Jonathan Harmon: U.S. Air Force PJ & Combat Rescue Officer Opens Up On Operation Red Wing & What It Took To Save Marcus Luttrell (Part 1)

The team never quit podcasts is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federalists play the key role in helping the military community for over 90 years. You can learn more about this at navyfederal.org. What I feel like is that I've got somebody on the run and I'm really certain that this is an American because of the way they're where they're running, right, and how they're running. So this communications log essentially gave me enough information to have a confidence factor that I had at least one survivor. All right everybody, welcome back to the TNG podcast. I'm your host, Marcus LaTrell. Every week it's my job to fire you up to ignite the legend inside of you and to push you to your greatness. Join me every week as I take you into my briefing room with some of the most our charging people on the planet. They're going to show you how to embrace the suck of life, keep you the values of working your ass off, and charge through whatever life throws at you. This is the team never quit podcasts. Don't buckle up, buttercup. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Team Never Quit Podcast. As always, thank you guys for listening, watching, viewing, and if you haven't yet, please go hit that subscribe button so you can stay up to date with all of our new shows. So before we get into today's episode, let's kick it off with our Patreon question of the day, which is what is currently your favorite television series? Well, right now I'm watching Firefly Lane. Is that TV? What's it on? It's like streaming. It's like a series that's streaming. Yeah. So Firefly Lane and Ted Lasso are my two things? I was going to say Ted Lasso too. Yeah, those are the two that I'm watching right now and I love. I finished the chosen. No, I got to I'm in the middle of season three. I was that's what I was watching at Exos. And then that's it. You liked God's not dead. Yeah, no. God's favorite idiot. Yeah. I've seen that God's favorite idiot. Oh, my gosh. It's so. I watched you who you're in Italy. It was great. Yeah. God's favorite idiot. I love that good that Melissa McCarty and her husband and the premise of the show is God chose her husband to basically save the world by telling everybody that they need to believe. Um, but he's not real good at talking to people. He's kind of he's just he's very socially awkward. Oh, it's amazing. It's funny. They do. But Melissa McCarty is really outgoing and boisterous, but she's kind of like raunchy in this show. They kind of have her like a raunchy part. She's one of the wears of ties in the flamboyant color. So when she's trying to tell you something, you want to listen, but you you can't get past the way they look. You know, that kind of those. Yeah, it's a good metaphor, right? It's perfect the way they pass those. Yeah. Usually what you want to hear from is not what it's wrapped in is what upsets you. And they sent like the devil to trick them up. Yeah. And she comes in the form of this beautiful woman. And she's trying to trip them up and let them mess up on their path that God told them to do. And so Melissa McCarty's dating in real life. It's her husband. But in this show, she's starting to date this guy in this beautiful woman is coming in trying to like flirt with them. And she's like, I'll kill you. She's real feisty, but she doesn't really. She's actually talking to the devil. And that's her last. So wait for the other season to drop on. Ted Lasso is just it did drop it. I mean, completely. Yeah. I think they just came out with the last episode. Yeah. Ted Lasso, if you haven't watched that, the best positive messaging TV show, I think anybody can watch with a little bit of Ronchy scenes in there, but really, really good underlying messaging. As you know, humans, man, we like the little little naughty side a little bit. Oh, yeah. For sure. Very well done. What about y'all? I'd say that because we have kids like Bluey, that's that's a big one for us right now. It's yes, for me with it. No, it's a cartoon. It's based out of Australia, but it's a really great messaging for for families. What's it on? What's it on? I think it's on Netflix. Yeah. Because I'm a huge fan of Australia. Yeah, right? Love the people. Love that. Well, it's it's one of the rare glimpses you get into something that's really good program for children. And it's got such a great positive message, male and female role models in the mom and dad. And the way they interact with their children and discipline them. So it's something that you don't see in America. And it's just kind of caught on by it's taking taking the world by storm. I'll have to look. Yeah, another good one on Amazon Prime, I believe it called from if you're into a suspenseful spooky type of TV series, just came out. And it's pretty much it's anybody across the US can be driving down it like any sort of road. And they get stuck in this city where you cannot get out of. So that creates this whole little town of people that are trapped. And at night, there's monsters kind of like vampire monsters. They're like people. But it sounds awful. It's intense. And they like come out and just wreck you up. It's it's awesome. It starts out maybe right in there. So it's so crazy. Sounds like a nightmare. It is. Most people think it is. What about you, John? Lately, I've been going throwback. My favorite show right now is Walker, Texas Ranger. Oh, I have a fan. Chuck Norris, man. That's the Trump card right there. I mean, he bends down. I feel like it just got and then tells you where the bad guy is. It's amazing. He shoots a car and the hood explodes. I love this show. Let's freaking Chuck Norris, man. If you're going to do throwback, I love Friday night lights. Oh, that's a good one. Fucking gun smoke. Gun smoke. It's been, you know, I think we're going somehow like I was going to mention chosen, but you stole it. Then you take gun smoke. I'm like, what have I got left? That's too many answer. Yeah, right? Yeah. I mean, if I'm really looking for something, I can always settle up with Steve Harvey. And if you kind of deal, like they'll just you they play replace that over and over again. That is listening to him, man. While we're walking, when we're cooking dinner, we typically have Steve Harvey on just to we try. Take a comedy show. He's got a game show going around him. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, he's that he's one of those kind of guys. Yeah. And that's a that's a big deal because the the guy who runs that show, remember when it started, we were kids. Oh, for sure. I can't recall. What was that guy's name? My grandfather, he's calling him a kisser because he'd always kiss a lady. If we come up on it, it was that sucker's name, man. He did a great job, too, the first one. Yeah, yeah, just stop me there. Oh, okay. I mean, no, no. If you think of it while we're doing this, throw it out there. I will. I'll start. I absolutely will. It'll come. All right. You know, I can see his face just now that I'm trying to remember this. I'm forgetting how to apply a tourniquet. So, you know, penguins, I'm going to get lost. I don't remember my kids first name. It's I forgot my kid's name, but I remember that one. It's so hard I had to burn. Oh, this is going to be fun. I'll remember this one. Okay. All right. Well, moving on. Thank you, Patreon, for that question. That was a good little memory lane. All right. Let's start this out, brother. This is going to be a good one. Like most people are not going to have any other way. This is going to shift. But I got somebody on the show y'all been wanting to meet. This is the best way to say it. He didn't know he existed. Most people don't. I was like, put the career path as crazy as stories. Just before I even showed up and even after I left, his career path was crazy. But the way that you came into my life is a good one. So that's another reason why you're here. We're going to talk about it. So, Jay Harmon, we're going to start that. PJ. Air Force guy. There's a bunch to it, but let's back it up. Because I don't know this myself. Let's start from the beginning. Where you were born and where you came up. So, my parents are children of baby boomers. They were both in the Air Force. Army Air Corps during World War II. They met in New Hampshire and I was born there. And then my father's side of the family is from Florida. Tracing their lineage all the way back to the first Florida census. One of my grandfather's, my dad's father, went, got orders to Herbert. And he was an intel, but it was called training back then. And so, he collected information. He was stationed in Pakistan for the U2s and stuff like that. So, we moved to Florida from New Hampshire. And my dad moved with his dad, and after getting established there. So, I grew up in Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Florida. And probably their earliest, I had, my aunt was a wasp. Retarded food. I got one of them down the road, she's 103. Yeah. I'm in a real one. Yeah. I mean, so. So, you really got one too? Yes. That's it. In what design? No one knows they about them. Yeah, tell us what a wasp is. Oh, so it's a women's auxiliary service pilot. And so, what they did is they were the women that flew air, ferried aircraft across the Atlantic. They trained other pilots. They were the safety, so if an aircraft was repaired, they flew the aircraft before the men flew that aircraft, to assure that it was safe to fly. And there's a myriad of other different things that they did. And this is in the time period of World War II? Correct. Correct. So, because there's shortage of male pilots, these female pilots were recruited from all over the country. And my Aunt Mary, who Mary Tilton is her name, was from Corpus Christi, Texas. And she saw a barnstormer, you know, when she was a little girl, she said, that's what I want to do. And so, she grew up graduating from high school and took all the money she can make and bought flying lessons and became a private pilot. And so, when the wasps were stood up, she was recruited. What a great name, too. That's one of the best acronyms that we got. We can seal all that. It's a wash, we're a good one. Yeah. And so, the Army Air Corps, and most people has probably been forgotten, but that was when we were part of the Army, right? That's right. A-R-M-Y. And so, she had a very strong disposition before she's Texan. And so, that's why she fit in so well with military service. And she was one of the first 1,000 women that were picked up. And the Army Air Corps kept her on, and she ended up as a lieutenant colonel. And so, most people had no idea who she was. She married an enlisted man. And I remember fondly, as I was growing up, she used to say, come on, stud, let's go. So, if that tells you anything about the circumstances around their marriage, but they didn't have any children. So, I was their child. And so, my uncle Jim would take me around to gun shows, and he collected Ohio rifles, believe it or not. Most people called Kentucky rifles, but the best rifles were made in Ohio. Now, they were the best rifle makers. So, I traveled all over the country with him. That's what Americans love to argue about. Oh, yeah, right. It's those little things right here that I meet. Those were close fights about it. I'm throwing digs right now. That's one of my points, right? We got a PJ unit in Kentucky. They're probably all like, that's fightin' words. They're gonna burn my house down. I'm gonna get back my dodges. So, yeah, that was rather formative. She taught elementary school for about 20 years in our hometown. And raised a bunch of little citizens to know how to say the pledge of allegiance. And- The one I got did the same thing. Yeah. Celeste Graves or Miss Celeste Graves. Billings named after him. There aren't many of them. There weren't many of them that stayed. And it's ascended in rank and everything. And they're all probably cut from a very similar cloth. So, that was a formative. My dad was an avid shooter and a gun collector himself. He collected old model roogers. So, we traveled around the south, displaying his guns and my uncle displaying his. And I grew up in the gun culture. So, competitive shooting and stuff like that was natural for me. And grown up on the coast. I loved the fish and hunt and stuff like that. And so, Destin was a little different back then. It was more rural. And to put it kindly. There was real beach down. Yeah. It was beach, but like forest meets the beach, wasn't it? Yeah, you could duck hunt. There was woods up to... For everybody came in. That's paradise right there, right? Yeah, it was awesome. You could duck hunt. You know, there was plenty of, plenty of squirrels and stuff to shoot. But, it ended up becoming a Boy Scout. And I was a member of Troop 509, which was the Boy Scout Troop for Herulbert Field. And Herulbert, its story goes all the way back to the Jimmy Doolittle raid. So, that, that... That's the history of it, too. That airstrip was created in this size and shape of an aircraft carrier deck. And then they cleared off the trees so they were prevailing winds coming off the Gulf. And that's how they practice my land in the, the mitchels. You went talking about a pucker factor. Yeah, man. So, if you're practicing on land pulling up with a, with a line drawn across the piece concrete, it's a hell of a lot different when that water's sitting on the island of it. Yeah. They, they call it something. Yeah, they used to call it balls. Balls? Yeah. So, they call it all round and drop. They used to call it plant. Now they call it grid or something like that. Yeah, yeah, it changes. So, it's a little, yeah. But, um, so, we had one of the Doolittle Raiders that lived on the highway right there. And I passed by his house every day on the way to school. And so, that kind of formed me up. And I ended up joining the Boy Scouts. And, um, my scout master got killed, um, trying to rescue the hostages into Ron. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, not nice at the time. No, I mean, you don't talk about that. That dude's badass. It's been running for that. Yeah. So, that, that was unexpected. Uh, I, I, I had no idea, um, you know, you just scout master that kind of guy. Yeah. Yeah. That's what you want right there. Yeah. Well, that's what you lose when, you know, it's like, hey, you know, we're going to, um, ale, we don't invite women into the Boy Scouts of America. So, we lose all federal funding and all federal affiliations. So, all those Boy Scout troops that used to be sponsored by military installations, they no longer exist. So, um, we lost something there. You know, uh, maybe 10, 15 years ago. I don't know. I'm probably dating myself maybe longer. Oh, we just got back into it. My kids just got old enough. So, I'm doing, um, we're, we, yeah. I'm learning all about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All the men in my family have the Scouts, Eagle Scouts. Yeah. We were talking about it earlier. In our family, you get your Eagle Scout, you get your Eagle and you get your black belt. There you go. All black Eagles. Shh. And I mean, if you get those two things, you're set for life. You know, uh, that sets them up. Your ground game and then those Scouts. I understand. I still recite that. I teach, I mean, the Scouts creative. You stack all the stuff that we go through. Even if you didn't get your Eagle, join in the Air Force. If the United States pens a freaking Eagle on you, that's an Eagle. Right. You learn so much coming through that. 100% 100% and that's, uh, that, that is, uh, what, that ethos, um, is what carried me through. You know, and so, um, joined ROTC, you know, and then, uh, in high school. In high school. Yeah. So, um, you were from the beginning. You were straight up, brad, pole nine yards. Yeah. Okay. I, yeah. Uh, but I had absolutely no intention on, on joining the military. Um, I didn't, I really didn't think too much about it. I was kind of into Serfen and skateboarding and, you know, growing up on the beach and well with the constant influx of young ladies, you know, moving back and forth for, um, spring break, you know, that was a really appealing thing too. So, um, I ended up, uh, it sounded like it had a difficulty. It was tough. Yeah. I had a horrible childhood. I was the only one that made it out. Unless you were going to that. All my buddies are, are still a good 10-bar back there. So, you got some of this shut up and back there. That's what we said. Yeah. There's still suffering in that. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's tough. It's, uh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, yeah. Um, but, uh, so I, uh, uh, ended up going to Florida State, um, and uh, made a great school. Yeah, yeah. I was there for Deon Sanders. I was a, I was a, kind of a geek. I ended up, uh, it was a, uh, a lecture engineering major on a, on a scholarship. And, uh, so, but, uh, apparently, uh, when I swapped over to alcoholism, that's not a degree awarding program. So, yeah, it was undergrad. Um, but they, they asked me, uh, you know, like, I lost my scholarship and they asked me to leave and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I said, you know, this college life isn't really for me anyways. So I joined the Air Force. So, um, I joined the Air Force. I, uh, you know, wanted to be a pilot, um, and, uh, I loved A-tense, you know, who doesn't? Yeah, right? How great is that freaking thing? Yeah, I forgot to mention that I was supposed to get a ride in one of those when I was in ROTC and the basic matter show. I never got one of those. Well, it's a, it's a one, it's a single seater. Single seater. But the only one they had in the inventory, it was a two-seater, was that England? What, the trainers, don't they have two, right? Nope. No, no, no. The only one they made, they made two. I think they crashed one, but, uh, they made two, and they were for research test and development, right? So the first time you ever go up in that sucker, you're by yourself. Yeah, man. How about that? Well, it's the same thing, they're free fall rig. It's not like you're going to have, you know, the military doesn't do that. Yeah, I'm talking about them joggers. Remember those rails, do they put on it? You get to be, you get to see, it's just one dude looking at you right before you then, uh, Yeah, but it, it depends on how bad you haze them, you know, before the jump is, is the weather or not, your parachute gets open for you. You think, like, some guys won't mess with you on the ground. Think about that kind of humor. Oh, I'm going to wait till you get in the air and then I'm going to start messing with you. Who does that? We got guys, trust me. It's called the horny gorilla for a reason. Oh, dude. They can do to you flying, man. Oh, yeah, for sure. We're on the ground. Oh, yeah. I got, uh, yeah. I, uh, old gunny miller for me, um, I ended up doing quite a few eight counts for that, man. But anyways, uh, do you got any brothers or sisters? No, no, I guess maybe she'd trust back. My dad's an only child and I'm an only child, uh, so we, I got no aunts, uncles, cousins, and nothing like that. And the only one left is my dad and I and our family. So it's, uh, it was kind of a different thing. Yeah, but you, you backfilled that. I have, yeah, it was, we have six. You got six. Yeah, which is awesome. Great job. Yeah, yeah. She's wonderful. I think so. We keep her around for another minute or two. Okay, so ROTC? Yeah, ROTC, uh, join the Air Force, uh, uh, you know, crazy time. I went through some training at Keesler, you know, for, uh, some secret stuff and, uh, communication stuff. And, uh, I called up, we used to, you could call on the phone and, and be like, hey, where's phone? I'd even come up with the first part with going into doing what you wanted to do. Is that just, you just want to look for, look for something to do? Or did you, like, have a, do you see a TV show? And like, I, do you need a pair of rescue? Or the other one? I don't know, just to join in. Oh, yeah. So I, you know, I, you know what? The Air Force was like, hey, people wonder, like, how the hell do you even get into this? Yeah, no, I, you know, like, uh, people try to glamorize, you know, you know, decisions after the fact. Right. Like, you know, options, options were waning. Okay. Let's be clear. I've been going on. No one ever says, you know, I wouldn't do it. Nothing else. Yeah, yeah. It was either live on the beach and turn out like, like that old friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, yeah, that doesn't seem like much of a future. And I was, uh, so I should also say that I was working on the boats, charter boats during the summer. Right? And I was making great money, but, um, and it was great fishing and all that. And it was, I mean, it was awesome. But, um, yeah, you know, like, you look down the dock and after the glamorous boats are the not so glamorous boats, right? The headboats and the, you know, the long liners and stuff like that. And, uh, you see how that turns out. And that's some, that's a whole other line of work that's, uh, I like crab fishermen, right? I have a friend of mine who, um, ended up becoming a combat rescue officer as well. And he was, he did crab fish and just for the heck of it. Um, just out of like literally, yeah. It's one of the most dangerous job for anybody. Well, that's what it said. Hey, most dangerous job in the world is like, yeah, let me try that. You know, so that's kind of the how we're made, right? So I joined the Air Force and, uh, kind of did it. And I ended up getting stationed in Panama for just cause. And then after that, I got orders to a place called Falcon Air Force Base. And that's called Shriever for Desert Storm. So that was a, like, when there is this, um, like 90, 92 somewhere, yeah, through the, you're 89 to 92. Um, and so, uh, I did that. And I was, I became kind of disenfranchised. We had a change of administration. Um, and the Air Force was like, hey, you know, if you want to out early, um, you know, we're letting folks out. And I kind of had a difficult time reconciling with this new policy, you know, for, um, that was installed by this administration. So I was like, you know, I'm probably just, you know, I'm running against a grain here. I can see the writing on this. So I got out. And I was already making good money. Uh, I was buying and selling cars and shipping them to Florida. And they were selling down on Florida. I'm buying them in the west coast and shipping them down. And I, you know, made a little bit of money that way. And so I kind of, I did it. I applied for a significant increase in standard living waiver. Um, it's kind of reserved for most people that, like, win a lottery or a contract, you know, with sports or something like that. It wasn't the case for me. I just was making more money. Um, so I went down. I opened a car lot. I did an auto-financing company, couple truck accessory stores, a car audio store, and there's running all that stuff. But I was, I was really not prepared. You know, I was really young and I, I made some bad decisions. And, uh, cost me a relationship that I was in. And, uh, so I was like, man, you know what, I got a chance to start over. So what should I do? And so I took all the money I had. And, uh, drove up to Crestview, Florida. And I said, I want to learn how to skydive. So, um, talk to the guy who's running the place. And he's like, yeah, well, you know, skydiving isn't it for everybody. You know, we can do the tandem thing. I'm like, no, no, I don't want any of that. I just want to, I want to pay for everything. And I want to know how much it costs. He's like, well, you know, we can get you in on the lessons. And I was like, hey, look, you're not hearing me. Like, I want to write to you a check right now. How much is going to cost the whole thing? He's like, how do you know this is what you want to do? I'm like, I already know. So I wrote them a check for a thousand bucks. And, uh, turns out, um, he was, you know, great instructor, um, and I love skydiving. And it turns out that it was, I was in my, with my peeps for the first time in my life. So everything else I'd ever done, I was always trying to kind of fit in with other people. But the skydiving community really, um, Oh, you know when you fit in. Oh, man, for sure, for sure. And, uh, back then, you know, um, this was a little bit more, you know, in the 90s. Skydiving still wasn't mainstream, you know, and it wasn't like a big sport or anything like that. And it was just something I, I can't describe it, it's had a passion for. And, uh, I ended up, uh, really enjoying it. There's an old saying that says that, uh, the skydiving cost you your first paycheck and then half your paycheck over this, you know, from that point on, you know, for the rest of your life. And, uh, it was true. But, um, my instructor was like, KJ, you know, you're pretty good at this. We're sitting there drinking scotches and little lawn chairs underneath the awning, you know, for the hanger. On a Sunday morning, you know, Sunday afternoon. And, uh, he's like, KJ, you know, you're pretty good at this. Uh, you ever think about doing this for a living. And I was like, uh, yeah, man, whatever. He's like, yeah, just give me a call sometime, you know, go out to lunch. I was like, okay, cool. So I put it in my back pocket and never really thought about it. I just finished up the cigar, you know, and, uh, went, went back down to the beach and, you know, went back to work. So, uh, fast forward about a month or so and I, uh, I'm like, you know, I don't give this guy a call. So his name is Bob. So I call him up and I say, uh, you know, call up the number. And, uh, I'll never forget. He's like, four, two, four, six, unscrupulous senior restaurant, or can I help you? I'm like, uh, who is this? Is it, I'm trying to reach Bob? He's like, who is this? I'm like, this is Jay. He's like, oh, man, come on out here. You know, let's go, let's go get some lunch. So it turns out that he was a chief PJ for Afsock. I had absolutely no idea. And, uh, he's like, hey, you ever thought about being a PJ? And I was like, uh, was a PJ. Hey, and I had been familiar with the Air Force, but it's, you know, not well advertised, I suppose. And, uh, he's like, well, um, if you're interested, I might be able to get you a test and, you know, see what you can, see what you can do. And I wasn't any particularly good shape or anything I'd served and skated for, you know, most of my, you know, an adult life and I worked hard on the boat. So I knew how to work all day, you know, you know, all night and party all night and all that stuff. So that makes you kind of hard. And, uh, that's our routine. Yeah, right? It's like the natural. Yeah. So there's this like a physical fitness standard that when you're prior service in the Air Force, it's a little higher, right? So it's almost like graduation standards. So you have to run the three miles instead of running like just one mile. You have to swim the whole mile versus swim in just a few hundred yards. And, you know, the push-ups pull-ups, sit-ups, flutter kicks, all that kind of stuff was a little bit higher standard. So, um, yeah, he was like, yeah, if you can pass this test, I'll get you in. I was like, oh, okay, well, let me see what I can do. So I, uh, you know, basically, you know, the old scene, like, you know, put your beer down, crush out a cigarette, go for a run. And, uh, turns out I, I was in fairly good shape. I could run and I could swim and do a lot of other stuff. So I went and applied for the, took the test, uh, in August in Florida. And that was dumb, uh, almost probably how I had like heatstroke or something. I threw up like crazy afterwards, uh, and they let me recover. And then I finished out the test and, um, got orders to Blacklin and, uh, became a PJ. So I went through the pipeline, you know, and, uh, we, we had an amazing opportunity to find out what a PJ is as you're going through it. No, no, no, I had to, so, so he, he's like, hey, you ever thought of being a PJ? And so I, you know, good, you know, good pimp there. Uh, I didn't know what it was, right? So, um, I was like, yeah, yeah. And I was like, I mean, he used to be a used car salesman. Should I hired his ass? Yeah, he was hired. He, he became a chief and he was one of the world's greatest skydivers. He's passed now. He got killed in the skydiving accident. But he was on, I don't know how many world records, uh, uh, you know, for big, for big ways. Yeah. He got, uh, his parachute got tangled up with another jumper. What's out here? They both go out, right? Yeah, he, I think it was his second year after retirement. Um, but he, he, uh, he jumped into Panama. He was one of those PJs. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Missed Vietnam by just a hair. So that Ken gives you the, his generation. He's legend in our community and, uh, in the skydiving community. When he retired, uh, the army airborne band came to play, uh, for him. And I don't know if you've ever seen it, but that's a, that's a whole show. It's incredible. One of the, one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. And, uh, so he was, I mean, his, his, his legacy was sealed. Um, and he was absolutely instrumental in getting me in. And, uh, of course, he dropped some dimes on me while I was going through the end doc. He just ran, man, that's a random call up like, the guy who gets you in. You're like, thanks, bro, man, they call up. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta. Hey, how's he doing? Yeah. Make sure he suffers. Yeah, he's real good dude. Yeah, so, you know, give him some attention. You know what? That guy has an attitude. Check it. Oh my gosh. So we have these blocks. Uh, we had blocks out in front, you know, like, big, uh, they're almost eight. I don't know where we got them. They're not air force instruments of torture. They got to be Navy instruments of torture. But it's basically you get on like three pillars and then you have to do deep pushups. So like your, your hands are way past your shoulders. And then you got to go all the way. So those are a little bit more. Hyper flexion. Yeah, so you don't get that whole, like, that whole bounce thing going on. You know, you're not allowed as a PJ student. You're, you're candidate. You're not allowed to touch the ground, except for the hands and your feet. But, um, most of you still don't know what PJs are. How long the pipeline is? Oh, so the PJ pipeline is, uh, about two years long. So is it similar to buds? It's almost, we're like, almost event for event. As a matter of fact, the air force version of it though, imagine brothers and cousins. Yeah. But do you have like a hell week? Well, that's an interesting question, uh, I did. I did. And we, we did for many years, uh, air education training command did away with it for quite some time. And, uh, our cadre, uh, in my class decided to bring it back. So it was amazing. Uh, so we suffered, we had a mud pit, um, that they bulldozed out there in San Antonio outside the, uh, and, uh, used a fire hose to fill it up. And nobody really thought about the red ants, right? So they filled it up with water. And, uh, all the red ants kind of came to the surface. They wrapped it up. You know, I didn't even red ants do this. But apparently they do. And then, uh, they get real pissed off when you do eight counts on top of them. So they just jump all over you and bite the piss out of you. And, uh, so that's a whole other level of like, you know, endurance that you're, we all have a medical, a medical pipeline part that's, it's straight attached to it. That's the difference between ranged green braze, because the green braid can have the medical part, but not all of them do. With PJs, that's their fricking. You're, it's part of their pipeline. So the green PJ has a paramedic. It's a medic. Okay. Yeah. So we used to park us and I, I think you were my junior class at, uh, at Somsey, right? Yep. So, um, I went to Jay Somsey, um, in the SEALs to two. We, uh, I had the two guys. We had a few seals in my class, uh, which I have some great. They all mixed this together. It's something like this. Yeah, we, my first time dealing, uh, with SEAL Pups was at Airborne. Yeah, Charlie Company. Yeah, that's right. And, uh, we brought all the seals. I brought all the seals back to my home in Destin, my dad's house, and he put out a big stake spread, dig, stake dinner. And it was amazing. Uh, those guys, I, I don't recall their, by name, but, uh, we, it was a bond. I will never forget. Um, and they ended up going and I learned something, uh, so the seals are really good at telling the stories. Probably better than PJs for some, to some degree. And, uh, they had these girls convinced, down there on the beach, that they were rodeo clowns. And, uh, they were in town for the rodeo. And, uh, they were going to be there for just one night. And, uh, it was maybe their last chance. Always a, just one night, because the next night, they, they were going to go to a different bar for a different set of girls. Run the same profession. We're in the same story. So, um, that was amazing. Uh, I think our whole, my, all the PJs, uh, that were with me, we had some control, combat controllers too. Uh, learned a lot from the seals. We, we did a lot together at Charlie Company. We, we haze the book. So, in the air, airborne, when you're in the army, you go to airborne school, it's like, you know, the instructor is the black cats are fairly intimidating. But, we flip the script on those guys. We, that's what they don't like us. They don't like us. And, uh, that's exactly what they want. Yeah, yeah. We, we haze them so bad. And, uh, they have their own tricks. So, um, a couple of times I got kicked out. We play from with beer every morning. I mean, like four or five, 24 packs that just slide it in the fridge. So, when they showed up, just goes to have had me script for the day. Oh, it was, we deserved it. Uh, we got smoked all the time and, and the, and the thing is for us, we're in, all of us, you know, we're just graduated from our, you know, kind of like buds or whatever. So, we're in like the peak performance of our pipeline. And so, they're like, their standard is to do, you know, we're gonna intimidate these kids by making them do 20 push-ups, 20 push-ups. And, oh, so we made a big game out of it. We would do like 18. And then one of us would fall down or we would start over, you know, and we would just instigate the whole thing. And we would just piss off the whole class because we'd just keep doing more and more push-ups. And they'd, okay, roll over, belly back, belly backs, or, you know, eight counts and we just, because you couldn't hurt us, you know, and the seals, the seal-pups, a lot of times, the first time they ever met a PJ. So, we were just thick as steeps. Because there's an army there. They're coming in that's right up their basic. Yeah. But we're just finished up with our advanced schools. Yeah. And then they throw us all together. So, the physical is just completely different. I mean, you're talking about opposite ends of the, there's just a hill, a little heart attack hill they do. It's a mile ahead of two miles. I don't know. The guys are running around backwards. That's what you get in trouble for. Yeah, right around the formation and all that, you know. So, is this at 18 Delta? No, it's at Airborne School. No, at Airborne School at Vinning, yeah. At Vinning. So, then, you know, there's like three or four girls in the whole town that, you know, are left over after all the army guys have picked them over. So, of course, between the seals and the PJs, they're all trying to fight over that, you know, two or three they're available. So, it's inevitable. If you're only from a man, go there. Oh, yeah. The stories are legendary. If you're looking for a man, go there. Go to Vinning. There's like three, yeah. Oh, yeah. The strange guys run around. There's a tattoo parlor and a pawn shop and a youth car dealership. That's how you know, because they know me. Yeah, I could put a wedding chapel next to an Irish pub. If you have a bar. No, a bar. A bar. That's how you know you're in a military town. Yeah, there's a bunch of Joes, because they'll have that set up. So, yeah, I did Airborne. And then, so, our Indock is, I think it's 10 weeks long. So, and then we did Hell Week. And so, there's almost event for event. I've heard that it's very, very similar. And we used to send PJs and controllers out to butts. Our instructors, I had instructors take a phase as a controller. Yeah. And PJ, they interrupt. We interrupt that way. No remorse. Like the hardest instructors were PJs controllers there. You mean as instructors? Yeah. As SEAL instructors, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we didn't have any, I didn't experience any SEAL instructors, because when we graduate at the O.L., we go directly to Army Dive. Or we did. Now, we have our own Air Force Dive School, which is now next to the Navy salvage Dive School. Yeah. Is it the best city? But I want to keep it. Our salvage are the best. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's incredible. Like, if you should see the facility, it's really, yeah, it's really good. But I went through the, the combat dive qualification course down in Key West, and which is a whole other party, right? Depends on. If people are paying attention, they hear where our schools are. Oh, yeah. Our school's suck. Yeah. But we're there at. Yes. Makes it okay. Yeah, there's a certain amount of suffering. Then there's a certain amount of party, that kind of like, you know, it bounces it out, and you make it through. I think I went into the school. I weighed like 185 pounds. When I left the school, I think I weighed 135. Oh, my God. Yeah. Like, it was four weeks long or something like that. And you eat double rations. So we had a, they heard a chef from downtown in Key West. And he preferred, like, we got anything we wanted. He would make these incredibly amazing seafood dishes and pasta dishes. That's here for us. That ain't happened in the Navy. No, no, no. He's an Army. This is Army. Air Force funding. It's Air Force funding. There's something with the Air Force. The food is like that. We're going to start to see a theme as this podcast goes on. Yeah. As you were sounding like, man, we don't have that. Marcus always said, join the Air Force. They have air conditioning. They have got food. They've got better lodges. Oh, we're going to amp this story up. I can't wait. We're going to keep going on this theme. Yeah. So we have made service. They turn our pillows down the beds down at night. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Leave a little chocolate on the pillow. It's pretty cool. So yeah, so combat die qualification. We had a couple of seal instructors down there. And I tell you what, life saving with a seal instructor, that was a life altering event for me. Almost died in that one. Yeah, that was the first time I'd ever had been challenged in water confidence. Now, I've been rolled up as a surfer. I've been beat down a few times. Got my face bashed in, you know, with my surfboard and stuff like that. And you know, like, I thought, oh, that's stung, you know, whatever. But having a full, like, a, you know, I think I, you know, I can mention how much I weighed. But here's a guy that's not on the program. And he weighs like maybe 220. And he's got nothing but muscle. And he's fully rested. And he's like, you know, come save me. Come save me. And you're like, okay, you know, you're kind of swimming over to him. And he goes, come save me. Like, then this voice comes out. Oh, yeah, oh, and so then he grabs you. And he uses you like, uh, uh, well, um, like sexual inspiration. Yeah, I was going to abuse me. Yeah, yeah. And he was mad. And he'd have been in some tan. Or I couldn't get a hold of him. And he was just like, all over me, man. I felt like, I mean, I felt like I needed to talk to somebody. I mean, talk to somebody after this, man. Yeah, the same thing happened to me. So the, uh, the trick was, uh, dive deep, go down underneath and come straight up and grab him by the balls. Straight up, just grab him by the balls, pull as hard as you can. And then as you're coming up with your elbow, you catch him in the throat. And then you can lay him out that way. Um, and I was able then to kind of get over the top of him and grab him in a chokehold. What you're supposed to do. You're supposed to tell, man. That there's a technique, right? Been on how hard they stride me and cussed, but how hard they stride me. It was survival at the finish. Let's put it that way, man. I, you know what, and this, I, you know, like, I was getting this age too. It's not a young kid's going through this. It's the funniest thing you've ever seen. Yeah. Because you can hear your buddies dying. Oh, they're dying a lot of times. We'll make us turn around. That's a great point. You can hear your buddy dying behind you. Yeah. You're not allowed to look, not allowed to look. I can surges a laugh. I was like, we just killed another one. Yeah, you're here in somebody. You're here in somebody crying choking and everything making their way to the panel. And they've quit, right? And you're like, you don't know who it was. It could have been an SF guy. It could have been a ranger. It could have been a PJ. And so, you know, like the mine trip, you're like, wait a second. I've been through this like a thousand times, you know, at the O.L. Why is this stressing me out, all of a sudden? It's because it's the rules have changed. You're no longer an air education and training command. You're over here in Army territory. And they don't, they've got a different set of rules. And so, respect is earned, right? Right then. And so, that's what happens. Oh, yeah, that's what happens. Yeah. I have another, you know, dive school story, many of them as they all do. But, you know, of course, we do close circuit there. They teach us how to lock out of submarines and all that kind of stuff. And the first time we got all of our kid on, and we were about to go do a subsurface bud swim, which is, you guys, we inherited from the Navy, right? So, that's a bud line. So, you have all the divers. They're linked up. And you got like maybe 10 divers and a guy with a nav board at the front. And it's a formation dive, right? And so, you have your equipment. You have your weapon. Everything's supposed to be neutrally buoyant. And then, you know, you have your dive gear on. It's for them at that, for that dive, it's 20s. We advanced to draggers later on. And so, they put us out in the bay. And so, the first time, you know, you kind of, everybody's like entering the water and they get off the boat. Well, you know, you've got guys that don't have a lot of water, you know, familiarity. So, you know, some guys are sinking. Other guys are floating. Some guys are spending, dudes are not leaving the boat in a proper, you know, like position. So, they're supposed to hold the tanks down, you know, hold their mask and look behind them and then, you know, kick off. And so, it's a gaggle. It's a horrid gaggle. And everybody then is like pulling. And so, the bud line is literally choking everybody out. Right? And you got guys that are stressing, because they're not used to it. They don't, you know, that for the Army guys, a lot of them, you know, they do a little bit of water confidence, but this is their school. They don't have, like, their preschool, they may or may not have attended, right? So, I think that was the case at the time, but I think now, 100% they all do. Anyways, we have this guy from fifth group. It's an old salt guy, it's a Sarn Sanders. And I'll never forget, he's standing there. He's got his foot on the gunnel. He's wearing his UDT shorts. He has balls hanging down. Balls hanging down. Oh, yeah. They're fricking in none of this. Balls hanging out, you know, sunglasses. No, no, no, no, no. This is sick. That's going to be the best, when you get to the top. Totally, totally. So, you're down at the water level, you're looking up, and there's nothing but a big ball sack hanging out. And you're like, damn, that's, yeah, exactly. You're like, hey, that looks like bubble gum. And clearly, he doesn't shave. And you're like, that looks like a man. Anyways, he's got his dark chrome shades on and his little, you know, baseball cap and he's, he's looking out at us and, you know, at the point where I look back at him and I lock eyes with him, I'm like, you know, I'm looking around and this team is, they're, they're just, it's just a horrible mess. And he goes, you man need to move out before the enemy dies of old fucking age. Yeah. And I was like, oh my god. Isn't that great? Feeds are out there, like, cutting their shit away, shits fall into the bottom. We lost like six weapons. It was just the fourth. When he goes underwater, when he gets tangled, it's a, man, that's the every dimension all together. So he ended up getting our shit together. We ended up making it to the beach, but that was like, there was no goal setting goal. The goal was to finish the event. We lived through it. Yeah. That was it. Yeah, for sure. You don't know that's the thing. When you're going through that, like, no, we got to get through here. We got to do this, but the whole point was just to get survival. You know, I heard you want another podcast talking about how, you know, you're on the beach and your instructors sitting up there on the top of the berm and he's, they're smoking you and he's got a bull horn and he's just telling these stories. And you're like, you're suffering and you're like, God, how long is this story going to go on? I had the exact same event happen on the pool deck because we have introduction to pool. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm going through, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right? So the whole deck intro. Yeah, yeah. Right. So you're there on the deck and you're wearing a UDT shorts and you got your little, you know, your thin brown t-shirt with your name Stenciled on it. And you got to pair a 280's hand, you know, and this is the first time you're able to handle them, right? You're not, you're, you're kind of a plea, right? You're like, this is your, your new wife, right? You're going to have to let you touch it. 20 of your two scuba tanks that are tacked together. Yeah, yeah. And they wear them at the same time on your back. Yeah, like the air tank. Two air tanks. Two air tanks on your back, side by side. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, back in the Inquisition times, they had this thing called the rack where they would stretch your spine and all that stuff and they would torture you until you became Christian or whatever. Like these scuba tanks, that's like the modern thing, right? That's how they rack. John, you got to get on your belly and you got to belly crawl on the concrete with them on. You got to, you got to, there's no patting with them on. Zero, there is no patting. There is these little straps that are like half an inch wide and they've got fast, fast releases that you weave into them. But that's, that's your, that's your girlfriend. You're going to carry those. So we held on to them and Sarn Sanders, again, was leading the pool that, entered a pool deck and he kept going on and on and on and I can't remember because at the time I was trying to figure out exactly how comfortable way to carry these things and you can't put them on your hip, right? That was against the rules. So you had to hold them and you know, you'd see guys, you know, kind of, you know, maneuvering around, trying to get them comfortable, you know, and you'd swap in hands and doing the whole mind yards and meanwhile he's still talking and I'm like, how long is this iteration going to last? Like I'm pretty sure I've demonstrated skill here. I've held these tanks up for, God knows, at least 30 minutes. And that doesn't sound like a long time until it becomes an hour. And then you start getting lectured about how you didn't, when you got off that, when you got on the airplane and there was takeoff that you didn't have your tray table in the upright lock position. And that's when I was like, oh, I get it. This is just a suck fest and this is going to at last all day and that's exactly what happened. So he did like that. And once we were like, oh, do you want to put them down and finally convinced the whole class to agree to put them down because everybody was like, no, this is a trick. It was a trick and we've all finally succumbed to the weight. So then that's when we started to duck walk. You know, we were allowed to put them on our back and duck walk around the pool and that's when we were able to put our eyes finally on the prize, which was the water in the pool. You know? And so that's formative for combat dive, at least in those days. They don't do that anymore. Well, I don't know. I assume they probably do quite a bit. We do. And I don't know what the Air Force is doing. I was able to actually go down and see, I think maybe one of the first graduating classes for the Air Force dive school. They were doing drag or I think at the time, but I don't think they do close circuit anymore. So the dive bubbles are different. I've got one with sharks on it and cross swords. And then the one that they ward now, I think is more like the Navy salvage bubble. Where we at during the night of 11? I was at Moody Air Force Base. I'm Ham Breakfast. Yep. I had, I was a PJ. I'd done like four rotations. Okay. Yeah, two to Ohinda operation Northern Watch, two to Operation Southern Watch. I'd done some space shuttle missions. And when that kicked off, I already had a package into OTS, officer's training selection. So, or school. And so that was a huge event for us. We're on the East Coast. We're the only active duty East Coast team. And a couple of guys just left the unit that day. Like literally walked out in the parking lot, got in the cars, drove to New York City. And volunteer. And one of them was my supervisor. His name was John Willis. And he had won the President's Medal for the Oakland Bridge Collapse, where he was on the Moffitt team out there and did the East Coast Act same thing. They didn't have orders or nothing. This, hey, somebody's in need getting a car, go to see what you can do. Yeah, it was like that too. Yeah, man. So John was, he was kind of a legend. Also, killed a giant ass redfish with an ore. My gosh. While he was on an inflatable, on an inner tube. Because he used to have a boat, more to outside in the banana river down there on Coco Beach. And so there's a bar right there. And he used to frequent. And then he paddle out to his boat and go to crash out. It's a sailboat. And we used to joke with him because we figured that the state of Florida let him keep the boat more out there because it was an artificial reef. It just had so many barnacles on it. It was a seaworthy route. That's a good living for some of those guys. I know, right? That's part of our heritage, it's not well known. You can geobach like that. Yeah, if you're young and you come in, try that one. We have somebody to do it too. Yeah, he was making his way on his inflatable. And that's when he saw this redfish come up. And I mean, it was a big thing. And he whacked it with the ore and pulled it onto him. And it made the front page of the local paper. My gosh. It was fun to go after it. So there's your fishing story. If you got one better, submit it. Yeah. We'll get a Patreon story. No doubt. That's the best fishing story to come in. So it's 9-11. And what do you do? Like what's your next steps? Well, so this is, we've kind of fast forward through the pipeline. And I mentioned that I did a couple of rotations. So two to Turkey for Northern Watch, where we patrol for the listeners, may not be familiar. After the first Gulf War, we established two parallels where Saddam Hussein couldn't fly his Air Force above or below. And that was to protect one from incursions into Kuwait, again, or Saudi Arabia, threatening. And the one north was to protect the Kurds, right? Because he was bombing the Kurds and gassing him and all that kind of stuff. So on the Air Force, flew fighter patrols in there all the time. And they needed rescue assets to assure that in favor, because they shot us all the time with Sam's and in Aircraft guns. So that happens all the time. So people who aren't paying attention, we don't have to be in a war for people to shoot at us and do all that and test all of that. That's a normal ongoing occurrence and we're over there. We don't even talk about it. Like it happens so much like you were getting combat. Everyone who was over there has. That's the crazy bad about our generation, the crazy part. Is everyone's been in combat, but because they get shot at and mortar and rockets, but we don't look at that as the combat. No, I never thought of it. And we should talk about that. And then a separate side. I'm trying to tell people that I'm like, no, that's not combat. Yeah, it is. That's combat. I literally, my first trip to Afghanistan early on, we put our GP medium right next to the only mosque on Kandahar because it was the only building that was still left standing after Taliban last time. No shooting things. Well, well, I mean, you know, like it was kind of, I mean, I hate to say it was a little protective measure. It was literally, there was, the airport was still there. But I mean, it's full of holes, right? So that was one of the interesting things. We got rocketed and mortared every night. Some of those files make the rock concert t-shirts out of it. We got mortared on this date at this time. And then underneath it, be like, years later, you know, somebody would ask me like, hey, were you ever in combat and stuff? I was like, you know, I don't, I don't, you know. I can't say that I ever really, I can't. I don't remember like shooting anybody. You know, have I shot my weapon in self-defense? Yeah. But I mean, from an aircraft, that's a different thing, you know? Because we're, you know, also gunners on the 60s. Everyone's been shot at something fast. Yeah. But I mean, like, did I file for like, hey, a combat action ribbon and nothing? No, we didn't do that. And, you know, half the time, you know, like, okay, well, you know, you know, you're flying low and fast. You know, sometimes you have to defend yourself. Like RPGs get shot at you. They go through the formation. You're like, you know, didn't get, didn't, it didn't hit us, so we just keep going. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, and that means paperwork. They got to fill shit out. And then people are asking you why you're there. And you got to ask, you know, you got to answer a bunch of dumb questions. And, you know, so it gets in the way of the mission, which is rescue. Right? That's right. And so, you know, and it's not always Americans, right? So it's, you know, we have coalition members that you're out there to rescue. And then you have civilians, you know, they're early on, we're there to win the hearts and minds. Hold on. Yeah. The doctor is the medical program. Yeah, the heart's minds, that's right. Yeah. So, you know, you're out there, you know, rescuing kids, you know, or, or, you know, village elders, you know, that get sick or kids that step on minds and things like that, you know, left over from the Soviets. You know, that's what you want to do. You want to make that your presence known. You want to let them know that you're shoulder to shoulder with them. You're not going to just leave them high and dry when something happens. Sure. Well, we won't run out doing actual missions and we would do medcaps. So all of the 18 deaths of the medics, we'd load up and go into town to work on the sub-in. Which is a great mission, but. Yeah, we did the same thing. We did it at Dera Wood. I did, yeah. Yeah. I pulled some rotation there. I sent guys up there and that was pretty awesome. We've got training. Oh, it was the best training. I mean, I've got great training. I lost the hard drive, but I had a whole bunch of photos. I mean, a whole folder of some pretty gory stuff, but, uh, man, did we learn a lot? I did. And we picked up an 18 Delta. He's a, he's a full bird colonel. It was a lieutenant colonel at the time, but he was from New Hampshire at a private practice. We went to war. He is a, he was a, he's an SF medic in Vietnam. Came back home, went to, became a doctor and, uh, then started a private practice. Then when this war kicked off, you know, 20 year, 30 years later, he's like, hey, I'm this guy. Remember me, Army? And the Army's like, we'll give you uniform. So he's like, all right, cool. He ends up in the bush, you know, in Dera Wood province, which is, that was Indian territory. Literally, like, we pulled together some Hesco barriers and that was it. We had some plywood. And he was out there, I mean, killing it. Lee Insolata was his name. Later on, um, we ended up pulling him out. When, once he left that, he ended up going and doing some amazing stuff in Africa and some clandestine areas for some really special people. You get him. Yeah, we did. We got him. He trained PJs up at our, he's got some skills. He does, SEI, uh, up in New Hampshire, is where we have some of our advanced medical training. The mobileism that, when we first went in there, I'm Charlie Med guys and anybody was hanging out to the surgeons, especially because you just don't work on him, us, right? Like, if we hurt somebody and don't kill him, we got to bring him back. And then they patch him up and we'd send him back. So that's great for Intel value. One way or the other, you're gonna pull in everybody off the target, making sure that, you know, we've got everything we can get. That's real, yeah, we did that for sure. And the kids too, you know, so we did a lot of missions. One of my, you know, a ton of missions. And that's kind of where we ended up losing a couple PJs early on is, you know, some of those, those aviation missions where, you know, a lot of people think it's always man versus man, but, you know, a kill you, a man versus nature, a kill you just as fast. It's not faster. And so, you know, whether or not you're disrespected by looking for the guy trying to kill you. Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah. And you never think about, that's why we train today and hard, but that's what a good, the elemental grabs us, usually grabs us before somebody shoots us. Yeah, and I mean, you can extend this argument out over time, you know, man versus society will get you too. You know, so, you know, depending on, you know, where the environment you are as a veteran and then where you go, that'll get you. So, it's good, because it changes whether or not the day by day if they're pissed or not. Yeah. If they're upset, you can run across somebody. Yeah, that's weird. The Vietnam veterans went through that. Yeah, they did. And they paved, you know, a lot of people don't give them the credit they're due, but one of the things about, that's unique to the PJ community, I would say. And maybe you might share this, but for the medical side, there's some books that we read, right? And, you know, some of it is like biothrillers, you know, other stuff is, you know, I think you heard you mentioned Gatsafire, right? Absolutely. So, in the, it gives you the warrior ethos, then there's the medical side. There's our war by Sung Soo, there's the five rings. A few of them, we got to read that they did. Yeah, this is a mandatory reading, you know. Why are you learning how to be, you know, an enemy in physiology, two years of that in two weeks, which was a whole other, like, how about that? How about that? That freaking med terminology test, we have to take going in there. Part of the thing I've ever done. Part of the thing, by far. Joking. Yeah, I did too. So, you want me to learn two years of A and P. Two years of it. Two years in two weeks. And here's, and here's what we're going to do. We're going to give you a blank piece of paper. There's going to be 100 blanks on there. And then we're going to give you another one with 100 blanks on it. And you have to fill it up. You're going to walk in a room, right? And then what you're going to do is you're going to identify what structure, what is, what is this that the pin is in cadaverks and exploded. That's a hard thing. Part of the test I ever took. Not only are you going to write it in English, but you're going to write it in Latin. Oh, my gosh. Right? And that was like, I was like, whoa, 100 in English. OK, yeah. Like all the major veins, all the major nerves. I mean, all the major structures. You had no the name of it. But I don't want anything about it. Yeah, it's like, oh, the edge. You know, hard that is to stick something in your head. If you don't know what the word means, I, I, I, that. And then the pituitary gland, all the glands, like, hey, if it's a gland, you have to write down all the hormones. It's, oh, my god, right? So that's a crazy acronym has come from. Yeah, yeah. So since the kid, the little ones, could talk. Marcus has asked, what is this bone? I teach them all the bones in the body. Oh, yeah. What is this bone? How many keep you having it? Yep. Addie, how many bones in the body? I do. Boom. 200. Come on now. Right there. Yeah. I'm going to perform under pressure, honey. Nobody's great. He's just one. And he's broke the internet today. She, they, he has ice cream for you tonight. That's right, baby girl. He's made your daddy proud. Every bone in the body, how many teeth you have? Like all that stuff he has taught the kids since literally since they could talk. You know, I'm so sorry. That room, kind of when you mentioned the tooth, isn't that amazing? What we learned about dental? You don't get that. How about that? Right? The dental blocks and stuff. I'm trying to tell him, he's like, hey, man, I can work on your teeth. I can, it's easy. It's easy. It turns out it's actually easier than I am. He's pregnant. He told me he could deliver the baby. And I'm like, And I've done that. Absolutely, baby. Let me do that. But I've delivered on 17 of them. Absolutely not. People don't believe me. My wife didn't believe me. We started having kids. We sure do that. Yeah. We can. We can do. I am not letting you look down there in that state of trauma that I'm going to be going through. That's not going to happen. That's a great thing, man. Yeah, it was amazing because we've got a lot of... It was the best. Yeah, it was. And then, you know, Corso... It was the best. All the self-care that we did on each other. That's how I got good at that. I know, right? You know, I ended up having a bunch of scar tissue removed over those 14-gauge being thrown up by, you know, you put on top of your foot in your forearm all that because... No, no, no, no, no. You put it in your knee. One of my best guys here, and he was a PJ Cox. Was his name? I've never forget walking out of my room one morning. He's laying in the hallway, had a IV in his sack. There's corona bottles laying around everywhere, and he's passed out on the ground in the running position. Oh, yeah. And, you know, sweet easy all the way. Oh, yeah, man. Catch my spanky. In the IV bag in the back field. So, it was full of his blood. Oh, yeah. That's poor form. He was a badass, man. I'm freaking love that guy. God, he was already cool, man. He was the PJ in your 18-delted. He was one of them cutting him. He was the most people everyone knows. He had cutting him in his 18-delted class. All those great PJs, man. Yeah, I should probably tell the cutting ham story I have. So, I can mention this earlier, but so Jason, his first assignment was to Moody. And I had already put on staff sergeant, and I had quite a few rotations under my belt. And so, Jason was, he was a cross-training. You know, coming out of the Navy as a Saraswimmer. And, you know, of course, the young kids, I don't know how the seals are, but we kind of haze the young kids. You know, they come in, you know, and they're, you know, they got a beret, and they're not qualified to do shit, except for make coffee, not even that. They got to watch, there's an instruction manual. I had to get that shit done right. So, but Jason, just, he fit in. You know, he fit in in such a great way because he played the cone part really well. And he just had such charity. He was a good, good man. And... You can tell a new guy. Oh, you can, totally. And some of those new guys who cross over, they can hide that. Yeah, like the army guys that cross over into PJ, there's not many, but they, typically we did get Rangers. And Rangers, they got a whole other level of business. Yeah, that's different human beings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's, you know, we can, we can tell stories about that. So they fit, I mean, they're just like, oh yeah, you know, and another thing. They kick it up, and not you're like, yes. I love these reindeer games. So, but, you know, coming out from the, from the Navy Saraschool, he, you know, had, I don't, I don't know if he had any, I don't think he had any combat deployments. But he had, that was the first one I thought. Yes, for the Air Force, particularly. Because I was shocked he got there. I was like, how did you, I'm sorry. So he got there because of me. And I don't, I don't tell the story. PJs don't know, and it's, it's something that took me many, many years to reconcile with. So I had mentioned, I mentioned I had my package into OTS. And I had like one, a couple of classes left. And so there's this task force K bar mission where, you know, like, this is early, like right at the beginning of the war. And everybody was trying to get in, right? So we had a strata, yeah, and because we didn't think the war is going to last very long. K bar is the game. Yeah, yeah. And so there was a couple PJs I was on the select list. And there was only, you know, three or four of us that were supposed to go on this task, tasking. And we had a simultaneous operation going on for northern watch. And so Jason drew the northern watch rotation. And I drew the K bar mission. And it was, it was my mission to have. And, you know, so, but I was really concerned about being able to finish up my degree. So I was like, you know, Jason, what do you think about swapping? And he was like, are you kidding me? I'll give you, I'm like, absolutely, absolutely. I'll do anything. I was like, okay, so we would, I'd stayed up with him and helped him groom his kit. He was an amazing, believe it or not, the Navy does, this is one of the things I truly respect, is they do a great job of cross training. So he knew how to run a sewing machine like you would not believe. He was way better than even some of our rigors. And so he sewed, we came up with this, it was really his idea, but I kick started it a little bit, you know, and gave him a couple of other pointers, but he built a combat ruck that I had never seen before, I have an Alice pack. And essentially, you know, it had zippers, we installed zippers on it. So the whole thing would fold open like a Dave Cruz pack. And, but it had, we sew Velcro in it. So we could have like A, B, and C, and then D, and F, and then, but it was his, they seem everywhere now. Well, yeah, but this, this started with him. This is what he did. And we, you know, I stayed with him down on the rigging shop and we built it up. And then he built me a couple of things for my kit. I think a quick releases for my Alice ruck. So that's one of the cool parts that comes out of that school house is all the inventions. Oh, yeah. Like the turn of kits, the Ashman Chess seal, all that stuff from the boys who came through that school house, just trying to get faster. Yep. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. There's a lot of innovation that occurs there. And chaos, that's where it comes. Well, yeah, and, you know, separate standards. And standards, yeah, that's it. The bar is continuously moving. You can't do that. What, yeah. It depends on how much the instructor has drank the night before. Yeah, yeah. You know, so, but Jason took my rotation. I went to, I went to Turkey. It convinced one of my really good friends and classmates, Bimbury King, to come with me. And we did our rotations in no more than watch. I finished up my degree, but we got news that Jason had been killed. And we, of course, you never believe what you hear, because the truth will come out eventually. So we had heard all kinds of rumors about this stuff. And we knew that he was with Carrie Miller, who was, you know, a 2-4 P.J., and everybody loved. He is, you know, a stellar P.J., all of them are. And so we wanted to hear it from Carrie, you know, like, we'll wait until everything's, the dust settles. The reports are written because, you know, officers need to write their reports. And, you know, inevitably, when Americans die, there's got to be somebody to blame or something to blame, you know, so that that may be a little bit farther from the truth than reality. So we at least had the presence of mind that. And then, so I went back, we finished up our rotation. I went back, and we got back just in time for the ceremony. And that was really the first P.J., I remember Barry, especially out of this war. And so that's where I saw, for the first time, us putting the P.J., our flash on a coffin. And that'll play into the story later on. But we did that. And I, you know, the coffin being where, you know, like the present and everything, that was one thing. But what I remember most struck me most about the ceremony was all the P.J. standing around without something on their beret. There was a vacancy. And P.J.'s don't typically make like multiple berets. We just have one. And we wear it until it wears out, and we make another one. And, you know, and so that badge that they wear on it, the flash, has been with them everywhere. You know, it's been all over the world with them. You generally don't wear it, but we take it, you know. I imagine for the seals. Same thing. So, you know, to see a sea of braze without that is a, is it was sobering in a unique way. And I really struggled with survivor's guilt for a long time, and I never shared it. Never. Is it not, it wasn't, it wouldn't be fruitful, right? Not for, you know, because I had, it wasn't that I traded a life for my degree. But that's how it felt, at least to me. And I promised myself going through all the classes and everything that I would never, ever allow my education to get in the way of my job. And I, I took pride in that. So I wrote, I did rotations. I literally finished up my degree in the back of a helicopter, like on a laptop, as I was pulling a leg. Like, you know, close it up. And I'm, I've got my head in the game. And so that was a tough one. And after that, you know, many years passed. A lot of rotations. We had several other losses. I lost a supervisor to helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Most DJs in my class are dead. Yeah. Yeah. Jason Plyte. A few of them. Yeah. How about that kid? He was great too, man. Young. Yeah. God dang, man. Enhance him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I have for you. Selection criteria. He's a pretty assemblage, I ever saw. DJs are pretty handsome. I mean, Joe, hold on. Yeah, you guys have your MO2, right? Yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah. We'll cover it with sideburns and that's in the stage. For the longest, longest time, I was like, is every seal got blue eyes and blonde hair? Like, what's going on here? He was. Yeah, I was right. He was a good link to him, man. Yeah, but many years later, I got a chance to meet his dad. I was in Vegas. And we were a station there. And we had another loss, lost the combat rescue officer and in a helicopter shoot down in Afghanistan. And Pedro 6.6. And the lead pilot for that aircraft was a close friend of mine. Dave was Nizki. And we had done some stuff together out in Okinawa. And everything, he was a good guy. And weapons officer, real sharp. And Joel Gantz, a combat rescue officer, Mike Flores. And so his dad came in. Jason's dad came in for the ceremony. And so we're at a bar after the ruffles and flurs. This is all over and everything. And most folks have gone home. There's the usual suspects at the bar. And so somebody had mentioned that Jason's ad was here. So I sat down next to him, introduced myself, and his name is Red. And I said, hey, tell me a little bit about your son. And he told me that this story about Jason wanted to be a PJ. And I was like, you know, I'm figuring this is like a Navy story, right? No, apparently, he wanted to be a PJ before he joined the Navy. But he felt like he wasn't ready. He needed to do something to prove to himself that he could make it through a pair rescue training. A strange philosophy. But he didn't know how to swim. So he decided he was going to teach himself how to swim. And he told his dad, hey, I want to be a PJ, but I need to learn how to swim. And he's like, well, what are you going to do? He's like, how much teach my house self how to swim? And he goes, OK, well, don't do something stupid. Don't go down there and drown yourself in the cattle pond. And his dad owned a cattle ranch. And so his dad is up next to the house, taking care of something as farmers do. And he got a bad sink and feeling in his heart. And he just immediately dropped his instruments and ran down to the cattle pond. He didn't see Jason. So he jumps in the cattle pond, swims around, locates him, pulls him out of the water, resuscitates him, brings him back to life. And he's like, are you OK, son? Of course, according to Red, he's like, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. And he's like, what are you going to do now? He's like, I'm not done yet. I still haven't learned how to swim. And I guess, according to Red, through that summer, he trained himself how to swim. And then he joined the Navy to become a Sar swimmer. And then left the Navy to become a PJ. So this was a, I guess maybe the story that I internalized here is that it was never about me. Jason's story in his heroism and everything, we'd like to think, oh, I would have made some different decisions on that mountain. I may have, but that wasn't my story. I don't do that, yeah. Yeah, you know, and I think that's a hell of a combat opera there, man. Yeah, well, you know, and the thing is, is that Jason did something that young PJs deal. They're trained to not really, one of the things we learned at Somsy, one of the best medicines, sometimes, is lead. That's your initial dose. Yeah, man. Fire back down. That's right. Dry medicine on a battlefield. Yeah, they preach that to us is rounds back down. Yeah. And I don't know what happened because I wasn't there. But my understanding is he was shot multiple times, moving the patients back and forth. The survivors of the crash back and forth and got shot moving the casualty collection point multiple times. So it wasn't that he just got shot moving, shuffling back and forth. It was getting him all to one. And then that becoming under fire, because they're taking casualties. And so they're no longer able to establish and maintain a field of fire. So then they have to move all those casualties again out of the, and so that was his contribution, which left an indelible mark on our heritage. And I think that there's a lot that drove a lot of changes, perhaps in training, you know, and know for certain that it changed the way I trained PJs. And that point on. Everything changed when it got real. Yeah. Well, I mean, we ended up, we had to relearn some lessons. I think we all did. The Army did, the Navy did, the Air Force did, for sure. Sure. Yeah. So for the people that don't know that story, they can look it up. It's Operation Anaconda. And Robert's Ridge. Yeah, Robert's Ridge. And they have the hell of a battle. Slab got the Medal of Honor. Yeah, a lot of medals came out of there. Yeah, a lot of medals came out of there. Yeah, there just happens to be an Air Force combat controller when a Medal of Honor is the only one that's ever been filmed. Oh, really? Yes. There's a hell of a lot. John Chapman. So that's right. Bogram Airfield is Chapman Airfield. That's right. Yeah. Because Robert's that, that's right. That's how that happened. Yeah. No, Robert. I forgot about that. Yeah. So Neil fell out of the back of the helicopter. They send a platoon up there to go get him. All right. They came under fire. They were shot back. Chapman was disabled. He was rendered in, he was incapacitated and unconscious. But apparently at some point, he became conscious, he regained consciousness. But the platoon had bounded back by that time. And so they didn't know that he was still alive. They were convinced he was dead. And they were hurt. They were crippled. And so I guess Chapman took it upon himself and whatever he could muster to put together a one man stand because they were firing at the SEAL team. And so he had no idea how much time had lapsed. But they had basically overrun his position. And we're firing down the mountain at the SEALs. And so he basically popped up in the middle of him and started shooting him. And they shot back. And so it was a gunfight for sure. I don't know all the details because it took me a minute to kind of be able to, some of it I can digest. Other bits takes a little bit more time. A fascinating story where convergence of whole lot of different things, I think we ended up putting some rescue helicopters up there and pick some people off the side of the mountain, which was a whole other feat of heroism, airmanship. You know, once the gunfight died down. So I guess after that, then we're getting into O5. So I had been leading into O5. I had done a combat rotation in Afghanistan. I was a team commander for the 48th rescue squadron's first combat deployment. So there's a brand new PGA squadron, a guardian angel squadron. And we went in and we were the only rescue force in all of Afghanistan. So there was no dust off, no nothing. It was early. And we did rescue from the KUNAR all the way down to Harat and everything in between, down to the pack border. And literally everybody knew us because we were the only folks in town that did the job. And we did airborne alert back then for, you know, soft direct action missions, stuff like that. We lived in the camp inside the soft compound at KUNAR. I jumped into Tarnac Farms, like, I don't know, five or six times, which is where Osama bin Laden plan the Twin Towers, you know. And so that was kind of an interesting thing. I did, before that, I in 03, I did 103 Victor. I was in the Joint Personnel Recovery Center, working for in the Combined Air Operations Center, back in Prince Holt and Air Base. So I was one of the first combat rescue officers in the Air Force. It was a brand new secondly, Tinnet, and had just finished up some advanced training with the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, with my counterparts that ended up going all over the theater to basically coordinate rescue and recovery operations, both on the over at side and the covert side. And they put me at the, basically the nexus for all of that, it's called the Joint Personnel Recovery Center, right? And that happens to be, that task falls to the Combined Forces Air Component Command, the CFACC, and the Air Force, right? And so most, don't know, 1003 Victor, became what we know as a Racky Freedom. And so all the air combat and ground combat operations, it was phase three, I was there, coordinating rescue for the entire thing, along with a whole other bunch of people. And so I worked the night shift, working 16 hour days or something like that, seven days a week, and I got a chance to coordinate probably, I don't know, maybe a thousand rescue missions. And dust off, recovery missions as well as rescue missions. And so some of the stuff that people may have heard of, or maybe the audience may have been associated with, it's very, very likely that if it happened at night, I might have been the one that you were talking to on the radio, or at least your headquarters was communicating with. It was a fascinating time. I had a chance to be involved in a lot of, probably for the listeners, one would be Jessica Lynch, and the 507th, most people are familiar with Jessica's rescue, but they're not really familiar with her teammates, and they became POWs, along with a patchy crew and several others that were held by the regime. And they were rescued by some Marines, but that all was coordinated through our center, in conjunction with coalition members, and civilians, and everything else. So, that center also was responsible for Afghanistan. So, I mean, you have two conflicts going on simultaneously, so it kept us pretty busy. Yeah. So I did that, then I did the rotation to Afghanistan, and then in 05, I was back at the joint personnel recovery agency, but instead of sitting on the watch, we had other officers doing that. Essentially, I was a subject matter expert. By then, I kind of had coordinating stuff, and there was young folks in there, and they were learning. So, I was put in charge of reintegration for the entire CENTCOM AO. And reintegration is, we have five phases to personnel recovery. So the first phase is report, then you locate them, then you support them while they're on the run, or in a hide site, or something like that. Then you do the recovery, or rescue, and then you reintegrate them. And the reintegration is something that most people are unfamiliar with. But it's essentially for if it remains, it's called repatriation. And if they're alive, it's called reintegration. And reintegration is the process, it's a methodical process, that is to return people with honor. No matter where they come from, no matter what their background, gender, bias, anything like that. It's about helping them transition from either captivity or isolation, back to their units and to their families, so that they can become a value added. They're a force multiplier. I think we learned some valuable lessons coming out of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, where we didn't do that. And so Vietnam was really the first war where you'd have somebody in the battle space. They were literally like cleaning their weapon, and in 10 minutes later, they were on an aircraft, and then 20 hours later, they're back in the United States with candy and ice cream and people hating the war. And that was a cultural shock that wasn't fair to them. And so a lot of people got together after the war and said, we're seeing post-traumatic stress in an epic proportion. How can we, what can we do to mitigate it? What can we do to help these POWs returning from Hanoi? Many of them had been incarcerated or interned for, you know, five years or greater, you know? And that's a whole other level of care, right? Because there are unique things that happen to you when you're in captivity in your malnourished in wounds that don't heal, and they manifest in different types of disease processes and things like that, that you wouldn't, that kind of care, you don't get just hopping into a hospital and saying, hey, you know, I need some care. So that's a, there's a medical side to it. There's a psychological side to it. There's a spiritual side to it. And, you know, like the, what it costs for the family to sustain, you know, their family member is a whole other aspect that you need to, they need to be prepared for it. And so bringing them into that loop and having them be part of it is we found, you know, we achieved a lot of, a lot of good results with that. So as a combat, you know, as a PJ, we focus on medicine, we combat medicine. And then obviously all the other methods to get to, get to the job, right? So, you know, skydiving, scuba diving, mountain climbing, all that really cool stuff. As a combat rescue officer, we take on an additional role of being a subject matter expert and advocate for the SEAR community. So in the Air Force, we have survival evasion, resistance, and escape personnel. There are most highly trained, and they, they are the, I would, it may be arguable, but I'd say that they're likely the world's best survival specialists, at least coming out of the gate. We're the only branch of service that creates a unique, especially code for them, and they're raised in it, and they stay that, their whole career. The advantage to that is that they internalize things and that, like the code of conduct that I mentioned, you know, at the, you know, at the VTC. And they educate all of our airmen, and they go around, and they educate Marines, soldiers, sailors, and then they also educate our, our sisters, I'm sorry, our partner nations as well. And so a combat rescue officer is in command of both pair rescue and SEAR. So we're supposed to be 50-50. So I was, I think maybe one of the first combat rescue officers that was assigned to be the sent-com lead for reintegration. And I owe that to my predecessor, who I think got the whole thing passed, and but I don't know if he ever, Blake George is his name. Phenomenal guy used to be a controller, crossed over to become a combat rescue officer. And Blake was the one that kind of codified the whole thing, and I think I inherited a position, you know, that he created. And so I was sitting in the JPRC in 05, and you know, it was a lot going on, that summer was crazy. A lot going on in Iraq, and we'll get to that. We have a lot of different sensors that we monitor in the joint personnel recovery center, some of which are classified, you know, to this day, but we have, imagine a stack of assets in the air, you know, so you have your intel birds, your surveillance and reconnaissance, and then you have, you know, collection devices, you have the ability to intercept communications, you know, with their friendly or foreign or hostile. There is a constellation of satellites that also monitor different types of things. And so all of that fused together, we used to monitor what's going on in our battle spaces. And so when something, we typically are briefed on major operations, but when there's special operations, at that time, we didn't get a full briefing. We were lucky to even get a name. And so there was a series of targets that needed their high value targets in Afghanistan that we were aware of. We had an idea of what their call signs were, code names, and then we had an idea of a general idea on where they were. But as to when they were gonna be actioned and by whom we were not privy to that information. The reason why that's important is because it gives us an idea if we see something happening somewhere, then we can kind of come through our files in our overlay and go, hey, there's actually an op going on there. Maybe they've kicked it off, right? So, but we don't get notified, hey, we're about to, we're about, in those days, right? So we're more reactive in the sense of waiting for somebody to pick up the bat phone and say it's time to launch. You know, we need your help. So as good Airman, you know, it's a joint cell, so we have other service members and coalition partners in there. You know, we're constantly monitoring and so we had a troops in contact report that we intercepted from a siege of SOTEF, combined forces joint siege is, so combined joint forces special operations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it takes me a minute to regear it state has been a while. I don't think I've said that. I don't remember in all that stuff too, because some of the founds I'm like, man, I don't remember what that letter stands for. Yeah, thanks. It's all good, man, I'm with you on that. It happens to me too. So, you know, we, I kind of come through some things and I was like, oh, look at here, you know, it seems like we might have an op going on. So on the Combining Operations Center floor, we have a special operations liaison element and call them the soul. And so, you know, I picked up my kit, you know, and I kind of me entered over there and I'm wearing a flight suit looking like a flyer. And, you know, of course, those guys in there like not impressed is Lieutenant, you know, they were like, what do you want? And I'm like, hey, just curious. You guys got something cooking, you need our help. And they're like, no, piss off, you know. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm gonna take my, you know, when I've discovered and go back to my, you know, my cave. So, and there were, you know, a couple guys that were busy studying their PME, you know, a professional military education stuff. And they likely had not heard anything. At that point, because it would not have treated me that way. But I mean, generally, you know, the kind of the, the thing the buzz on the floor would be is if you have a guy walking over from the JPRC to ask you if everything's okay, you might want to check. Yeah. You know, take note. So, we didn't have really, you know, as rotations go, go through that cell, there's an ebb and flow of skill. And so, you have some guys that are really switched on and other folks that are just learning for the first time. And so, the other, you know, aspects of the, the Combine Air Operations Center, they don't know, you know, and so they, they, you know, I'm not wearing a beret on my head, so they don't know me from Adam, you know, they could, so it's like, well, you know, he could, he's a second lieutenant, what could he possibly know? Right? So, I think it's a first lieutenant's time. But, yeah, that's, shade's a great. So, anyways, we, we go by a little bit and I'm showing my commander. I'm like, hey, you know, here's this information that I have. I'm deeply concerned because these, these reports indicate that we've got something that's outside the scope of what we anticipate, right? So, I'm seeing detonations that are of an order of like an RPG. These are not what our guys are carrying into the field. Right? So, this is a tip off and I'm, I'm, I'm very concerned. But the C just HOTIF is not asking for help and we can't, we can't just stick our nose into something that's not our business. So, we wait, we wait. So, can you hear, when you're saying you have all these different devices of being able to hear what's going on, yeah, can you hear like the calls that they were trying to make? It depends on the radio. It depends on the radio. So, some, yes. Some, no. And... Or let me rephrase, did you hear some of the calls that like Danny were trying to make in, the rescue calls saying like, hey, we're in contact. No. No, what I got, what we got was the reports from the aircraft because they're up on aircraft channels and we can absolutely hear that. Okay. And so, they're communicating and they're like, hey, I've got them. Hey, I've got it. I've got to beat it. So, obviously, timeline wise, this is way after the start of the troops in contact. Yeah. So, the troops in contact starts happening and they're in a gun battle. And there's, you know, like, but there's other aircraft assets that are going on all over the theater. It takes a minute for them to realize, oh, you know, slew over here, let's see. Oh, that's a great point. You literally have people flying all around on the radio that you're fighting. You can see them. Yeah. I won't have any idea that you can see them. They have no idea what's going on. They won't know until they get communicated with you. It's a compliment. Right. And so, we have this, we have this, nothing gets out that I'm aware of. There are some, you make some attempts to make communication. I think everyone on the team makes attempts to communicate with their handheld radios. That's right. But because of the issues with line of sight and the programming of the radios, they were trying to communicate back with their tactical operations center and they weren't necessarily trying to communicate directly with the aircraft. Right. So that's their, that's their, they had an established protocol for communications. And they were adhering to the protocol. And it's when that stopped, that was no longer effective, that the plan B comes out. And that's, whip out a cell phone. And I would say, it's like a, it was a cell phone? Yeah, it was a cell phone. Okay. So it's a cell phone. When the cell phone call comes in, the season showed up, they immediately write it down. They log it. And when they log it, we picked it up. And I'm like, oh, this is, this has gotten, this is, my, my spotty sense has been kicking in now. We have confirmation. We have, we have troops in contact. This is not good. You know, the guys are on the run. They, they were requesting assistance. And I, I'm probably distilling, you know, like a two-second conversation into something grander. But, you know, you play the cell phone game enough times. You're going to realize that, you know, with somebody who says, get people here now. And then the line goes silent. You know, it's like, okay, well, that means something to somebody. And then they report it. You know, it gets back to us. And next thing I know, we've got, okay, well, so I call, our call back to the, to, to that unit, is, I am, I identify myself, you know, I'm with the joint personnel recovery agency, our joint personnel recovery center. Did you, did you receive a phone call? Yes, yes, we did. Okay. Are they on the run? Are they isolated? We're not sure. We don't know. And so I can't declare a personnel recovery event because they're not my forces. Right? And so that can only be declared. When there's, when you're, it's important to know that the report has to come through a channel that is kind of bonafide, right? And so before, you can act on it. You can, you, we can launch forces. We have to have a couple bits of information, you know? And so, otherwise, the response is owned by the parent force, which in this regard was the C.J.S.O.D.F. for Marcus' White Soft Team. And so they, they were like, no, we don't need any help, we got it. And I was like, okay, let us know. And so, you know, it's excruciating. Because we have, we have assets. We can, we can move. We have folks that are just, that's all they, they live, read, eat, sleep, you know, for all, for that kind of thing. And they're dying to get involved. But, you know, the information is sparse. And the worst thing you can do is clog up that airspace and, you know, with a reactionary force that's not needed. Right? Because you end up, they're on a surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Let's not forget about that. Right? And so, like, maybe they have a local skirmish where they can, you know, they're kind of like, hey, you know, I need to get some things sorted out here. You know, some people need to take a dirt nap and then we're going to continue the mission, Charlie Mike. Mm-hmm. We don't know. So, it ends up, I don't know how the communication ended up actually happening, but the Siege's soda have notified the task force. And I guess through the seal change of command, seal channels, there's a whole bunch of guys, you know, decided to get on a helicopter and go visit violence on these idiots, you know, that, you know, took a dislike into Marcus and his team. So, they didn't coordinate with anybody, and we had no idea that they had launched. That was another problem. Mm-hmm. And that played out, that played out in a myriad of different ways later on. So, it wasn't until the aircraft crash that we picked that up. And we... That's when that thing went crazy. Yeah. We had an angel go down. Yep. I mean... Well, I mean, it tripped everything. I mean, every sensor we had... It was a porter's note. I mean, I don't know how to count them going out, and they count them coming back in. And if one doesn't come back in, then it's not... They're just like words. It's not what is you doing. It's like, we know you got one out. Well, we had ISR, you know, at that time. So, you've got a predator. You know, that's theirs, you know. And so, now we're... We understand we're looking for something, you know, and so, the 47 goes down, and a turbine 3-3. Mm-hmm. And so, at that point, you know, we're like, okay, we have an aircraft down. Like, that's a PR event. Lockstop... Like, we're... So, we just declared an event from the Joint Personnel Recovery Center, which was... We just ran, heard right over the top of every cat. Yeah, they gave you all the green light, right? Oh, well, we... You know, there's such things being aligned, stepper, that was like, we just threw the rulebook out. Like, it's... All right. That's Rick James, you know, that's a ritual line. You know, right? So, we declared a PR event, and it was like, whoa, who dear? You know, how dare you? These are, you know, like, we got this. It's like, clearly, you do not have this. Your plan A failed. Your plan B has failed, and you're like, able not to reconstitute. You're... You need to take a time out, right? We're gonna... We're gonna send some folks up there, and we need to get a hold of this, such a way. At that time, did you know that there were two birds that had gone out, and one turned back? Yeah, it's a formation. So, they registered on the ATR. They're... They're tasking water. But I'm pretty sure those were task force birds, and they weren't... And, gosh, you know, I can't recall if I knew it while they were in flight, because they were... They were scheduled for alert, but they were ground born. So, when they took off, I don't know if they checked in, because sometimes you have a mechanical failure, or whatever. But generally speaking, they don't fly a single ship. So, you know, you've got an aircraft in the zone, you've got another aircraft pulling security. That's two. There's always a water bird there, you're sure. Yeah, so that's kind of the... You know, so we understood that. So, when that happened, I had been piecing together some artifacts that I was able to gain through our sensor platforms. And those artifacts, I overlaid them on a topographical map. Some old school, you know, kind of space stuff. But, you know, every platform, regardless of elevation, when it picks up an emination, there is an energy signature that if you kind of reverse it, you kind of... I have an idea of what altitude it's flying at, I have an understanding of where it was, and then I can get an idea of like, it's great, it's great, grazing angle. And it makes like an ellipse on the ground. So, it's the same thing. If you're going to shoot up in the air and you know, your bullets are going to land in ellipse generally. And so, using that, I was able then to kind of determine, okay, I've got a single frequency. You know, I have certain cuts that are look like one thing and other cuts that look a lot like something else. When I say that, I mean like they're, you know, some may be voice or beacon or whatever. They're different characters. And so, I was able then to kind of look at something and go, you know, what I feel like is that I've got somebody on the run. And I'm really certain that this is an American because of the way they're, where they're running. Right, and how they're running. And so, this communications log, essentially gave me enough information to have a confidence factor that I had at least one survivor, one. And because of the coding and everything, I was fairly certain I only had one radio. And what I didn't know, you know, like, if it was captured equipment, generally our enemy is not going to move away from the incident to signal, right? So, they're not going to lead us back to their layer with our radio, right? That's poor form, because you're going to get warheads and foreheads. So, that's what gave me the confidence that was one of us. Not only that, but Marcus, falling back on his training, at least to me it appeared that he was running a military crest, which is part of our, you know, kind of like this is a maneuver that you used to, to assure that you have a minimum signature, whether you're uphill or downhill from somebody, that military crest kind of hides your movement, you know, from the enemy. And generally speaking, if you're running a military crest, you're on the run. You're evading. Unless you're moving into a target, and that wasn't the case, right? Correct. So, one of the big... That's what I call it that. Yeah, so one of the big frustrations that, you know, we're going to have in all of this, is we have absolutely no idea what equipment has been captured. We have no idea what equipment, you know, they've retained. We have no idea how many survivors. There's a lot of unknowns. What we do know, at this point, is that there was a cell phone call made, a cell phone call made, and there was a helicopter of Bernie. So, as we wrap up this episode today, I wanted to take a moment to share with you kind of why we brought on this guest today, Jonathan Armin. As some of you may know, next week marks the anniversary of Operation Redwings, a very significant event that really impacted a lot of great people out there. I believe it's crucial that we remember and pay tribute to all of the brave men and women out there who've sacrificed their lives to protect our freedom. One way that we can do that is to carry out their stories with us and continue to honor their legacy. So, with that being said, thank you, Jonathan, for coming out and joining us today and opening up this conversation. Next week we'll get into a bit more of the story that surrounded the operation itself. Thank you all of the brave men and women out there who have served and are currently serving our country. And also, last but not least, thank all of you for tuning in, and we'll be back next week with the second half of Jonathan's story. So until then, take care and have a great week.