out all right. My actual ES date was 7-9, 2011, but I got out out in May, you know, is when I actually got to leave, you know, my terminal leave and come back to Arkansas. And to be honest, it was a struggle. You know, whenever I got out, you know, I did connect with this one other guy. I went, you know, I got out in May. And of course, you know, college wasn't into August. So I moved back into my same place I was in whenever I left the Marine Corps. And I go back to work at the motorcycle shop that I grew up working in is Cooper Motorcycles and they're in town. And I started working in there almost immediately after we moved to Arkansas. And so I already had a lot of experience there. And I come back and I start working there. Of course, you know, I got a pocket full of money because you just get back from Afghanistan and you know, you got your deployment money and stuff. So I wasn't really trying to hustle or nothing, you know, I, I was in pretty good shape, you know, at that time. And like, it wasn't what I expected, you know, before I left, I was really popular. I was always popular guy at school had a lot of, you know, good times with different people. And I thought when I got back, you know, man, I'm going to call up my buddies, you know, we're to going drink some beer and party, you know, had all these girls and stuff. And it's almost like it was a different world, you know, I was gone for five years and nothing was the same. You know, these same buddies that you was partying with before you left, you know, then moved on or their lives, they didn't started families and, you know, got a career going and, and nothing's the same. So, you know, you come back thinking you're going to go back to how it was before you, you left and joined the military. And it's like a wake up call, man. And, and a bunch of other stuff just starts pissing you off, you know, that you never would have dreamed of before. You know, you get upset about stuff and you know, things that people would do and say and all that. And then going to college, man, that was, you know, man, I like my so much, you know, but, but whenever I joined the Marine Corps, I was already older when I joined the military, you know, I wasn't 17 or 18, fresh out of high school. I'd already been on my own, working, had my own place and everything else. And I think that's another thing that made me succeed so much whenever I went in because I, you know, I was already, you know, taking care of myself. I wasn't fresh off mom's Ted or nothing like that. You know, I already knew how life worked, worked. So that's why I felt like it was so easy for me to assume a leadership role is because I'm already older than these guys, you know. Hell, you know, most of them had never Even had a real job or nothing at all. So I get out now. I'm now the old guy going to college. You know, I've already done five years of Marine Corps, and now I'm in college. I'm like, that was 2011, so. And I'd have to do the math on it. So I'm. I'm several years older than 99% of these people. And yeah, one dude in there, I was going for mechanical engineering. There's one dude going for the same thing. He's a grunt, you know, Marine grunt. So we connected, you know, and we would sit next to each other and on. That's. I think it helped. He just got out too do. And I think that me and him connecting helped both of us make it absolutely a lot easier, you know, because we would cut up and, you know, make our own jokes and make fun of these kids. You know, kids wearing socks and sandals. Like, who does that? You know, we'd be clowning, you know, and we were just kind of away from the rest of the people because they were all, you know, 18, 19 years old, you know, and they. They hadn't even, you know, they had no clue what the real world was really like. You know, he'd done a deployment to Iraq, and also we connected and got to be pretty good buddies while we was going to school together. And I only done the first. That one semester of college because I, you know, I had to. Had to maintain a certain GPA and everything the whole time I was in, you know, to meet my requirements for my early release from the Marine Corps. So I'd already started putting in applications, and when we was off on that Christmas break, I put in an application for the Union Pacific Railroad as a transportation employee. And while we was off on that break, I got called in for an interview. And I'd had an interview prior to going into the military. That was one of the reasons why I went in. I had a interview in 06. Not already. Been trying to get on for almost three years, and I had one interview, and I said, look, if I don't get this in. If I don't get this job with the railroad, I'm going to the Marine Corps. Because I've read where the Union Pacific Railroad was the number one most military and friendly employee lawyer. Wow. I said, if I go do four or five years in the Marine Corps, I won't have a problem getting on. So that was one of the plans going in. So long story short, cut back. I'm out on that Christmas break. You know, and I'd already re enrolled for the next semester and all that, but I get this interview with the railroad and I go in, do it, I pass everything with flying colors, get a actual sit down interview with them again. And I told the guy, you know, I said, look man, I said I need to know yes or no real quick. Like, because I'm supposed to start back school middle of January and I have to repay back all these, you know, grants and all this crap if I don't go to school. And the very next day I get an email saying they've extended a job offer. So. And it was for conductor position on the railroad. Well, I started out making, you know, like $80,000 a year. And if I was to stay on as a mechanical engineer, like the highest paying job in the state was only like 85,000 that was maxed out. So I'm like, the hell would I do three more years of this and I start making this kind of money now and go up from there. That's right. That's what I just, you know, know dropped out of college and accepted that position on the railroad. And that was, that was a adjustment, you know, because it was the railroad, believe it or not, the railroad. That railroad is a whole lot like the military, you know, if it makes sense, let's do the complete opposite. You know, you don't know how they make, make, you know, $4.6 billion a year when you, when you're in the trenches actually doing the work. And the way you got your hands tied, you know, it's so much like, you know, you got your hands tied, you can't do it the fast way, you got to do it the railroad way.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Yeah.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

You know, and so that's where I actually met Clifton, Brian Clifton, the guy that, you know, told you about me. So that's where I met him. And it was a whole lot of similarities as far as how it's run and you know, the, you got to put up with and all, you know, it's just I, I never understand. And it still to this day, I actually got in a little bit of trouble in my training because I figured out real quick, you know, it didn't make sense to me. They would spend all this money hiring you and training you, trained you for three and a half months, months to be a conductor. And as soon as you marked up and got your certificate, they were looking for a way to fire you. And I was just like, why in the hell are they running around, you know, testing us, making sure, you know, trying to fire us. And when they just spent $60,000 training us. So during our training, you know, we had some managers come in to talk to us in our last couple weeks. Weeks. And of course, you know, I'm outspoken guy, so all the instructors know me and everything, you know, during all the training and all that. And we had a couple managers come in. They're just like, you know, asking us questions and stuff. And anyhow, they. They called on me for something and asked me about how I felt about it. And I said, I ain't gonna lie, you know, this doesn't make any sense to me. And he says, because the instructors had already told us we got 60 days whenever we graduate from our training, that we're on a derail process, they call it. And during your derail period, they could fire you and terminate you completely for almost anything you've done wrong, didn't make a. If it was your fault or not, you go out there and you get hurt on the job, and no fault of your own, they would terminate you.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Wow.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

And the instructor had told me that a couple of days before that, and so that. That was still spinning around in my head. And when the managers come in, you know, talking to us, you know, I spoke up about it, and I said, man, I think it's. And he's like, excuse me? And he's just like, what are you talking about? I said, you know, I. I brought up. It's like, it makes no sense to me how y' all can terminate us. Us, you know, our first 60 days and it not be any false of our own. Wow. Why. Why is this place operating like that.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Now? They never do those. Those organizations. It is what it is. Once they get. Become these goliaths of corporations, you know, they.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

They.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

It. It never seems like anything makes sense. Much like the military. All right, let's. Let's wrap it up. Let's tell me about what were the greatest lessons that you learned from your time in the Marine Corps, and what would you recommend to young men who are thinking about going in right now?

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Well, some of my greatest lessons was, you know, learning what integrity was, and, you know, all that kind of stuff, the. The real values and stuff that the military teaches you about, you know, in the. I guess the. The way it makes you grow up. You know, my three months in the military, I mean, I. I was already almost 21 years old when I joined, but then three 13 weeks of boot camp, man, I grew up more than 13 weeks, you know, than I did, you know, the rest of my Life, you know, and, you know, these new guys coming in, you know, I would tell them, you know, man, apply yourself, you know, learn about it before you ever join. And there's no greater brotherhood than the Marine Corps. If you do happen to earn the title and earn that eagle, globe and anchor, there's no greater feeling on Earth than when you get that pinned on your chest. You know, this is a brotherhood that, you know, like you said earlier, it never dies. You know, the people that you deploy with and the people that you train with and do stuff with, every day you create a bond with that's never ending. You know, if they call you, if one of my buddies, you know, Roland and Andrew, any of them Force boys, if they call me, saying, hey, man, I need you out here. You know, I'm shutting down my shop, putting sign on the door, and I'm. I'm gone in a couple hours, you know, we're going. Wherever they're at, we're gonna help them, you know, so do something that challenges yourself, you know, don't just join the cheer force because it's the easiest one to go to. Everybody says, you know, and, you know, don't do it, because it's easy, Easy, you know, don't, you know, try to, you know, challenge yourself and make yourself a better person, you know, because there's so many people, you know, when you get out of the military and you people, you know, ask you about your time and certain stuff, and every one of them, all these army guys, Air Force guys, you know, they're always saved, man. He said, I almost joined the Marines. But what, you know. But what, you know, you got scared, you know, why didn't you? You know, there's, you know, and just. It's a challenge, and it puts so much respect in front of your name, you know, that this people just knowing that you're a Marine, I mean, it puts fear in most of their eyes, you know, where you can walk around and. And almost feel like Superman, you know, because these people, you know, they look at you and, you know, you're a Marine and this and that, you know, and they're, you know, they're going to think twice about what they say to you and how they speak to you and what I. One thing that I still haven't figured out is why Marines, when they get drunk, there's. Every time, no matter what, if you go out with a group of Marines and you get drunk, there's gonna be a fight. Marines love to fight, dude. You know, that's true. And even now, you know, I got so damn mad at my nephew that. That drugged me out to, you know, to a bar a couple weeks ago. And I told him, you know, there's a bar right down the road from my house. I'm like, man, we can go down there. I'm not worried about getting two miles back down here to the house. We'll. We'll walk if we have to. To. You know, I said, don't carry me into town, though. Of course, you know, you know what happens. You know, you make a plan, and then, you know, the. The drinks start rolling and you see some hotties in there. You know, it's like, where are we going? You know, of course we end up with this other place. And, you know, however, it. It just. It's almost like Marines are magnets to trouble, you know, they're just magnets, man. There's always every weekend, and it's like. Like, you know, there's so many more admins and stuff that are wrote behind this junior Marine getting in trouble out in town, you know, and causing shit and stirring up a scene. You know, they're just magnets to.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Well, I. I think Marines are magnets to the fight always. It's just the way it's been for 250 years. It's the way it will always be if. As long as that esprit de corps just continues. So, Sergeant Tommy James, I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing your story with my audience, and just a real privilege and a pleasure to meet you, man.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

It was an honor to meet you, Dan and. Or David. I'm sorry. And I never got the chance to work with any SEAL guys, but I did. My buddy Mendoza, that's still in there, his first deployment to Iraq, he got to work, work with some, and that was in either 07 or 08. And, you know, that was it. It was cool to know, know, you know, he got to work with y' all and then, you know, to know, like, even whenever the SEAL guys went in there and, you know, took out Osama, you know, the fact that, you know, they had a mal with them, you know, I said, man, that would have probably been me if I would have stayed in. In. That's right.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

That's right.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Unfortunately, one. One other reason why I got out of the military, because I. Whenever I got out, you know, they was putting marsock together, making it bigger, and if you met the requirements of marsoc, you had to go take the assessment. And I. I met all the requirements so that if I wanted to reenlist. I couldn't reenlist and be a K9 handler anymore. I was going to have to reenlist and go to Marsock, which didn't bother me whatsoever after, especially after working with the force guys and all that, you know, so. But one thing that was kind of Debbie Downer for me is during all that screening process, they asked you if you've ever had a concussion and my dumb ass told the truth. You know, I said, yeah, I had a concussion whenever I was a kid and that disqualified me. Me. Yeah. So, you know, well, I could have reenlisted after that, but it, I lost the interest, you know. You know, I was motivated and always gung ho, you know, to, to if I, you know, even though I'm a Marine, I want to be the baddest Marine you know there is, you know, for sure.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

All right, Sergeant, thank you so much. God bless you and I, I wish you all the best, man. Semper Fox.

[Podcast Host]

Bye.

[Sergeant Tommy James]

Hey, God bless. And tomorrow's the Marine Corps 250th birthday and I just want to sign off with saying Happy Birthday Marines.

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[Sergeant Tommy James]

Lenovo.

[Ulta Beauty Advertiser]

No, it's not too soon to start holiday shopping. Ulta Beauty's early Black Friday event is happening now through November 22nd. Second 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.

[Podcast Host]

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. Homes.com knows having the right agent can make or break your home search. That's why they provide home shoppers with an agent directory that gives you a.

[Ulta Beauty Advertiser]

Detailed look at each agent's experience, like.

[Podcast Host]

The number of closed sales in a specific neighborhood, average price range, and more. It lets you easily connect with all the agents in the area you're searching so you can find the right agent with the right experience and, ultimately, the right home for you. Homes.com, we've done your homework.

[David R. (Interviewer)]

Every great business starts with a vision, but to grow, you need capital. Traditional lenders put up roadblocks, strict rules, long waits, and complicated terms that don't fit your business. At Fundable, they fuel businesses with fast, flexible funding that helps you take that next step. Whether you're expanding, hiring, or investing in new opportunities. Fundable makes funding simple so you can focus on running your business. Visit fundableloans.com iheart and turn your vision into reality.

[Podcast Host]

This is an iheart podcast.