J.S. [00:00:03] Today is June 9th, 2021. My name is Jon Swain and I'll be conducting this oral history interview with Marc Christ, a retired Marine and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Tonight, Marc will be sharing his experiences during Bravo Company 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion' 2009 deployment to Helmand Province, Afghanistan. This interview is pursuant to the practicum requirements for American Military University's master's degree in public history. He will also be submitted to the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress for the benefit of future generations. Marc, please state your rank, name and birth date for the record.
M.C. [00:00:45] First Sergeant Marc W. Christ, 10/31/1975.
J.S. [00:00:51] So where were you born?
M.C. [00:00:53] I was born in Towson, Maryland. Greater Baltimore Medical Center. It had just opened.
J.S. [00:00:58] Tell me a little bit about your life before the military.
M.C. [00:01:02] I grew up in the Towson area. My dad was an engineer. My mom was a school teacher. When I was in the third grade, we moved to Egypt for three years, so I lived abroad. That was my first exposure by the Marines, except my father was a Marine. My grandfather was a Marine, but we hung out with the embassy guys. So we had a real positive view of the Marine Corps, came home, went to high school, attempted to do an ROTC scholarship to college for NROTC. And that fell through. I had a teacher that kind of messed that up. And then I decided to join the reserve.
J.S. [00:01:42] So you first showed interest in the military while you were abroad?
M.C. [00:01:45] Yeah, when I was little. I mean, every kid played guns, but, you know, being around Marines all the time, they're pretty, pretty sharp looking.
J.S. [00:01:50] And that really influenced your decision to join the Marine Corps in particular? What did your family think about your decision to join?
M.C. [00:01:58] My mom was a big fan, my dad, he wanted me to become an officer. So he was he was the least excited of the two which I thought was was odd.
J.S. [00:02:09] Were you able to choose your job when you joined?
M.C. [00:02:11] Yeah, I was. I joined the reserve. I went to MEPS. I did the test and they tried to get me to join active duty as like satcom repair. And I didn't want to join the active duty because that's four years. I don't want to go into the unknown. And basically I kind of played hardball with the recruiter. So that's how I got the 0313 slot because that was the only infantry MOS in the state at the time, of course they probably lied to me, but that's what I got.
J.S. [00:02:37] Would you think about becoming an LAV Crewman?
M.C. [00:02:41] I thought it was interesting because I was kind of a military nerd in high school, so I kind of knew what LAVs were. It's like like like a light cavalry thought would be interesting thing to do. I didn't know where Frederick, Maryland was. So that was an interesting I got to travel to another part of the state. So it was I was pretty excited about it.
J.S. [00:03:00] When did you ship to boot camp?
M.C. [00:03:02] Memorial Day, 1995.
J.S. [00:03:06] So what brought you to Bravo Company, 4TH LAR in particular?
M.C. [00:03:09] So that was it. That was the unit we went to. I was supposed to get a combat engineer as a Humvee driver. I think they wanted me, but I switched over. So I got to show up to Bravo Company. And it also turned out that the company commander was a coworker, my father. So it was it was an interesting, it was very eye opening experience. It was a lot was a lot different then than it is now.
J.S. [00:03:31] What did you think about the unit when you checked in?
M.C. [00:03:34] I was scared of the active duty guys, the I&I staff. Back then, the I&I staff was eighteen-year staff sergeants. They were older. They had been around the block a few times and they were of an older generation. The company itself was probably at maybe three quarters strength. So each platoon was about half strength for vehicles. There's a decent amount of Gulf War vets, but they're all coming out. And my first impression was just total confusion. Like I showed up for Drill. They threw me some gear. I went in the back of the vehicle and I went to I didn't know we're going it's got in the back of the vehicle. And when I got out, it was dark, we were at Fort A.P. Hill. They shot all the vehicles, went down during firing for the whole day. So my initial sort of thoughts were like not that these guys don't know what they're doing, but a lot of this stuff doesn't seem to work a lot. And then I got put on road guard for like forty hours with no relief. So it was an interesting first drill, needless to say.
J.S. [00:04:35] Tell me a little about your first several years of Bravo Company.
M.C. [00:04:38] So I was, I was like the... I was kind of a... I don't want to say "A-hole", but I was kind of like the smart ass private. I came in as a private. They put me in the platoon, the cowboy platoon. I always say that of the three line platoons, there's a cowboy platoon, there's a retard platoon, and then there's the vanilla platoon. So I was kind of in the cowboy platoon. So there are a lot of bravado, a lot of people that I like that remind me of my family, my friends, is just joking around all the time, trying to outdo each other. We still took Marine Corps seriously, but I want to say the first year or two, I don't want to say I spent screwing off. I still do my job, but I didn't really start kind of digging in until my third year and then from there then I leveled out. But I still was kind of an asshole Lance Corporal at heart.
J.S. [00:05:30] Tell me a little about your per your personal life while serving with Bravo Company. What was your civilian job, your friends?
M.C. [00:05:37] I was in and out of school, college. I developed quite a drinking problem in my early 20s, my late teens. So I want to say my personal life was a train wreck until maybe 19, I guess for four or five years. And I was probably the only reason that I remained sober during the year was to come to drill weekend like the reserve actually the reserve unit served as my anchor. Like, the only thing that kept me remotely near the ground was I had to be sober at drill. I had to be sober and to stop partying before drill. That was about it. So the reserve kind of saved my life.
J.S. [00:06:17] Do you remember where you were on September 11th, 2001?
M.C. [00:06:20] Yep, I was in my bed, I was hungover from a night of drinking. I was playing rugby at the time. And I woke up and my phone was just ringing off the hook, the actual phone, not a cell phone. And my mom called me and said they crashed the plane into the into the World Trade Center. I didn't think anything of it. I thought like a plane crash, like a Cessna that crashed. And then she called me again with another plane crash, like, OK, let's go see what's going on and turn on the TV and say, oh, this is bad. And then the phone started ringing off the hook. It was nonstop. Hey, get ready. We're mobilizing, you know, it turned out that most of them were just idiot sergeants and stuff that were just they got excited like they were going to war and I'm like, OK, we're going to war. And then, you know, when they say stuff gets real, like stuff got real on 9/11, we're like, OK, now it's we're probably going to go somewhere.
J.S. [00:07:12] Did you notice a difference in in the unit on the training schedule, training pattern?
M.C. [00:07:19] No, we we had we had a really good battle rhythm at the time. But before we when we were reserve, we would go to the field, we'd shoot. So every quarter we'd shoot, we go to the field and shoot for one. We do a maneuver drill and then we do a homesite maintenance drill. So our our tempo didn't change at all. What did change was wills and power of attorney. So they started doing- they never did that before. Get your the power of attorney together. They were constantly saying, all right, we're going to go to Afghanistan, and we didn't go to Afghanistan, OK? We're going to go to Iraq. We're not going to Iraq. The battalion commander came out like three or four times that year. And usually, as you remember, they show up like when they do the change of command. Right. And the change over like- Colonel Pappas came out and saw us on multiple occasions. And other than that, we stuck to our bread and butter training schedule.
J.S. [00:08:16] In 2003, Bravo Company deployed to the Middle East in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Tell me a little bit about your first deployment to Iraq there in 2003.
M.C. [00:08:26] What's interesting about that deployment is they had basically said, hey, we're going to go and we're going. So in my civilian world, I disenrolled from school, so I missed a year of school. And then we got this weird window where we're like, all right if we don't go now, we don't mobilize now, we're not going to mobilize until May or June or something like, OK, so I went to the effort to reenroll in school and then Super Bowl Sunday, actually, during the Buccaneers playing the Raiders is when I got the call. So when I was a PFC, they do these inspections. Right. And the inspections, they're called Morts and they it's a mobilization exercise. So one of the things they do is they go in and like, what's your embark plan? What's your what's your plan for this? So since I was a brand new Marine, they put me down on the embark team as a private and they put it in a binder just to check a box. So I was thinking, oh, yeah, I was a sergeant, I just got promoted to sergeant. So I get the call like, hey, we're mobilizing and you're on the embark team, you need to come in. I'm like I have no idea what you're talking about. Like, no, no, you're on our embark, so you have to come in. It's like, well, OK. So I was like, it's Super Bowl. I'm really drunk. I can't come in yet. I'll be in some time in the afternoon or more like, you know, those things. I think it was Sergeant Eric Poole. He's like I've got to be in the embark meeting but I'm not coming in till noon. So we got in and we basically embarked the whole company. We were loading up our vehicles, conexes, we took everything we had with us to to Iraq. So we did that for basically the first five days. And then the company got the order to show up, I think was like on Monday. So the embark group that was there, everyone went home for a four day weekend and then myself, Jim Santoro, I forget who else- we got screwed and we had to go down to Lejeune because we had to TT the vehicles down to Lejeune and offload them. So essentially the pre workup, I worked the whole time and I got home for like five hours before I had to check in the next day. It was pretty organized and we actually kind of funny story. And we took the vehicles down to Morehead City to load on the ships. We got there at night. And I guess the the was it the LSB had not split their shifts properly. So there was no adults that night at the docks. So there was like some corporal in charge and it was total pandemonium. But we literally threw the will of Gunny Salomon, the company gunny at the time, we started loading our vehicles on the wrong ship and then they caught us that morning. They were like, at the shift change over like there's a way they load these ships, apparently, like everything goes where they say it goes. So you can't just go willy-nilly driving vehicles on there. So we had to offload them and then leave them parked in a parking lot for like two more weeks as they went on. And then we mobilized, we had to get new ID cards back then, we had reserve ID cards, which took us a week to get our ID cards and we basically for a week, we just worked on ID cards, did some classes, and we went to camp Lejeune. There was a blizzard, I think, when we left. I think we left like it snowed. Like all get out. We got to camp Lejeune. We loaded our vehicles up and we had our weapons, we had our gas masks and we sat at Camp Lejeune for like two weeks. And the only training we did at Lejeune was NBC like hip pocket training. Because we didn't know when we were leaving. So we couldn't go anywhere. We couldn't get training areas. We basically just sat in 2nd LAR's barracks. Right. And I think after two weeks, they finally decided to let us out, like to give us some liberty because they just call the desk. The desk said, hey, you've got your windows closed for another thirty six hours, so let everybody go. And like 20 minutes after everyone left, they called up and said, your flight windows in eight hours. So we missed our first flight to Iraq or Kuwait and we get to Kuwait. All our stuff is still on ships. We showed up. I don't think 3rd LAR was expecting us, I dont think the active duty was expecting us, any of the reserve units that were there. So we had to... We were kind of like the bastard children of 3rd LAR. And then our vehicles showed up and they didn't have enough gear for everybody. So they had to kind of like ammo and certain things. They had some some vehicles from the maritime position and stuff. So we got our stuff. And then 3rd LAR wasn't convinced that we can operate with them. So we had to go out to a range and show them that we could shoot and not kill ourselves, which was kind of a proud moment for us. Like our mortar section was always really good, but we had just come off like a two and a half year cycle of gunnery where we had really gone from kind of stupid to confident in like two years, but was very proud of that. So they said, all right, you guys can shoot, you can do whatever you're good. So we did. We got the big order. We got the big giant order in the big terrain model where you...
J.S. [00:13:26] What was your billet at the time?
M.C. [00:13:27] I was the the company reserve master gunner, so I was in headquarters platoon. So I- they did an interesting thing where they they kept... We had two XOs, we had two majors, so they, they were supposed to get rid of one or he was supposed to move. And I believe at the time our first sergeant told him he couldn't move. So he- they made him deploy with us. Great officer, Major Dave Duhamel. So I got lucky serving with him, but I would have probably had my own vehicle. I should have gone to a line platoon, but they kept me in headquarters. So, you know, I kind of oversaw the gunnery training and tactics and stuff and... Same deal. They told us we were you know, we weren't doing much training. We didn't really have much time. We didn't have anything to train with in the middle of the desert. So at the end, we... they got us some fried chicken, KFC, one night and like tomorow was a day off, we're going to play rugby. And then they woke us up at like 4:00 in the morning like, hey, we got to move the TAA. I think this thing I forget what it was called, but they said they moved this out in the middle of the night and we sat in a line in the desert for like a day. And then we went into to go through the breach and I think an A-10 had lit up an LAV or done something. So they called off the breach. So everybody got all worked up to go to the breach. And then it came over the radio, Major Duhamel gave us this great speech like this is it, men, we're going to war, yadda, yadda, yadda. And then a call came over from battalion like hey you know, back to the assembly area or whatever. We had to wait till tomorrow they had IFF issues. So we like the kind of the anticlimax when we crossed the breach was like the next morning. And then the rest of it was just what it was.
J.S. [00:15:07] What were some of the operations you went on or was it just kind of a continuous...
M.C. [00:15:11] Continuus, we did the invasion and then we did some we did some LAR stuff like right at the beginning. We did we did route reconnaissance, which is really cool, actually having to do it for real. So we had engineers attached to basically the three highways that ran up to Baghdad as it got closer to Kuwait. I think two of them were on 8, but I forget what highway it was, but it was unfinished. So we had to do navigability like basic- what LAR does. Okay. Can we take LSRs? Can we take out the LASs and trucks and all that stuff up there? And then after probably the third day, it just developed into this like stay on the roads, like we were set up screening lines one hundred feet from the main body, like we weren't, you know. I mean, it came apparently to me and like, we don't really know what was going on was just they're keeping everybody together as regiments. And we're staying close to the road. But after about a week, Hilton probably talked about it- they sent us to do so... They bypassed, I think, Nasariah, because all the stuff- Nasariah popped off. So we were going to bypass Nazariah. And at like eighteen hundred, no it was probably fifteen hundred, it was starting to get dusk, we get a FRAGO from battalion like there's an armored brigade moving from east to west across the Euphrates, set up a battle position in vicinity of whatever whatever northing like OK. And no air. There's no air support. Basically, we're going up as an organic LAR battalion, which means you got 81 millimeter mortars and TOW missiles like you don't want to tangle with an armored brigade, you're just going to get schwacked. I just remember up to that point during the invasion, we were doing super good trash discipline, keeping all the trash in the vehicles, doing trash pickups. And we were all sitting on a herringbone on the side of the road where you're know, it's like this for air attack and it's getting dark. At the VC was next to me, and I was like "sir, are they saying we have no air support?" And he was like "No, we don't have any artillery either. If we need it, it would be there" and I was like, all right, we're going to get schwacked, sir. And he was like "no, we're not. We're going to we're going to be fine, OK?" And I remember popping up, I had, like, this little trash bag, little trash thing. That's when I got up, and I threw it over the turret, threw it over the side and just, you know, there's like 50 LAVs all down the road. Everybody's doing the same thing. Everybody's like throwing their trash out on the ground, like waving goodbye to each other, like people that works like we're like this where I'm going to die. Like it was this great sort of like Zulu Dawn moment where we just waved at everybody. Everybody is like, this is it. That was that made some like National Geographic thing. So we sprung an ambush prematurely. They call it in like God knows how much air support. And I mean, basically you had a battalion on line like on this road, a whole battalion. So like a unit took fire, the roads were crisscrossed, there was friendly fire. I mean, how no one really got- died that night is beyond me. But I was monitoring Battalion TAC and company TAC so I can hear what's going on. And you could hear, you know, countermanding information like don't fire mortars, fire mortars, need illumination, machine gun fire, illumination. Someone fires an illume, and they're calling it as enemy fire. Well, it just went on and then it just it just ended. And after that, we pushed we kept pushing up the highway. We took part in this like the 70 kilometer feint where we drove all that almost to Baghdad and came back, which was really depressing because we would clear map sheets. As you're going up the road, once you're done a map, you throw it somewhere else. We only got nine more maps to Baghdad and then we had to find them all and then... We got in a couple of firefights at the cloverleafs. They pop us out and then, you know, again, luckily the Iraqis can't shoot.
J.S. [00:18:52] Is this mostly dismounted infantry?
M.C. [00:18:57] Attacking us? yeah. So they would bus these dudes in probably Fedayeen guys. They would bus them in. So we set up and then there are I.V. lines. We didn't have OPs set super far out. Right. So they would just bus people in like a mile down the road and they would come out. Luckily, we had an Arabic interpreter, a Marine. I don't know what he does now, but he spoke like seven. Arabic is one of them. So someone drove up to our vehicle checkpoint and said, we need to talk to somebody you guys are about to get attacked. So we got the interpreter to come up, his name was Kenny and the guy came in. He's like, I want you to frisk me and do all the stuff. And he's like look across the street there. They just dropped off a bus. There's a bunch of guys waiting, waiting, to ambush you if you go down this road. So I was like, holy sh*t, all right, we got good intel, we call it in to company. And then they basically, for some reason, decided to drive through the prospective killzone, they sent a platoon through the kill zone, which they did. And then that platoon, the lead driver, decided to stop in the middle of the kill zone for like five seconds. So they cleared the kill zone. And then they sent another platoon, right to the scene, the same kill zone and headquarters pushed up to cover the withdrawal. We hit them a little on the withdrawal, but it was like the overall sense from that whole deployment was just God was on our side or horrible training for the Iraqis, because if you take out a Marine infantry squad with SMAWs or LAWs and you set them up seventy five meters on the side of a road with vehicles driving down at twelve miles an hour, like you'd just be in schwack city. But for some reason, God was with us that day. But that was pretty much- we got to Baghdad. We set up, I think, the Northeast. We we we cordoned off the northeast and set up a VCP. We sent a platoon up to Tikrit. And then we went when they got back, we went to the Saudi border because they thought they were sending Wahabbists into Iraq. And then we got to where we were staying in Iraq for a long time. So morale plummeted and then we did. We paid the Iraqi army. We were a quick reaction force. We lost a Marine on a QRF mission, first platoon did... but generally- and then it just dragged on to the end. So we got back from '03 it was it was soul crushing because the... Because basically, you get into that situation we had... We had a first sergeant that just was horrible, crushed morale... we had some issues, some of the staff NCOs and people just put their heads in the sand. For the most part. You probably seen it before. People put their heads in the sand. The Marines get- the Marines just take on the face the whole time and they get home. And they're like, screw this, I'm leaving. So we came back. We lost like 80, 90, 80 Marines, like, gone like that. It's pretty crazy.
J.S. [00:21:46] How long were you in Iraq, the first time?
M.C. [00:21:49] We were there from like February to September, so it was pretty decent, about seven, eight months.
J.S. [00:21:57] How did your first deployment affect or change you?
M.C. [00:22:03] I felt like I steel myself a lot. My outlook, I never really had, like, an "OO-rah, Marine Corps," like we're invincible, like always, I always kind of prided myself on objectively, you know, grading. Right. So a lot of guys came back and I mean, it was different times. Like "we won" and you know George Bush had the fight suit. We won, you know, and a lot of guys just really bought into it, like we did this great job. You know, I looked at it like, yeah, we you know, we went over there and we we fought a surrendering force. We had some minor engagements. But I mean, we weren't tested in battle in LAR. Some units were, infantry units in Diwaniyah and they fought in the cities. But even there, like you're you have air supremacy. You have every level of supremacy. So, like, even if you screwed up, odds are you're going to be OK. So I really felt when we got home, as the sergeant, as a master gunner, I was very concerned with the proficiency level of the company because I knew we were going to go back. But they'd already said they're going to send the first OIF rotation was 1st Marine Division. They're going back like, OK, well, this ain't over. We're going to go back. So my initial sort of thing was was starting to train all these people again all brand new people.
J.S. [00:23:20] Were you able to pass on the lessons you learned in Iraq and that deployment to the junior Marines?
M.C. [00:23:24] I think we did. But I think the problem is I feel like the lessons I learned the lessons for me. Like I thought that the lessons learned that were theater specific shouldn't really be hit on until you're mobilized. Right. So the basics always apply. Cover, concealment, fire and maneuver, how to talk. Right. Knowing how to read a map, knowing how to navigate these things. All they're universal across the board. If you start applying like SASO type COIN things that you learn in Iraq while you're training during the year, you basically are letting Marines down because all that stuff is already covered in small wars manual and stuff. So why, I mean, there were certain lessons learned, but not not to the point where it was institutional. It was like I really felt the last half of the deployment was really not good for proficiency. The missions we were doing were were kind of oddball show of force, you know, stuff. And really some of the stuff we did, ECPs, VCPs, we didn't really do properly because we I mean, a lot of it was just pull people of by the side of the road. We had engineers and stuff to set up ECPs. But as far as how it applied to the next deployment, it really didn't. Other than learn you learn your stuff, be good at your job, because, you know, we went from we had no work up. You could be on a plane tomorrow. So learn your stuff. You probably heard that when I was your platoon sergeant, like, we could be on a plane tomorrow so if you feel comfortable with what you know then get on it. You know.
J.S. [00:25:03] When did you first hear that you'd be going back to Iraq. When was it certain?
M.C. [00:25:09] Two thousand.. I want to say probably like the summer of 05, maybe summer of 05, fall of 05, so it was probably about eight or ten months before we mobilized. They were telling us we're going to go to Horn of Africa, I think. And then we got the choice, not the choice. But the two options were Horn of Africa and small craft. So and we got like a little flier. We got like a, what do you call it, like a pamphlet thing. This is what it a SURC is, this is what Iraq is, the small unit riverine craft, the riverine assault craft. This is what they do. And so everybody kind of was like, man, I'd rather do small craft than sit in the Horn of Africa and do whatever the hell they did over there.
J.S. [00:25:53] So what was your mission going to be? What did they tell you your mission was going to be?
M.C. [00:25:58] Originally it was a dam support unit was I think we did a clever thing. We renamed the unit because no one knew what the hell it was. So initially it was called the dam support unit. And what they did is they their base mission was to provide security for the dam. Right. So in small craft, I think had that mission initially. So small craft came in in '04 and they were patrolling the Euphrates River. They're very kinetic. When they were there, they were down in Ramadi, they were in Fallujah in the water. So they were very "get out and go," and they- they disbanded small craft company because they were- those guys were like maniacs. So they kind of peeved the Marine General of Second Marine Division. So they kind of got rid of them. They were a division asset. So then I think the DSU-1 one stayed close to the dam. So they basically turned over, I think, to them, and then by the time DSU-2 came in, they had a training cadre, so they expanded their scope a little bit where they operate. By the time we came in, since we had an LAV background, we really expanded the scope of what it was. So we had a base mission. But but really, we provided full spectrum counterinsurgency operations, sort of in the western Euphrates River Valley. And so we did sweeps, we did interdiction, we did support missions, regular patrols like cops and pull people over. So it was it was pretty cool.
J.S. [00:27:22] Did you have an option to go on this deployment?
M.C. [00:27:25] Yes. So I think there was a force cap of like one hundred, and we had enough because of the small craft company. It's I mean, the small craft company is really big, but the way DSU had been like one det of small craft company. So you had, you know, basically take away headquarters platoon. You take away most of your weapons platoon. So it's probably about 90, 100 guys and well, no gals at the time. So we had we had options if you wanted to go or not. For the most part, the A-gamers all went, which was nice. Some of the guys chose not to. There wasn't really any bad blood that they didn't go. People- we had a lot of guys that were short timers. So they were like, "screw it, I'm getting out."
J.S. [00:28:12] How old were you at the time?
M.C. [00:28:14] I was twenty eight at the time, I think.
J.S. [00:28:15] What was your rank and billet?
M.C. [00:28:17] I was still a sergeant. I was a platoon commander. So when I got back, I was still a master gunner. The reserve master gunner, because the active duty guy was a little squirrely, needed some help. But I basically was a platoon commander for a majority of the time between OIF-2 and I was going to be the platoon commander for the ground combat element. And then we got a lieutenant in. He took over and I bumped over to the platoon, platoon sergeant for 2nd Platoon in the boats. And so I was twenty eight or nine.
J.S. [00:28:54] How did you feel going back to war after having already been once?
M.C. [00:28:58] I'm sure the other guys said this, it's kind of creepy. It's like you ever had the boot camp dreams like some times, for the future generations, you have- sometimes you have dreams where you're back at boot camp again or you're back somewhere. And it's like surreal because you're there, but you've already been there. When we got to Iraq, it was almost the same, just disbelief, even though we've done like a five month, four and a half month work up, getting on a plane, it's like I can't believe I'm going back. I can't believe I'm doing this. Like, I didn't have to go. I can't believe doing this. And then just, you know, you get in Kuwait again and that's it. You know, that's the smell. And then you get to al-Saad, which wasn't there at the time, and you're outside for a couple of days. Well, they got all the stuff. And then we landed at the dam at night at like 11:00 at night. It's pitch black coming off the back of a fifty three and the rotor wash blew all of my papers everywhere, like it's just like the Keystone Cops. And then I didn't sleep for three days when we got there because I didn't have a place to sleep. I remember that the first week I'm like, what, what am I doing. I can't believe I'm back here again doing this. Yeah. Good times.
J.S. [00:30:02] How were you all trained prior to the 2007 deployment?
M.C. [00:30:05] So we did. I'll be honest with you, the best sustained training the company did was between OIF one and at six point one we put the company through. We actually went from not combat ready coming home. They actually told us we were supposed to go on UDP to Okinawa. So we got our first drill was, I think January I had stayed on the I&I staff because I was the master gunner. So we got word from division or battalion like, Hey 3rd LAR is having an issue with Charlie Company, 3rd LAR. And, we need somebody to do a UDP and you're the you're the whatever the we were usually the most ready company in the battalion, so we had to get the company from zero to fully qualified in like four months. So that's why I spent my first four months was lining up gunnery for months, which we qualified as a company which is a big deal, one of my my crowning achievements, I think. And then they said, hey, we don't need to go. So we you know, we set a... You sort of set a tempo of of getting good at the basic things, working on continuing actions and just building on, you know, picking out who the A-gamers were, you know, training the trainer stuff. So we we really started laying the foundation for for the future. We were really firing on all cylinders by the time we got word for the boats and then they took the boats or the vehicles away and all of our stuff to Syracuse in North Carolina or South Carolina. So we did the workup. They sent- he's a warrant officer now- Steve Rose went down for the work up for the unit that we were going to RIP out with. He came back and a bunch of great gouge. We had guy we had Marines that knew what they were doing. I mean, the we sent Marines to urban instructors course. By then I'd been doing a lot of gunnery, a lot of tactics, instruction. We had we had a good amount of knowledge. We went down there, we got four and a half months to work up and we did, we trained hard. We- by the time we got to Iraq, we were exhausted, but we felt we were good, ironically, in everything but the boats, because we didnt get a lot of boat time, but we felt we had our processes down, tactics wise. We were we were really tight on that one. Absolutely.
J.S. [00:32:18] Who were some of your closest friends in the unit?
M.C. [00:32:23] Steve Rose. I still talk to him, Warrant Officer 4. Jim Santoro. He was one of my squad leaders, Eric Miller. I served with Eric forever. We're still friends. We worked on it together. Timmy Newkirk at the time wasn't my friend, but he became my platoon commander, he's a lieutenant colonel now, I think. But we became really close like a bunch of bunch of goofballs, man. So I really felt I felt really close to my platoon, Mike Pickett. John Passwaters. They were they were juniors. You know, I think Passwaters had just got promoted to Corporal. Pickett just got promoted to sergeant. They were junior me, but they were. Yeah, I consider those guys, my friends. And Hangemanole, who you served with. Such a bunch- such a tight group. Tight group, good guys.
J.S. [00:33:09] Did you have any mentors in the unit?
M.C. [00:33:12] We had all the staff NCOs that came in. Hilton, Galrizzo, Bowers, Workman. They were when I came in, it was- I picked up right away is like there's four guys that are running the show, like there- you picked out who the A-gamers were. And you can tell those guys did like everything. And then we had this I&I guy named Russell Strack. He retired as a sergeant major who was probably the most influential one on me because he hated the reserve, just hated us a lot. And he was a funny guy, crazy, knew a ton of stuff. And he was with us for three years. And he's really the guy that brought about the the progression tha-t I feel like when I was there, the company had been spinning its wheels for a while training-wise when he came in because he cared about you, but not like the reserve, but he cared about training Marines and he took it- and it rubbed off on a lot of people and he gave us room to run with and then he left with that. But he really shaped probably the next ten years of the company. Whether he knew it or not, he had a really big impact.
J.S. [00:34:12] Tell me a little about the DSU deployment.
M.C. [00:34:15] It was uh- they split the company up- we had a platoon in Ramadi and a Platoon up where we were, or two platoons, different missions, different op-tempos, different headquarters, they work with the Army, we work the Marines. It was it was intense for the first two and a half months till the surge started. People not... Again, we got lucky. Honestly, in the first two months, we got into like 18 firefights. It was like every- people are dying, not our people. We were getting lucky because the Iraqis couldn't shoot. But we were going into River City like every day, like it was really hot in Haditha, they were blowing up vehicles left and right up in Ana, where 2nd LAR was- they were- there is one, I think it was Apache company. Like everywhere they went, they they were just getting to them. They were losing Marines. Al-Qaim was getting hit up there. So it was it was honestly at the height of the insurgency, there was definitely a sense that we were going to lose a lot of people. No one really brought it up. But it was the amount that we'd been shot at, the amount of stuff when you're on a boat and you can literally see like tracers coming across, at like kneecap level, RPGs skimming off the water, like you just... And you drive through it, returning fire like you're like, all right, it's that feeling you get you just kind of freeze your body and like, all right, let's see if we're going to die here in the next nine seconds. All right, we're alive. And it's just amazing how many rounds would ding off the side of the boat, you know. We- we had a steep learning curve when we got there. We were- I think we're around a little bit too tight. We were very- there's a mental aspect to doing these deployments where if you- if you get people too scared of stuff, they're going to do things a little bit different because their- their brain is going into like six gears higher than it needs to be. So I think the first six or seven days were there that that meant that sort of- everybody's holding on so tight that you couldn't- everything was bad, you know, I mean, like the scaredest I ever was on that deployment... Not a single shot was fired, but they they told us to go down and do a riverine reconnaissance during the day in the town of Haditha, right? So Haditha would be on the west side of the Euphrates River. There was this bridge they called the Verrazano Bridge, they named all the bridges, I think after New York bridges and had been blown up. There's a big section. Was it missing? It was all geared up. And there was an island in between. And they wanted us to go down and see if there's a way around. Unbeknownst to us, the other units have gone down. So it's shallow, you can't get in there. So we went down at like 2:00 in the afternoon and the boat got stuck and the thing is if the boat get stuck down there like you'e... until the water level comes up. You can't call, you know, Triple A to come get you. You're stuck in the boat, right? Well, if you're stuck in a boat and there's literally the entire city of Haditha is around you, people stop and say, what are these idiots doing in boats? Right. So then you see a bunch of people are stopping and what they're doing, they're watching you, because it's not right. So we freaked out like, holy Jesus, we're all going to die. There was an active Chechen sniper that was- he killed about four Marines at that point, we all were like "we're going to f*cking die. We're all gonna die." And at one point our boat got stuck, got turned around in the water. So now we're facing- our backs are now to the, where the enemy is with... We were down for like forty five minutes. We're calling for help trying to get an Amtrak to get us unstuck. We don't even know, we're not dragging it out. We're not walking out of the river. And we were just- because we were just so on... our headspace was that everyone's trying to kill us at all times, which you kind of have that headspace but not like, no, not everybody's going to kill you. Right. So we flipped out. And then once we got into like a good battle rhythm, we really did well, I think. Had a lot of momentum coming back. That was a good deployment.
J.S. [00:38:12] Does anything stand out to you, any- anything. Any event or?
M.C. [00:38:18] Yeah, we sent a platoon out to go to the Syrian border just to get there the first week or two. And they got hit really hard and I think because of poor planning. So we took our only our only real wounded Marine was there. They just didn't have the right comm set up. They couldn't call for help for the right places. So they did everything on their own. But as we patrolled up there later, we're talking to units like, oh, we saw that. Yeah, we were out there in a Humvee. We try to get you on the radios and we couldn't get you, you know. But as we were going up there, we were told, this is it. There's no one between you and Al-Qaim. Or once you leave 2nd LAR, there's no one, right? Nothing. And it turns out you like bump into people over there and they're like "oh yeah, we were there, we saw you." And that was a big deal because that was, I think, the company commander, did not like our platoon at the time. Personal reasons kind of stuff. You know, like I said, you have the cowboy platoon, you have the vanilla platoon. We were the vanilla platoon. We didn't yell a lot. But we weren't flashy, I think they preferred the flashy guys, so our guys took them up there, did well under fire, came back and that kind of subsided. But Marines handled themselves well. And then, you know, we pushed on- my boat got hit by a rocket one day, which is pretty cool- that, that stands out especially. How close- how close we would come to getting killed. Like was- I mean, you could literally- there were times when you would get shot at. Right. And then you get done, I remember, my platoon commander, we were taking sniper fire supporting this infantry company on the river. And we're literally just driving like slow circles up and down. And we're just getting shot at like snipers are shooting at us- poof, poof. And you can hear the rounds like there- through your CVC helmet- there's a snap really loud and your ears rings. That's close, you know, and we get done and we have to sit and hold, sit and hold, sit and hold. And then on the way back, we got into a big, complex ambush. We get back, and I was talking to my platoon commander, and was like, sir, this is getting out of hand. We're going to die. Tough guy. Right? It's fine right. Not fine, sir. I mean, look at that bullet hole right there. And what about it? Well what do you think that came from? Like I don't know. I did Urban Warfare School. And one way you can find to counter sniping is you stick like a pencil in the bullet hole and it gives you direction of fire. So I took a piece of 550 cord and I extended the direction of fire and the round literally went in between, like, if the driver is here and it went right between like that's how close he came to getting shot by a sniper. I remember his face. Just gave me that look. God bless America.
J.S. [00:40:54] Were you close with David Smith during the deployment. Did you know him, work with him?
M.C. [00:40:57] Yeah, he was. He was an interesting kid, because he was a Frederich kid. He was like a super rapper when he first came in the unit. He was in my platoon for about a year and he was on weight control and he was into rap music. I guess he had cornrows before he... Right. And good kid. A good kid, like- loved the Marines, you know, and we just were working on his weight. You know, he was like, you pick the kids when they're when they're new. The first thing you look for is who wants to be there? Like, that's usually, that's tier one like that. Or Tier two, like average kid, tier one. Tier.. Tier two is the kid that likes being a Marine, takes pride and likes to get involved. Like that's tier two, he was a tier two guy right off the bat. Worked on his weight. He had a little funny story. He- so like a lot of boots, do this thing with the knife. They get the big, pig sticker knife. They put it upside down on their gear. Everyone does it because you're a boot. That's what you do. And he was on my- he's my driver, was like, hey, man, take that off your take that off your deuce gear, you're going to hurt yourself. He's like, what if I need it? I'm like, well, you're not going to need it because you're driving and you're not going to need a knife that big. I was like you're probably going to cut yourself with it really bad... like this whole kind of butt hurt thing, he puts the knife away. We're in the field. It's like the first day and a half, two days, of a field drill. And my gunner comes over, says, Sergeant Christ, Smith cut his hand really bad. What, did he cut the sh*t out of his hand with? What were you doing? I was opening an MRE. You're not allowed to have knives. That's it. Take your knife and put it away. And then he went to ECU, we had another Marine named Rich Shote went to ECU, talked him into going to ECU right. He goes the ECU, and over the course of being at East Carolina University, he now becomes a cowboy. And he- but he got in like really good shape. He played lacrosse down there. And then we went to the bus instructor- Urban Warfare Instructors course together. Or no, went to EMP, Enhanced Marksmanship Program Instructors Course together, and there I'm like this kid's, he's getting locked on. He's now like tier three. He's going to be a good kid. And then he went the first platoon. And then I didn't see him at all really, I saw him for like four days on the deployment, but he was I worked with him a lot when he was younger. Good kid.
J.S. [00:43:20] So when did you come home from Iraq? The second time.
M.C. [00:43:23] We came home, like April, May, so like we got home early. They ripped out early because the Navy came to relieve us. So we I think we were we were we were like like six and a half months. We did a short one for that one. And that was, you know, coming home. It was- we did a rip out the Navy like we did a- really the first time we came home, we just left. Yeah. Second time we came home, we had to rip out with the Navy, which was fascinating to see how the Navy operates. Sat in Kuwait for a week or two, came home and then hung out with my my wife, my now wife got engaged and I was right back on active duty, working again for the training shop.
J.S. [00:44:02] Did you feel you had accomplished your mission in Iraq?
M.C. [00:44:04] Yeah, I mean, we didn't have a mission, so we kicked ass, like in comparison, we did a really good job. General Claridy at the time was RCT, I think 7 commander, he came in on the rip. Because the regiments rip out, right. So the senior commanders out, he came out and, you know, that guy is- he was our battalion commander in 03, 3rd LAR, our battalion commander. So he remembered- and he remembered- it was funny because he came to our birthday ball the year after we got back. Great guy, super awesome, great battalion commander. You know, great regimental commander, probably a great division commander, he came out and he remembered me and uncle- me and Workman, and not, you know, no joke. And he really knew Rob for a while. They'd always bump into each other because he remembered Easy Company- we were called Easy Company in OIF. And when he- so we did our rip with them, we showed them what we did and the Navy was there. And then he basically goes to the Navy and he was like, all right, so this is what you're going to do for me and they're like, no, we're not going to do that. We're only going to do- we're only going to secure the dam and patrol the lake. He's like well, you guys are worthless, whatever. Whatever he said. And then he was a little upset that we were leaving. And I think the big mistake the Marine Corps made was getting the small craft, one of the many big mistakes they made. But it's a it's really an interesting unit, really, especially in littorals, they get rid of it... And then they're also- not the first time they've done anything stupid.
J.S. [00:45:29] Did you ever know what ever became of Haditha Dam there and that AO?
M.C. [00:45:33] Oh, when we left, I mean, when we were there for the Awakening. So like that AO went from hot, to cold, quick, like they basically would burn down the cities. They sent in the cops once the... At that time, that was 06. They had basically- a lot of the Anbar province were kicking out the al Qaeda in Iraq people. They were like, we've had enough of you people, you know, so when we left. It was I mean, really, the Iraqis were taking hold, the Navy was there, the Marine Corps, there was a lot of presence. And then I think it as like 2012 or 13, ISIS, whatever ISIS was, I think they took most of the AO over again. So that was a little disconcerting. Spent a lot of time down there, actually saw the Euphrates River run dry. They had to shut the dam down a couple of times. It's pretty cool.
J.S. [00:46:22] How were you welcomed back home once you got back from Iraq there in 07?
M.C. [00:46:25] It was a good time, we came home. I think they had a D.J., we came home the first time, which we went to Lejeune for a while when we came home. So was disjointed. People. families came down to Lejeune to see us and then we went home. The hurricane hit, so we got a ninety-six back in Maryland. That was a train wreck, was a great time. We came home from the second one, we were at Lejeune for a little bit, we came home, people came down. It was a good, it was a good welcome home. We had a lot of Marines that stayed back that we had to reintegrate with, which was interesting.
J.S. [00:47:01] Did you have any encounters with people who were protesting the war?
M.C. [00:47:05] No, actually, the only encounters I've ever had... We buried a Marine after I got back. No, right before we went in 06, we buried a Marine and it was those... What do you call it, the the the weirdos from Kansas, Westboro Baptist Church were there and that was just completely awkward. And there's a bunch of big motorcycle people that were going to kill them. So that was cool. I would say not protest, but I would say in my run-ins and out in town over the years, there was a decent amount of people that would, you know, no offense, but let me talk about U.S. foreign policy with you and you know, that stuff. But I dont think I ever saw a real protester like a real one.
J.S. [00:47:46] So what does your life look like over the next couple of years going on through early 2009? You know, your family situation? Your job?
M.C. [00:47:54] My wife and I, were going to get married. We broke up. I was testing vehicles at Aberdeen. I'd gone back to school finally to get my degree. And I was on sort of I was working on training for a while, I want to say I got a little bit burned out just fighting an uphill battle. They started integrating the I&I billets and instead of getting these old, wise guys. We get these young kinda, they were young and they also were like, I'm the smartest guy in the room. And then they just wanted to change everything. They didn't understand institutional learning. They didn't understand that like, look, this isn't an active duty unit. We do this sh*t one weekend a month. Like, you can't you can't no one in their right mind. Right? Like, if you think reservists can be as proficient as an active duty unit by doing one weekend in a month, two weeks a year, like you're dumb. Right. Otherwise, why would you have an active duty if you could do it, you could train an active duty unit in 30 days. So we had we had a lot of this going on. We had a lot of this isn't how this is done. We're doing this the right way. Then you can do that. They also didn't have vehicles so we couldn't train for about a year and a half. And I want to see the command at the company level was atrocious and just caused... So we had this great nucleus of future leaders of the company. Right. Like I said, when I showed up, there was Hilton, Workman, Galrizzo, Bowers, a couple other guys, maybe some good sergeants. And then they all left, maybe, except for Hilton, he stuck around. And the next crop of Marines between 2006 and 2007, almost like the last, I was like The Last Airbender. It was just me, like almost like everybody's had enough and said screw this, I'm getting out. The guys that I've been mentoring personally said this F this, I'm leaving. The Marines that... Gunny Miller, Eric Miller was mentoring said F this, I'm leaving. Warrant Officer Rose got a warrant. Jim Santora left. So it was like... And you were there for that. You were spinning wheels like- we didn't we never- we didn't go the field for like, what? Thirteen months? When we did go to the field was next door. Everything turned into a FOB, you know, fifty two page op orders. It was just atrocious. Like, look, these- you need to drive around, shoot things and talk on the radio is all we need. Let's just work on that before we build a FOB and do all this dumb stuff. So by the time we were leaning into the deployment, I'd say we lost a good amount of good Marines. We weren't really training a lot. And we did train. We would- we did a battalion AT where we had fifteen training events in thirteen training days. So Marines really didn't get training the way they should have out there. And they were run ragged... And we got the word to go- that we were going to Afghanistan. It was like in those... Same deal, like they told people that they didn't have to go, I didn't have to go. And in a lot of the the vets would talk about it. And some of the guys that had just done OIF-2 or 6.1 were like, yeah, we're going. It's like steel your.... easy up there, Hoss. Like, this isn't going to be the same thing. They weren't telling us what was going on over there, you know... For reserve unit to do three deployments in seven years, six years, it's a lot. And that wasn't just us. That was every company in the battalion. This would be the third one they had gone on, so they cycled through. And apparently at the I guess, the did these force planning meetings... either the 4th Marine Division commanding general, or MARFORRES commanding general essentially said this is it. You know, you get reservists, this is it. Either get them all now or you don't get any. We can't- because basically all these deployments over the past seven years had just crushed the reserve and the active duty, they crushed the active duty too. A lot of good guys got out. You know, they lost a ton of proficiency in artillery and active duty was hurting, too. So, I mean, this is just these endless wars... So when we finally got the word to go, I had an emergency appendectomy. I thought I had a really bad hangover. Turned out my appendix burst, I almost died. So I had a hernia surgery, surgery there. Appendendix, no big deal. They fixed my umbilical hernia. That was in June. And I was on a twenty five pound lifting restriction for six months. So I went on disability for work, I couldn't work for where I work. And I basically spent the next two months, you know, drinking a lot, playing Lego Indiana Jones and binge watching Entourage, it was great. I didn't... I shouldn't have gone on the deployment because I literally was not supposed to go because I had an open surgery, open stomach surgery. And then we got the mob order, the MARADMIN came out and I- I'd broken up with my wife, we had this big break up and all. And I bumped into one of her friends and my wife had just reached out to me, my ex wife, she was already engaged somebody else and... there's a lot of stuff. My personal life- I wouldn't say it was a mess, but it was pretty close to it. And I didn't- I didn't know what to do. And then. I kind of... I still had some, you know, Marines I cared about in the unit, so I said got to go.. Passwaters... I got to... Passwaters is going. I got to go. Hangman's going. I, you know, that stupid belief you have that you can impact stuff. I definitely was not... I don't think my headspace was too good for number three.
J.S. [00:53:23] So how did you, how else did you feel young going into your third time overseas?
M.C. [00:53:29] This, the third time was the most. I don't want to say pessimistic, like super pragmatic, but I just did not have a good- I did not have a good vibe from the company. I didn't have- I really kept telling myself, we're going to get four months to work up. We'll do just like we did at DSU. We got... Four months is an eternity for a reserve unit. I know how this works. And then we got mobilized. I mean, I still remember that I couldn't lift anything, people had to carry my bags. I couldn't wear body armor, you know, physically I was in the worst shape in my life. But I'm so egotistical, I feel like even me, at like 30 percent is pretty awesome. So I figured I had to go, had to do one for the team. When we got to the workup in Pendleton, it became painfully obvious that we weren't prepping for war. We were- whatever we were doing wasn't- wasn't adequate for what we wanted to do.
J.S. [00:54:26] Did going to Afghanistan feel different than going to Iraq for training or preparing yourself?
M.C. [00:54:33] I felt personally like I still- I still steel myself very well for that kind of stuff. But I just felt like there was a very strong sense, like we were going on like some trip, like we're going on safari, you know what I mean? Like, it was like, I don't know, like the... the... the go get them combat mentality wasn't there, it was hard to get that into people's heads. Like, I felt it wasn't at the battalion. I felt like at the company, it wasn't there so much. I think we had a lot of- at that point, I think we had a lot of like people that wanted to have like this horrible combat experience, like they want, you know, it's like the- like a morbid sort of curiosity, like its going to be like horrible and people are going to die and stuff and say, well, why don't we... Yeah, I think I was a fan of that... Flags of Iwo Jima, or one of these books I read about World War 2, it's like if you go into combat thinking you're going to die, the odds of you dying, like increase like 50 fold. Right. So part of steeling your Marines' minds before you go into combat is like- know your job, be comfortable in your job, know your IAs. Right. sh*t's going to get thrown- stuff's going to get thrown at you. But don't- you can't focus on the crazy stuff. You're just going to- if you think you're going to die, you're going to not do the right things, and you're going to die. You can't- you're going to make poor decisions in combat. And that, I felt like there was a pervasive mentality of sort of, you know, and then at a point I was like, oh, it's not going to be that bad. It's it's not that big. But remember, when we finished Mojave Viper, they said you're good enough for this mission or something. Like the big rousing, hey, we're ready to go, like before they jump into D Day like we're the most trained unit and we got, like, you know, kind of... thing. So that was... I just did not feel good going to Afghanistan. I didn't feel comfortable. I felt like the AO wasn't that bad. But I didn't, I didn't like the feeling that we we were not, I don't think we were prepared to go. I would- I wouldn't have taken that company to like DSU. I wouldn't- I wouldn't have taken that company probably to OIF-1, because I think they basically screwed the training so bad. And having all that lack of vehicles that- I really did not feel that we were- we were at all... I mean, we were ready enough, as the battalion commander said. But yeah. And it was surreal landing- and it was surreal... Like, I couldn't believe I was in Afghanistan, like in the desert again, like you gotta be f'in kidding me.
J.S. [00:57:03] What'd they tell you about Bravo Company's mission? What was it going to be in Afghanistan?
M.C. [00:57:08] They told us it was you know, we're basically doing the, you know, civil action patrols. We're we're in town. We'll be doing presence patrols, census, seeing really basic stuff, big economy of force. We had a VCP, but essentially, you know, battalion had these big dreams. You're going to Pakistan, we're going to do stuff. But I mean, we were there for like, within eight hours of getting out to the patrol base. It's like, OK, we can push out eight Marines a day. That's it. OK, yeah. This is what we're going to do. This is this is not what we should be doing here. So I think after the first couple of days feeling out the AO, I felt- I felt kind of better because I really didn't- as long as we did our things and we did our PCCs and PCIs and remain disciplined, I felt that we were not safe, but there wasn't enough rope out there to hang us. We weren't going to get out of our skis in that AO. Yeah. So yeah. And then that was the initial mission. Yeah. Qual eh'ye Now, Third Platoon, us at Shaibot and then you had the castle.
J.S. [00:58:11] Now how old were you at the time? What was your rank and billet?
M.C. [00:58:14] I was a staff sergeant, platoon sergeant, 1st Platoon and I was thirty five. I think. Old. I was an old staff sergeant. I know that.
J.S. [00:58:27] So when did you- when did the company leave for Afghanistan?
M.C. [00:58:31] I believe it's September, October of 09, right? End of October... They all blur together with the leaving times because we came home- and I don't want to talk about the stupid Libo- leave we got when they made us all wait for orders and all that stupid stuff, that's a whole nother take.
J.S. [00:58:52] Who'd you leave behind?
M.C. [00:58:53] My wife, Melissa. We got married, actually. We got married October 16th. I think we left like maybe eight or nine days after that. Yeah. And my family, my brother, my mom, dad and my brother.
J.S. [00:59:08] So what were your first impressions? Can you talk a little bit more about your first impressions of the AO in Helmand Province?
M.C. [00:59:16] Yeah, I mean, it was the middle of nowhere. You know, they had lost Marines at our patrol base, the unit. Second LAR, I think they were alpha company, no, whatever. Delta Company. They had a really cool Irish platoon commander. Staff Sergeant Madsen would later come back to Bravo Company as our company ops chief. It was almost like- it reminded me of the first deployment, like it was very austere, right away, though, my initial responses were, we're really spread thin here in the patrol- when we did our patrol base in the castle and moving around, I was like, OK, it was just- we get there. All the vehicles, remember, were pillboxes. The vehicles hadn't moved in like three months. I think had, what the mortar would move, and one or two that would move. So as, from an LAR platoon sergeant guy perspective was like, when's the last time you maintained vehicles? Is this what we're doing here? You know, like two patrols a day or two OPs a night? Yeah, that's all we can do. Oh, my God. This is this- is going to be a long one... the way the terrain was set up- I mean, basically you had some I.V. lines you had some dikes, you had some canals. You had some geographical things. I mean, basically where we were in that low portion of the desert was flat. So, I mean, it was- you know, I didn't feel anyone was going to sneak up and start shooting at us, you know, but, yeah, it just felt like we were stretched thin. And that was- I thought that was going to be our home forever. And the best we're going to do is two patrols a day.
J.S. [01:00:49] So what were your thoughts on the mission at the time?
M.C. [01:00:54] I think it was all we could do. I think we did a good job censusing. We did a good job developing the AO. But I just got a sense like- not that it's going to be all for naught, but we're going to turn this over and no one's going to do anything, because I got the feeling at that point that where we were was kind of like a side- like a... We need to be down there because someone said, get down there. But it wasn't like- I didn't feel like we were like, we're sh*t's going to be- stuff's going be popping off, you know? So I felt like we could execute the mission. So... which we did.
J.S. [01:01:27] Did the transition with 2nd LAR go according to plan?
M.C. [01:01:30] Yeah, I thought they did an excellent job. And then I think the only been there a month, they hadn't been there at that patrol base for very long, but they had a really solid set up. We did a really good CMR turnover. We did a no joke CMR turn over. Remember we had all everybody pulling hand grenades, like all over the- just dropping hand grenades off. But yeah, I want to say that that was a great RIP. They gave us the AO, we had the logistics, introduced us to Huggy Bear. So I felt they did an excellent- I felt like I did a great turnover, RIP out with those guys. They did a great job.
J.S. [01:02:09] Do you remember the first mission that you conducted?
M.C. [01:02:12] I didn't conduct a mission because I couldn't even wear body armor. So the first mission I conducted was that- was it after Captain Graham? All I remember is y'all got into contact. One of the- one of the things- one of the teams got in a firefight. At that point, I'd been bored, and I'm like F it, I'm going to go out tomorrow. If this is going to get kinetic, let's go. Let's have fun. So I went out, I think, on the next patrol and tucked myself in. I said I got the radio. If anything happens, I'll be coordinating with higher, you fight the fight. I'll be here, I'll be coordinating any- I'll be coordinating mortars. You do your thing. I'll walk in the ranger file and I- we went to Star Trek- or Star Trek Village and then we came back and it was dark. The engineers were out. And I'm not the most coordinated of all people. And I remember jumping over these- those, those uh, dikes or the canal things and just didn't think I was going to make it. I made it and I came over and my foot fell in like a two and a half, like a three foot deep hole. And tore my ACL. And it- they had to carry me back. I remember I fell down and fall like fallen over, laying on the ground like you got to be kidding me. And that's because they- the engineers had all their light banks up and I couldn't see through NVGs. That's why I tore my ACL. That was like the first time and last time. Screw that stuff. That's for the kids. That was horrible.
J.S. [01:03:34] How was communication between the different elements of Bravo Company? All the platoons were pretty much split up. How were you able to to keep in touch?
M.C. [01:03:44] We didn't really communicate- every once in awhile we talked to Qual eh'ye Now. We did- We had daily stuff to the COC at the castle. But I don't think they were really doing anything, we were sending a lot of information. I don't think they were doing anything with it. We didn't have the deconflict our battle space too much because, you know, it was, you know, five clicks. Right? I think we were all ten clicks from Qual eh'ye Now, something like that. So, I mean, we were never going to bump into them. I think we got to the point where I think I complained once or twice and the company would come out and like, are you even looking at our patrol requests? Because we're not getting any word on what Third Platoon was doing. And then they started checking our stuff. And it's pretty funny thing at that point, Captain Graham had started cutting and pasting some of the stuff, like the routine stuff he just cut and pasted it because no one was looking at it. They finally caught him. We had a little laugh about that. But yeah, we might see them at the castle. Yeah. Or sometimes they would come and see us. We go to see them. We got stuck that one time. But I mean, really we were on an island, Qual eh'ye Now was on an island and the castle was on an island. Absolutely.
J.S. [01:04:55] What did an average day look like for the first couple of weeks there at COP Shaibot?
M.C. [01:04:59] Well, you guys did two patrols a day, right? Two OPs. As platoon sergeant, I ran the COC, I handled logistics. You probably remember me yelling at people to blouse their boots, shave their faces, clean their rooms, go to sleep. So I'd say my first two weeks, I was getting about four hours of sleep a night per day. Baby sitting grown men. I feel like my, you know, I don't know if you remember I put up the, just doing the battle maps and then all of a cen- combined consolidate all the census stuff. So I was kind of working a little bit as the intel, we had Eby was doing intel stuff and then he was just doing it so good that I had him stop because he wasn't getting any sleep either. So my my biggest concern was making sure you guys were disciplined. And then... I think my biggest fight was you guys never slept. Like you would get off, you would hang out, or so many kids had the PSPs and would drive me up the walls, like go to sleep. You guys were like, I would I do that sched-. Like, I, I'd spend hours trying to make a schedule where every few days you get an eight hour block to sleep. Like I was so... My driving force was to make sure every Marine had eight hours of sleep at least every two to three days so they could rest. And then I would come out and see you a-holes, you know, being what little kids do, you guys are just like little puppy dogs playing around and telling stories and being goofballs. So...
J.S. [01:06:19] Does anything that happened those first couple of weeks stand out to you?
M.C. [01:06:27] I want to say, Huggy Bear, when we had that informant guy... When he would come out and talk to us, I thought that was... Just the interesting of how the where, the AO with the people there really were so far away, right? You had people that never left that area, you know. Remember the- there was that the... Mentally handicapped kid, they took back to Lashkar Gah and let him go and they would come asking for him every day. Then you had to like pick the kid up or if you like, understanding that not just the culture as a Pashtunwali and all that stuff, but like these people literally don't go, might not go ten miles from where they lived their whole entire lives. You know, like that, I thought was- that stuck out to me a lot, but a lot. Lot.
J.S. [01:07:09] So what was your relationship with the locals like? Were you able to establish relationships with more than just a couple people there?
M.C. [01:07:15] I didn't do- I was more working with ANBP. I had to keep those guys in line because Captain Graham was not a fan of the ANBP. So I had to kind of be the mayor of Shaibot-land. But when we had a lot of what they call the shura. Sure, yeah. We had Shura with the elders and I feel like the people out there were generally either noncommittal, but I don't feel like they were antagonistic towards us, really is the feeling I got cause they are so far out in the- you know what I mean? Like, they didn't give a S who is in charge. They just leave me alone. I'll be fine, you know? So I felt I felt the populace was pretty welcoming.
J.S. [01:07:54] Can you talk a little about a little bit more about the Afghan security forces?
M.C. [01:07:58] The Afghan Border Patrol were I guess they were like second tier, I guess. ANA was like the A-gamers. They were the b-gamers. But they had probably more combat experience in one squad of ANBP than we probably had the whole battalion. So that was the interesting thing is in the Turkmen and Uzbeks and Olmecs and whatever the Tartar, whatever I mean, they were from all over the place. They spoke like seven languages- and those guys have been fighting for twenty years, most of their adult lives and their kids lives. And they were, you know, an interesting bunch. Because they weren't- they weren't a disciplined fighting force and the way you had to deal with them to get them to do things, you had to shame them sometimes, you know, sit down, drink tea and eat that egg thing. They did that egg with the 10 pounds of salt in it, you know, and, you know, interacted, right. I mean, it was it was just like just having to deal with those guys was even I mean, you had the balance of dealing with Marines and then you had to deal with those guys. And it was like completely different, you know, stuff to shame them into carrying the ECMs, right, every day.
J.S. [01:09:05] Did you have any translators you worked with?
M.C. [01:09:07] Yes, we had Ghani, right, we had K. Ghani was a local. He was awesome little guy. He- what did he trade for that air conditioner? Like chickens, traded chickens.
J.S. [01:09:16] I think so.
M.C. [01:09:17] But Ghani was a really good hearted kid and he was a really good kid. I don't know if he made it to America. And Ghani, he was Pakistani from the, from the states. You know, he lived in Quetta, moved to America and then K was like hilarious because he had just that, you know, whatever he did, it never could interpret for somebody it wasn't "he said" it was like "that c-sucker said" remember that he always get this dumbass said, I loved when K would interpret, because he was really smart. He was like a level three. He can read and he could translate and interpret. And we had that other kid, that wore, the- remember he wore like like the bedazzled jeans, remember that kid? The younger kid that said he spoke like nine languages and he barely spoke Pashto. No that was... Dost. He's the one that got the translator. We had the third kid. He had bedazzled jeans. That's right. And he like he was what is- his thing got blood on it. He didn't have a change of clothes. Well just put on something else. And he had like the- the jeans with like all the little rhinestones and stuff. And I forget his name, but he lied his face off. He couldn't speak anything.
J.S. [01:10:23] What did you do with any free time you had?
M.C. [01:10:25] I didn't have much free time. I did I- did have I think we had The Office. Didn't we have The Office in the COC?
J.S. [01:10:33] I didn't spend a lot of time in the COC.
M.C. [01:10:34] We had a tough book. I think 2nd LAR, one of the greatest things from the RIP is they gave us like The Office on a hard drive. So I never watched The Office before. So I started watching The Office. You know, I think I worked from noon to eight in the morning or something. So I'd watch the office at night because when you guys were out on, OPs went out. I mean, literally, I would just walk around, make sure the- the posts were still awake. And then they had Drug Lord, which is a cool game. I played a little bit and then I had Dragon Warrior on my laptop that I thought- I had the map for the AO I built and I had the map I built for Dragon Warrior because there's a lot- there's not much to do at like midnight when you're when you're working. But that's about it. I called home when I could.
J.S. [01:11:19] When was your first contact with the enemy?
M.C. [01:11:21] I didn't have any. If they shot rockets at us. But I don't remember when I had. what the IED went off first. They had to come, found a couple IEDs and then they had the whole thing with the rocket, with Jim and Ajayi. I forget when that was, the first week in December. The first week of December. Yeah. But I think that was about it. That was that was it. That was interesting from being in the COC standpoint, because in LAR when you're in, your job is to report. Right. You develop the situation report. Develop situation report. So I always am in green. When that something happens, I report something about where we're getting contact from, contact this vicinity of blank. Next, next transmission is the size of the enemy in case you get- get in some stuff. So they they went out on that patrol with EOD. I think it was a small patrol too. I think it was two of our guys. Those three was it. It was Black, Ajayi, Captain Graham.
J.S. [01:12:18] Jones was all there. It was a pretty big patrol. Probably 15 years or so and ANBP as well.
M.C. [01:12:25] I think, so they didn't, they didn't answer their radios at all. They didn't put out any calls. I reported contact to company and we just kept calling what was going on. I called Morty, Sergeant Martinez and often asked them last known pos. We were starting to work up the fire or getting an idea of a fire mission in case they needed stuff, because at the time you could hear distinct sets of gunfire. So you could hear single shots, light automatic, heavy automatic and then some explosions, different different types of explosions. So we didn't know what the F was going on. Finally got, who was, Ronny Black was out there. Right. He was on the radio. So I finally got Black, and was like pop a flare. You're supposed to do when you get contact pop... You know, at a minimum you shoot pyro, so you know least direction of fire. They didn't do that. So basically we heard shots and this, calmed down a little bit, there's more explosions. And then I guess they caught two guys, launching IRL, and they came back and dragged the bodies back and all that stuff. I talked to the people over there. What the hell like- what the hell happened? Like, oh, we got two guys. I was like where was the machine gun fire coming from? No, there wasn't. What. There's someone shooting machine guns. Now, I heard it and whatever, so I think like four days later, Huggy Bear came back around. He's like they were shooting at you guys from across the river. I don't think he knew it because I think the VC- the VCP, took rounds from across the river. But they, when you get in the moment, you get focused on the two guys, you kind of forget what's going on. Right. But, yeah, I think the EOD guys are throwing like C-4, like their they're C-4 charges is combined with that. What is that noise? I like went to the EOD guys and like, I thought you initiated IEDs, because I heard grenades and then I heard big explosions like, oh my God, we thought they were schack city out there, that they hit a coordinated ambush and then. Y'all came back up. You guys guys are nuts.
J.S. [01:14:18] What was the biggest threat that you faced overseas?
M.C. [01:14:21] IEDs. EOD loved it down there. They they were, I guess, for a point where our AO, our little patrol base was the first time they had FOB IEDs that were key FOB detonated in the area. So that's why the EOD guys hung out with us so much, because they had nothing better to do like everyone else, but they were finding the like the key fob, I think because Huggy Bear would tell us where all the stuff was but they would come back and as they bring the IEDs to destroy them... So they knew there was two more out there because of the key fob with the six starters and they found four to six starters. So I mean, it was- that was my greatest concern. You know, when you're doing a patrol together and put people out. My biggest concern was when they got- that sheep set off, that one IED and they couldn't find the pressure plate with the metal detectors. So whenever Marines like when we would go out on patrol on the boats, it's like as as the the platoon sergeant or platoon commander, you get your Marines as ready as possible to go execute their mission. And there's a point where you have to just let go. And you can't- you can't what if the sh*t out of it, you got to kind of like, all right, they're as good as they're going to get, but you still worry about your little kids. You've got to worry about them. And I wasn't I really wasn't worried about firefights. I was just worried about the ANBP doing something stupid or just one of those big ass five gallon drums or those paint buckets going off and killing a bunch of people. But at some point, you can't I mean, things are going to happen. They're going to happen. But if you just have faith that you train Marines enough to do the basic things, the way they might identify something before it happens or if they just get lucky.
J.S. [01:16:02] Do you remember what happened to some of the locals like Huggy Bear?
M.C. [01:16:07] No, one of the last things I heard from them is when we got we RIPed out that PIT- the... Whoever those idiots were that came after us, they basically burned like every bridge in town. So those guys are insane.
J.S. [01:16:21] In January 2010, Bravo Company embarked upon its first large scale offensive against the Taliban. The operation was nicknamed Western Light. What was the goal of Operation Western Light?
M.C. [01:16:33] To take Taghaz, right? To set up a triangle shaped COP north of Taghaz. Because somehow that was going to tie in to going to Pakistan or something. There was an ulterior motive. They wanted to expand the AO because I believe we'd just gotten alpha company back and the battalion needed to do stuff to get like Bronze Stars.
J.S. [01:16:56] Do you have any insight on how the operation was planned or not?
M.C. [01:16:59] Not well, would be... So. They- battalion didn't... like a company-level, a company minus-level operation in October. I forget what it was called, but they...
J.S. [01:17:13] North-West Poison.
M.C. [01:17:15] Yeah. think that was a good thing, that fit the bill and they- I think it was a company minus, maybe, probably company minus. They took over in the vicinity of Taghaz, and they took all of the patrol bases down to nothing. Right. We we had no ability to patrol our base, just sitting there and I guess whatever they did. But they gave us the order, the CON OPS order. And it was just like it was just pictures of stuff and like arrows pointing to them, like, well, that's not what we want. And they only had, like, five majors working in Ops and this is what what they produce like. OK, yeah. I never had faith in the battalion to do anything properly. But I felt better like, well, have fun with that, fellas. You know, I think we sent our guys over to Qual eh'ye Now. Right, which we do. We sent people, five or six. Yeah, we didn't have anybody to send, it was nuts to do that. So we ripped out of Shaibot. We get the order. I mean, we just got back to- we just had gotten to COP Payne for like a day, less than a day. And this order and the order was like we were- there was a route clearance portion. There is an air assault portion, and I remember thinking like that's, cool air assault. Pretty cool, right? Dismounted stuff. Yeah. LAR, going to check that box. And then Captain Graham is very upset. We weren't. He said we're not the main effort, not the air assault. Well, what time are they kicking off things? At nine thirty. At night? I never get military time, you know. During the day? We're doing an air assault during the day? Yeah. And the the Ospreys are going to circle twice before they land? Yeah. OK, that's insane. What are we doing? Oh we're doing route clearance. We'll be up there to support them coming in. OK, so we're going to do route clearance. We're going to drive across the high desert to low desert where you can you can see, could you not, from the other side of the river to the high desert with the naked eye. So we're going to drive at two miles an hour down a route when we can drive off the road. Right, because they got to clear them. So we're going to get there and support. We had recon- platoon of recon, I think, west in a blocking position. I think they had Charlie Company south... just looking like this is bad. Same deal. We got the call. By the time you get like, yeah, we didn't fight normally. I think there's times you get like you get orders to do things. You're like, well this is going to end poorly and it changes like, you know, I went and said my goodbyes to the people I liked from Third Platoon. Like, well, it was nice... Whatever happens, keep your head down and keep your powder dry. I love you, buddy. Have fun with that. Same thing we did before we crossed the line of departure in Iraq. You know, going to see your buddies... Christ, I walked almost a mile to go see my buddy in second platoon- we were in a screenline- just to say goodbye because you don't know what's going to happen. You know, we did it... In DSU there were one on one or two missions where we were like, I love you- I love you, buddy. Good luck out there. You know, when and where to go. And definitely, uh, I definitely had that feeling before that mission like this. Just there wasn't like a real, you know, for our platoon mission was to seize a patrol compound and then start operating. Third Platoon is going to come from the bazaar. We're going to cordon off, clear, they're going to come back and stay with us. You know, that part made sense, right? Because that's where the next Taliban strong point was. Right. And when, in effect, what happened was go figure the route the route clearance team got slowed down. I think it took us about three or four hours to get to where they were. There's only, you know, you circle the freakin place right after morning prayer. Like the people leave. Right. They land in the Ospreys, in the courtyard... and the EOD guys- I saw this awesome helmet cam footage, basically, I think they stacked the in the courtyard like outside, which is a big time no, no. So they they could have lost a ton of people that day if that was a kinetic environment. But they wound up ventilating the one poor guy that was still in there and that was it. They were going to operate out of there for a few days. Then we were going to turn over the AO to Alpha Company and then we were going to start- we were getting ready to invade Pakistan- not invade Pakistan, but go down to the southern border. That that's what we thought going into that thing. Yep.
J.S. [01:21:28] On January 23rd, 2010, Bravo Company's 3rd Platoon was struck by a dismounted suicide bomber as they occupied their patrol base in the Zrande Kalay Bazaar. The platoon suffered mass casualties. Can you tell me your recollection, the recollections of that event?
M.C. [01:21:44] So we've gone into Taghaz. So 3rd Platoon had pushed into the the bazaar. They stayed there. We were supposed to cordon off and search it. We wound up- remember spending the night, the first night because we don't have a place to stay. We we literally stayed in the least defensible position in the history of the military, like in the middle of an intersection. Right. Surrounded by a six foot levee- six foot levees basically is where we stayed. I remember we had we had all that wire we dragged out and all that stuff. I mean, I didn't sleep a wink. I think this is how thick this is. This is exactly how it's going to end, like literally horrible. The next day we had moved in to the patrol base. We started fortifying it. We had dudes in there from RADBN and they had one of those direction finder things. So we were- you remember that, we just fortified the position. We cut off access to the other side of the canal, because remember, we stole a trailer and a ton of concertine wire and sandbags. We started pushing out our perimeter. Setting up VCPs right. Because we're in the middle of a town, force protection stuff. But just parked the vehicle, we did the same thing. We set up the COC. We had, I think at one point two hundred... two hundred Marines in our wire. That we were supporting that were going to patrol, did... We did a key leader engagement and we started a patrol schedule. The RADBN guys would start coming over like, hey, they're all still here. We can hear them on the radio. Like, I don't think they're supposed to tell us the specifics, but basically their terp couldn't work high enough, and Kay had a clearance. So they're letting him get raw because they were getting so much stuff, they were losing their mind. Like, this is the greatest thing that- they're getting so much raw data. And they're like, hey, they're setting up IEDs. These are the code words they're using for IEDs. They're watching you guys. They're watching you all the time, like, oh, that's great. You know, they're they're using grids, they are behaving in a military manner like, OK, I think that was day two, coming I think the day three. That night, they're like, hey, they're walking, they're getting within... We don't know which group they're looking at, but they're getting within eight feet of you guys like, OK, well, that's not us. It's like, well, they're going to do a suicide attack. They're going to do a suicide bombing. All right. So we stuck our wire- we stuck our wire it was the second time, and through the work we put in, I think about 30, 40 feet stand off in our wire. I think we put a little fortification up by the LAV for ECP. Let Third Platoon know, hey, you guys might want to come back in or need to start get more stand off, because remember, they came up and they came and got wire and sandbags. Talked- I actually talked to Smith that night. Thing was Smith was- Smith was a really good kid. But you get to a point when you were like a junior Marine. You're full of yourself. Like you get super confident. You become like the man. Right. And then there is like a weird tipping point some guys do where they kind of they get a little bit too of the man and he got really too of the man during the work up. I mean, it really, you know, it's kind of I wish he been with us in 2nd or in First Platoon. And I talked to him that night for like fifteen minutes, and it was good to see that he had come back down to like good like talking like how Sergeant, should talk being, you know, concerned about this, wondering about that, worried about this. And we had a 15 to talk about stand off. You know, you know what we should. But you know, this stuff was a good time to actually talk to Passwaters about Smith, he's doing good. That's good. It's good to see because sometimes Marines- not speaking ill of the dead, he was always a good kid- but just sometimes, you know, in a career progression happens with people like they sort of they wander out, they're still doing good, but they wander off the path a little bit and then they come back on and the rock stars on it. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good stuff. So we sent them all that stuff out there. I think the next morning they even gave us a time. They said sometime around like 11:00 or after second prayers or something. OK, we got up and I think we pushed extra Marines. We pushed Marines I think further to the south, more from our group. so they could get observation down there and then I call my wife. So I've been up for a long time. Called my wife, went to bed and now we're we're somewhere. The thing we were going to do is over. We'll be here for a little bit. So they'll climb there, too, and literally hung up the phone and put it back in the vehicle, walked over to get my first sleep for like two days, and then the IED went off. So obviously as soon as the the IED went off, you just knew what it was. You look down to the south, you see the cloud and its like... here we go. We had to get the- the QRF organized. We had to do reporting. Captain Graham grabbed the cure QRF and we sent. We sent half the platoon out- I think we had we had post standers in like three Marines, I think back. Did a lot of coordinating with company. A lot of relaying stuff. Like, they- it was like really unnerving because, you know what's going on like, you know it's absolute bedlam right there, right, because... You don't train for mass casualties. You just don't. You do but you don't. Nothing prepares you for when things happen. And you can just hear, like the confusion. You can hear the hurt on the radio. You could hear, you know, what was going on. You can just reach and you feel for the guys because it's like now, you know, like, you know, every single person. All right, see what's going on. First thing. And I hope nobodys, hope nobody's dead. Right. And they start popping the medevac nine lines and stuff up. They're going to cas-reps like Jesus Christ. OK, Doc's gone, OK. Smith's, you know, injured at the time, right? Kane's gone, they're... They're triaging the wounded. And like... It took 20 minutes for the nine line to leave battalion. I mean, it was it was- it was like a f*cking eternity. Where you're listening on the radio and you just wanted to grab that like the handset and start beating people with it, why are we even calling it- like we can we have Satcom. We can just call directly, just directly. And, but people have to do their thing. And, you know, he just- it's that's just frustrating. I mean, it didn't really impact anything that happened that day as far as getting people to care because Smith- Smith wasn't going to make it. And the people that were wounded, you know, it was very bad, OK, they're going to make it kind of stuff. But just seeing how that was handled, the one time it happens, it's like, you know, it's- it's frustrating. And the Marines got to see their buddies blown up and they got to pick through the pieces and pick them up. And we had to secure third platoon. They had to come up and stay with us for a little bit. You know, we handled a lot of their stuff, becausethey were- they were shell shocked, as they should have been. But, you know, I think hindsight being 20/20, I think that they could have been- I feel like every casualty Bravo Company suffered and mostly in the battalion could have been avoided if just, you know, that that mentality doesn't isn't pervasive. Like it was cool to be in the bazaar. Right. That's what a Taliban- General Nicholson came down. Right. Like, oh, yeah, it's cool. You guys are, you know, where it is. Like, OK, well, they're in an defensible position, probably, said me, you know, like when they did the sweep, they found an IED, like literally right in that trash can. They found two damn wires going into the mosque. You can't make this sh*t up, you know. So I mean, it has a pall and that impacts people's, you know, people can get very morbid, people... It affects their brain. Like it affects how they think, you know, like their their risk taking, like their thought process. All that sh*t gets affected. That's, that's really bad, detrimental for a unit. And it's sad for the families. And it was just I felt at that point, that's when the deployment took a turn. I felt everything was hunky dory till then, the deployment takes a turn. Everyone's expecting to go down to Pakistan just to get some payback. Right. And then that doesn't happen. And then, you know, stuck doing that mission till the tail end. I think, you know, it was rough, especially on Third Platoon.
J.S. [01:29:44] Did you get any- you talked a little bit about Intel, about the suicide attack you were getting. Did we get any insight after the attack as to who this person was?
M.C. [01:29:55] No, well, they had- well, no. So what also happened too is the height of stupidity- is- Charlie Company was south of the river. This all happened. I mean, this all happened within an hour and a half maybe. So there's- Charlie Company was south of the river, doing interdiction patrols. They come across the repeater. Right. So the Taliban went to move to put the repeater out somewhere. No, no, nowhere, no one's going to find it. That's how they're talking on all their ICOM chatter. So they find it. I hear it on the radio, the battalion and said hey, we found the repeater. Like cool, I'll tell the RADBN guys that. So I go to grab the RADBN guys. Hey, they found the repeaters. Is that good? He's like, oh, that's that's awesome. Cool. They go back, like what are they doing. I don't know. When we get back and you hear him talking on the radio like, oh we're going to go persecute- prosecute... and we're like tell them not to, tell them not to. That's not their call, that there's not their call its made, they're like this this decision is made at like the CIA level, you know, somewhere in like DC. Right. OK, I try to go on battalion, like RADBN guys are saying not to get it. Roger, Roger, Roger, hey you know, whatever their call sign was, don't touch it. Leave it there. Oh, we already brought it back in the vehicle. Right. So as soon as they unplug it, bring back the vehicle, they lose all comms. So they lose all chatter. So all intel like went to zero after, after that. And it's like you, sometimes you're just like, how dumb are you people? Like, you watch too many Mission Impossible movies. Like, why would you- why would you do that? Like, we literally listen to everything they're saying and now- and if they were getting another antenna thing, they could triangulate the position within like one foot or something. That's just ridiculous. Just sh*t like that. It's like, glad you get a paycheck too. But I digress.
J.S. [01:31:38] When did Operation Western Light end?
M.C. [01:31:42] We were there for a week, 10 days. Alpha Company, RIPed out with us and, you know, just- just some people are along for the ride, some people are there as tourists doing whatever it is they think they're doing. And then, I remember we just- I remember leaving. I was pissed we left Shaibot because I felt we had a good battle rhythm going. We had all the bigger forces. ANBP, I felt were going to be able to shape the battle space a little bit more. I felt we were making good strides, you know, ripped out with those idiots from the pit who just... idiots. And then we ripped out with Alpha Company. And you just know the AO is not going to you know, just like, you know, like here you go, guys, you know, put the bayonets off the rifles, put the pins back in your LAWs, please. You know, no offense to those guys, but they were going full spectrum counterinsurgency operations at Leatherneck before they got there. So I felt- I didn't know if it- felt like, I just feel like everything that had happened in the previous seven days was for nothing. I just felt like, you know, now we're going to go back. At least we can go to Pakistan and start and start doing some stuff right.
J.S. [01:32:46] What was the new mission that the company was assigned after getting back to COP Payne?
M.C. [01:32:50] So what I think happened is we didn't have a mission because they thought we were going to Pakistan. And I guess no one checked, no one like, you know, kicked it up the next higher level. So we didn't have a mission for, I think, like six days. We didn't we were just there at COP Payne. And I think Tim Newkirk, Captain Newkirk is the XO. I think he basically came up with this is a path forward. And because battalion decided to run two battalion COPs, they didn't- and they didn't bring enough manpower to go with. We had- that's why we did security there, because they literally like, we're going to Afghanistan. Let's bring every field grade officer. And E-7 and above, we possibly can. We don't need truck drivers. We don't need watch standers. Don't worry about it. So, yeah, for the fifteenth time, you know, the line companies are supporting Battalion. So we were sitting at COP Payne, and they decided to send us out for ten days of time, five days back, you know, finger on that map. Finger on map, finger on map, do your interdiction. Full spectrum counterinsurgency operations, drive out in the desert. Yeah.
J.S. [01:33:51] Do you feel the company was well suited for that mission?
M.C. [01:33:53] Yeah. I mean, that's I mean, I think LAVs, we should have been in MRAPs or whatever those things are, MATVs. MATVs. Yeah. Go out in the middle of nowhere, organically operate at platoon or section levels and perform interdictions or screen lines. I mean, that's was literally right in our- that was in our wheelhouse finally. So at least we were away from there most of the time. So that was, we were doing what I think should have been doing, which is drive around and finding stuff and doing things. Yeah.
J.S. [01:34:24] Was the company well equipped?
M.C. [01:34:27] Yeah you know. I think I mean hindsight being twenty twenty. I would have to switched to MATVs mainly, maybe get a GBOSS mast out there but... I mean we had what we needed I felt, you know we never drove on the rat lines. We, you know, I think the most- and the one time I felt really nervous going on those patrols was just leaving. Like once we got outside of south station by about three clicks, I was like, we're- we're Deuce's. No one's touching us out here. If they do, we're going to F them up. So I think the only time I got, one time, I think I remember Passwaters, his vehicle had an L, he had an L,remember his twenty five broke down. He had an L for like one mission. I was constantly scared that he's going to hit an IED and just get just get schwacked. But that didn't happen. So yeah, we were well equipped for that.
J.S. [01:35:17] Do any events over the next couple of months stick out to you?
M.C. [01:35:24] Yeah, we found all those drugs, that billion dollars' worth of heroin was pretty, was pretty cool.
J.S. [01:35:32] Can you speak to that sort of aspect of the mission?
M.C. [01:35:34] Yeah, we were in that interdiction. We were in that, oh yeah. So they were- we were supposed to be confiscating- the word was they're running up, you know, weapons and drugs and money up north. And we we're doing interdiction missions and we had the ANBP in thier little Ford Ranger trucks and I guess we were out in that. It was almost like a bowl. Right. We're sitting in that bowl, we're in this weird. I just- I think I'd just come down- we had a scout team that was too high up on the hill. And you could, remember you could see like a stack of rocks from like fifty miles away. I'm like guys, bring it down the hill a little bit, because they can see you. And then just as soon as I said that, like, hey, look, there's trucks and then they the ANBP went out and chased those guys. And then was just a just a ton of drugs, two truck fulls of drugs, a lot of drugs. I think it makes CNN too, pretty cool. That was, of course, its probably still sitting in a CONEX, it's probably still sitting there at some base. Everybody thinks it's like a wall, two billion dollars with heroin. And that was that. That what I thought was neat.
J.S. [01:36:33] Did you ever know what happened to it? We had a DEA agent with us.
M.C. [01:36:36] They put it in a shipping container, like, remember? Where the- the Internet was at COP Payne, there were those big shipping containers. It was in one of those. And then they wanted to get rid of it and they wanted to dump it in the river, but they couldn't dump it in the river because they're afraid they'd get, everyone would get high, like down river. And they couldn't burn it because then everyone might get high, like they were just concerned with basic hazmat. So I think the DEA agent left and when we left COP Payne, I'm pretty sure it was still locked in a shipping container. So who knows, there could have been an Afghan Scarface from that and maybe took over half the country and drugs. I think the night we went out, we got separated when Captain Graham's section and our section were separated by like 70 klicks running off of satcoms and we spent the night on top of this dune, there was like this four hundred foot cliff of baked sand, we couldn't see anything. I thought that was pretty cool. But I mean, from the interdiction stuff, maybe somebody's leaving something on the ground. We had to go back for, that stuck out.
J.S. [01:37:41] What about the sandstorms, you know, the wind of 120 days?
M.C. [01:37:45] When they turn it, when they turn the hairdryers on. That was horrible. That place was a sh*thole. The, the heat. The wind. Right. Remember that night? That's when you get like one hundred and forty percent illume. Like you can read at night, like it was like being at like in Star Wars, some kind of weird thing. But it's like, oh God. Getting stuck- running out of fuel and then geting hit by a sandstorm. That was, I think that was the- I don't know if that was peak stupid but that was up there that was like, oh we're out of gas, we've got barely enough to run vehicles and they wanted to run a census patrol somewhere. And we don't you understand this, we lose gas, we lose electricity, we lose comms. Then that stupid storm came in like, you're kidding me.
J.S. [01:38:28] The ferry I think went down.
M.C. [01:38:30] Yeah. Yeah. And they were going to get us heloed stuff. And I got into an arguement with the air officer, I had to walk. I used to get so pissed walking, if we had that coil set up and then Marines were like watching movies at night, they could see a million lights, at some point during the F'n work up, red lights became tactical for some reason. Like you can't see a red light, like bull sh*t you can see a red light for like four thousand miles. I would lose my mind walking the coil to get to places and by the time I get there, I'd be all fired up and tired and I'd start screaming. They're like, we're out of fuel. We don't have any water. This is embarrassing. We're not doing missions that they wanted. I mean, they wanted to send us to, like, census this stupid town. Like we can't take all reserved fuel from the company just to see who lives there. Like, that's just stupid. Like we're going to wait until, you know, whatever. That was, that was, that was big stupid.
J.S. [01:39:22] On March 24th, Bravo Company received word that their battalion Sergeant Major Robert Cottle, was killed, along with his driver, Lance Corporal Rick Centanni, when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. When did you first receive that news?
M.C. [01:39:37] I was at the Internet center. We were back on, we were back on, what do we call it, five day guard rotation. I was in there. I think I was chasing down Danny Mruk for something. I had to get Mruk for something. And then they went RiverCity, they turned off all the Internet. And then someone said it was echo, echo nine, whatever. So if it was echo nine somebody, it's Charlie. It was echo three Charlie, echo nine charlie. Like oh sh*t, that's the Sergeant Major. So I went right over to EOD tent, where the EOD guys work, because it's an IED nine line, I wanted.... just for curiosity, where did they get hit. And there like reading the grid, and they point at the map and the- where it was was like... When we first- you might not have done this, you were a little baby at the time, but we did a map recon of like areas where we're never going to put an LAV. Right, and where they got hit... Remember the, like the rat line that went up to Taghaz, like to the COP there, there there's like that T intersection, it was actually on the map. That's where they got hit, like right at the absolute place I would never put a vehicle, right, a two way intersection, a T intersection. So that was... It just was like so- Sergeant Major Cottle was a good dude, I didn't know Centanni. But I mean, he was like this SWAT cop I talked to him a bunch during the work up, for some reason, because of certain events that may have occurred during the work up involving certain corporal whose name rhymes with turd. I had to to talk to the Sergeant Major a few times and he would always, for some reason, you always see me and talk to me. Actually he... But, you know, it was like, kind of upsetting. How that occurred, and how it occurred, because I feel like if, if they had been in MRAPs, like if they had been in MATVs, I feel like that we had MATVs and we weren't using them as we should have because, you know, LAVs are- I work at Aberdeen proving grounds, LAVs are like the least survivable vehicle, even with the D kits on, they're, you know, if you hit an IED in the right place, it's going to tear the inside the vehicle out like it did on that L. And, you know, it's not pretty, but mostly I think every IED that struck a vehicle on that deployment... Should have known better than that, how they got struck, where they were. But that was very sad. And then... And they had to bring the vehicle back, really. And it was like at the meeting was like there is like a lull and then that, you know what I mean? It was just you don't want to lose a sergeant major. No one wants to lose anybody. But it's like kind of, you know, especially where they lost him. It was pretty. Pretty horrible.
J.S. [01:42:15] How long did Bravo company's interdiction mission last?
M.C. [01:42:19] Jeez, it lasted from February to almost May, right.
J.S. [01:42:26] When you get the- first get the news that you'd be rotating home,
M.C. [01:42:29] We got it a bunch of times, right. So there was like a volcano or something in Iceland. So that was like when is 1st LAR coming for the RIP? Like, the rumor was they're coming early because they want the reservists out of there. Right.
J.S. [01:42:41] Is there a reason they wanted the reserves out?
M.C. [01:42:43] They got active professionals out there. So they, because the advon, I think was delayed and then when the advon got in, the main body was delayed. So when they got there, I mean, it was like, God, what are these... What are we getting the hell out... like that down on them at that point? I mean, it's like, you know, there's no good chow. You go out in the desert and stare into the abyss for 90 percent of the time. You play spades. You put a guy up of the turret here in your on a pool table. Yeah. And especially when, I remember this, but they had the army was out, ODA was out there in Black Hawks and Apaches blowing sh*t up. And then we'd have to go like do BDAs on their stuff. So like we think we're doing all this interdiction stuff and the really cool stuff is like these two guys in like, you know, Hawaiian shirts flying over in a helicopter gunning stuff up and then leaving, but doing all kinds of weird secret squirrel stuff out there. You know, I think we were done. I think we were, as a company. So get the f*ck out of here for something else. You know, people that were dying at that point were like.. But it's just like they shouldn't be happening. These guys, I think there's a sense like, I don't know, maybe I'll be, you know, like something bad is going to happen, it's time to get the hell out of there. But, yeah, they I think we got the word they're coming in like Feb... I think was the February, March. I mean, it was we were getting the word from them.
J.S. [01:44:03] Did you feel that you'd accomplished the mission that you set out to complete?
M.C. [01:44:07] Yeah, I mean, like I said, we didn't have that much of a mission. So we did- we did a lot of not that much of one. So I think we we like, in Shaibot, you guys did a hell of a job censusing the people there and did a lot of BATs. I had a- I had an expansive database I did. That's what's I spent lot of my time, too. And we literally handed it over and they were like, thanks. So, yeah. So that was upsetting. And then Taghaz, I think we would have started something, good and thanks, see ya. So... And then ironically enough, when when 1st LAR ripped out with us, we did a great left seat right seat with them, showed them how we operated and they came back and they kicked us off our vehicles. It wasn't the Marines we were with,it was from the battalion. But, you know, I actually shared a berthing area with the motor two guys. Yeah. You know, what we developed over time was kind of my brainchild was taking the trucks out with us. So we don't do the resupplies. Right. And even getting our MRAPs, I had to fight to get an MRAP. I wanted our lead vic to be an MRAP, and I was like, why do you run resupplies out, just give us trucks. Let's make this easy, cause we're running out of gas, right, as soon as we get out there, you know, but what was- seven hours of driving in soft sand equals 72 gallons gas burned. And so, like, just get out there and- no, we're going to do it like real LAR. OK, well you're going to run out of gas, not going to support everybody. Oh, we got this and then they ran out of gas like four days out. They cut off all the- all the stuff that like even 2nd LAR did, that we took over like the Hesco barriers outside the vehicle and stuff and all that, that they got rid of that- put the seats back in. They went full retard. They did everything. God bless them.
J.S. [01:45:41] So when and- when and how did you leave Afghanistan?
M.C. [01:45:46] We left in end of April, May? That's funny when I'm on deployment. Like, I don't know what the day is. I don't like... the only reason I know, like, certain dates are when people post pictures on Facebook. Like January 23rd, I kind of know now, but I just knew January sometime- we lost McDonald sometime around 4th of July and people post on Facebook. Like if you ask me when a major fire fight was, I don't know, sometime before three weeks before Thanksgiving or a week before Marine Corps birthday like because I like dates, I don't give a sh*t about what day it is. It's either, you know, whatever Zulu time when you get an order, but it's basically day seventy four of suck. But yeah, we, you know, we flew out on Osprey's, which was not- I think more people were scared of flying out on Osprey's than they were any time on the deployment. So I remember that fight out and then we got stuck at Leatherneck. It was hell. I didn't even get my my pedicure. I wanted to get a pedicure and a mani pedi and a massage in Kyrgyzstan and got screwed out of that. That's great. When you had your badass moment, that was great, that was a good time. I still tell that story.
J.S. [01:46:59] How were you welcomed back home?
M.C. [01:47:00] I think another good welcome home I think. I think, I mean we- they did it right, every time we came home they did it right. Major Devine I think might have still been the PAO at Detrick. But he always did nice stuff, but I thought I felt welcomed back. We had a thing with the VFW or is it the Elks Lodge? A big thing at the Elks Lodge. Tons of people there. It was actually funny because my wife had come out to California. One of the wives that came out to California. So, hey, you can come ouf if you want, but I'm not going to get released. We're going to fly home. So my wife came out and then they pulled us all. We could have had the night out with our wives and they pulled us all back. As you know, the head- the head guy was one of those people that just sucked. So I came home and had- I didn't even have a ride back. So we got home. My wife was still flying from California. So we landed there. And I couldn't- I wasn't- We're staying at my wife's house in Silver Spring, so I couldn't- I didn't have a place to go. So I got one of the Marines tp drive. I was like does anybody live in Silver Spring, so I got a random Marine that had not deployed with us who had just checked in, Kamptman, to drive us- and drive us back. I made it. I was home by myself for a while, but it's actually kind of nice chilling out. And I got back into getting the company ready for round four, which never came, thankfully.
J.S. [01:48:27] What are some of the things you remember most about your service in Afghanistan?
M.C. [01:48:32] It was hard, but it was probably the biggest challenge of my career. That's just- it was just hard. Like I felt the work up was... Sucked. I felt like- I felt like kind of the generation, like the 2009, 2010 generation had a little bit of a... Like they'd already done it, but they hadn't done it yet. I think it was it's just this, it's by that point like the whole... people knew so much from TV and people knew so much that they all slid in. It was it was all- like I mean you slid into this like, you know, like I'm a salty veteran, like you've been in Afghanistan for seven minutes. You know, like trying to break, like, to break that... It was a constant the entire time. It's like guys we're not in Hue City and, you know, like you need to shave, like, you know, you probably remember this. Discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline. Like, I, I just felt that we didn't have the opportunity to reinforce that during the work up because we always were from here to there, doing this to this, doing random training here, white space for six days, sitting in a parking lot, you know, going to Mojave Viper, getting one day of platoon training. I don't feel we had the time to adequately get the platoon where we wanted it. It was good enough where it was. But I felt there was- I had- that was the most work I've had to do as a platoon sergeant. I just felt like I was constantly, like Passwaters and Witzel, we were constantly doing stuff that we should have been doing during the work up, but we never got the opportunity to. And I think that through the course of the deployment, you know, it's just, you know, it's like I said, you guys didn't like to sleep. You would just stay up all of that and drive us nuts, you know, get some sleep, guys. We got- we're going to be here another five months. You know, you need some sleep. I think it was just I think the- just the way everything was- just the way we are- just so many- there's so much friction everywhere that you were just fighting friction all the time that, you know, it just you spent so much time just fighting to stay where you were, you know, for- for a leader is quite transparent to the younger guys because you just got your role. You got- that's the best time in your life when you're- all you've gotta do is do, right, you don't have to think and you know, worry too much. And, you know, it was wearing, I think, the losses we- we had... I just feel, you know, shouldn't have happened, you know, and Afghanistan's going to fall back to the Taliban. I feel like even at the time we left... It's like this- this experiment's not going to work. You know, just, you just... just feel bad, like you did it... You know, I look- when I look at Afghanistan, I'm grateful that I got back together with my wife. And we have three beautiful children. You know, like the things I pull from that deployment are like, you know, it's given me the life kind of I have now with my family. So I like, when I think, man, I never should have gone. I never should have gone. And I never probably would have got back with my wife, you know, but I got to hang out with Passwaters and, you know, Witzel... some of my guys were like I didn't- at the end I'm like, man, I really didn't need to go. I don't- it didn't- not that I feel like I have that impact, but I just feel like me or another guy probably would have done the exact same thing.
J.S. [01:51:43] Can you elaborate more about your thoughts on the war in Afghanistan?
M.C. [01:51:48] So, uh, you know, it's- it's a country with thirty two different languages. Um. Different cultures, there's no- people aren't really Afghani there, they're not- that's not their primary concern, I think just that- that culture I mean, they're fighters, but that, I mean that- that's where warlords rule over places like that, right? There's... Yeah, it's over there you're just- you're fighting a corrupt... Vietnam. You know, if you have a corrupt government you're trying to prop up or, you know, it's you're fighting an uphill battle entire way. And that kind of stuff takes like three or four generations to change. So, I mean, that was year seven, right? Now, they're leaving now. I just felt like this. No, I mean, and we weren't even up in like the other regions where it's a lot worse like this. Just this is... I feel like in Iraq, we left in 06, 07 like this. They got shot at this. They're going to figure this out. And then obviously all this. the foreign policy that's failed across it. Just watching that, just disintegrate to and you're like why the f*ck did I go anywhere?
J.S. [01:53:00] Do you have any regrets?
M.C. [01:53:05] I. I don't know, I feel like I did... I feel like I did the most- I feel like I left it all in the field. I felt like I mean, I regret having a burst appendix. I regret- I mean, like that last deployment. I just feel like I wasn't- I wasn't 100 percent physically, wasn't 100 percent mentally, my regrets probably is not letting go a little bit more in between the deployments. Like I went from 2003 to 2009, like just nonstop. And I feel like I, I held on a little too tight and I got beat up a lot. And by the time the deployment came around in Afghanistan, I felt like I was just drained like I needed... And then the work up... Yeah, it's just everything leading up to it I mean I was, physically broken and mentally exhausted and then, you know, hoping for what we were going to have in the work up and it didn't come. And then just having the deployment, like just, you know, like that- like you feel like you're not getting it all. Like you're not doing the best you could have. I think maybe if I just not held on as tight, it would have- would have been.. I don't know at least mentally less draining. I think we did the best we could everywhere we went. And that's all you can really do. Right?
J.S. [01:54:24] Can you- can talk about- can you talk a little bit about the rest of your time in the Marine Corps?After the Afghan deployment to when you retired?
M.C. [01:54:31] I came back... Honestly, when I came back, I... and the first one, I came back, I took leave, I was married, had a wife, that impacted my career. But I feel like I could track the course of the company over 20 years. I feel like when I showed up, they were- the company before I got there, had fun. None of those guys really got training. They literally figured out how to do everything on their own. I'm sure Hilton probably talked about that. So a lot of the stuff wasn't- it wasn't institutionalized yet. It was what they knew and what it was like learning through doing kind of thing. Right. And then when Strack took over, we started institutionalizing the learning a little bit more. So we started like to establish just battle rhythm. And then we got the company to a point where we could individually operate pretty well. Vehicle level, section level, company level, not so much because you can't operate as a company. Platoon level, you could operate, but that's a big deal for a reserve unit. And then we went to OIF-1 and we came back and then we dipped again. And then we had a slow kind of uptick. And then we went to DSU like, DSU, I feel like we ramped up like sky high. And then we got back from DSU again, like the worst company commander we've ever had... Just destroyed the company. And we went kind of back down like we went... and it's like when you're... take ownership, like Hilton might have talked about this, you take ownership of the company, like sure reservists, they call us homesteaders. But you're the guy that's, I remember so-and-so from back here. But you can track the company, you can watch it. And, you know, Marines always leave stuff better than you find it. Right. So I felt when I came in Bravo Company, I thought was good. And then as we got better, you could see- and the only reason why it got better was just because we got a little bit better. We got more formally instructed. The guys that started it didn't get any formal training. It was, LAR was brand new. So we got to learn through their mistakes and the- the community's mistakes. And then, okay, now we're here. We're going to come up and then we hit that valley after 06, and it was a low valley and we didn't dig ourselves out of it, like we just kept... we probably dug ourselves out of it deeper. But we just kind of creeped up. We had at the company, we had people that knew what they were doing. We had enough people that knew what they were doing, officer and enlisted, that we could pull... Like we could phone it in. Right. We could- we had enough people in enough key billets that you could pull it off, you know, but the inertia... when we got back in 09, 2010, is like when this next iteration of the reserve, like the strategic reserve. Right. Not the strategic, the operational reserve. And then all the training shifted. So then the focus wasn't on individual skills. Right. It was on collective skills, the company level skills. And what basically happened, at least that in our unit, not being in anothe company in the battalion, is they overlooked the fact that reservists need to be able to do the basic things and they started focusing on... you probably remember doing this, we got to do a route clearance, we're going to get graded on a route clearance, right. Or route reconnaissance, movement to contact, whatever. They would give you, right, the object- they would give you the- they let you walk the- you can walk to the objective area. Right. You rehearse what- your actions on objective. So they basically give you the answers to the test before the test. Right. You spent all day memorizing the answers for the test, execute the test. They can check the box seven times. Right. So what happens to your individual skills? No one learns anything. I learned that today I have to walk sixteen feet, a target pops up, I shoot at it, I get on the radio, I call back to yankity yank, you remember doing this. So. You basically couldn't- we weren't training Marines properly, so the last four years at Bravo Company... I just beat my head against the wall dealing with the I&I staff guys who were like- they were comfortable... who were very competent. They were just comfortable allowing Marines to fail in training, like at the qual ranges. They- crews would UNQ, and like no big deal. Like, I never had crews UNQ the range, like, I would get them ready to pass or, you know, whatever. But by the time I left Bravo company like I was, I had to reserve myself that the company was probably worse off than when I got there. The resolve myself, I became a first sergeant. I went up to a company in New York, Echo company 4th LAR, who had just... They were coming from the bottom and working their way to the top. So I got there- it was nice to go into a unit that was on the ascendancy and was growing. It was just kind of like... Yeah, like- like one deployment won't make up for another deployment. If you had a bad deployment. Right. Your next one was not going to make up for it. But generally, if you move companies it doesn't make up for it either. But I got kind of in there as the company went on. It, so I was there for three years and it really grew. And to see a company grow that I was part of and I got to get that good feeling again, like, man, these guys are starting to... You know, they're really- they're so much better than they were before. And where at Bravo Company was like we just hit a level. And basically Bravo Company was sustained by the actions of three or four people. When I left, like the- just some guys did all the work. Some people did none of the work at the- the higher levels. You had good troopees and all. But, you know, you can't, you've got to bring the troopees up and people are just getting out. No one sticks around anymore. I went to fourth combat engineers as a first sergeant, like my- I mean, I like the people there. But, you know, you can just- you can see why people get out of the Marine Corps the longer you're in. But I felt like I finished up as a first sergeant. I helped the Marines out. I felt I know, I was your platoon sergeant. There's a lot of times I felt my main job outside of training for war is protecting Marines from all the bullsh*t. That's- I try to do that to the best of my abilities, either through influencing superiors or just taking it on the chin, because there's a lot of stuff I feel that they... Make Marines hate the Marine Corps. They come up with it and they push it down and you always try to filter it out, you know, because it's just stupid. Yeah, I think that sums up the rest of the game.
J.S. [02:00:34] Do you feel that your country is grateful for your service?
M.C. [02:00:37] I don't care. I mean, they don't have to be. That's why it's called service. So, I mean, that's nice to get discounts, you know, at like Applebee's and stuff. But I for one thing, you probably remember me saying this in Afghanistan, I said it when we got back in 2006. Like, guys, you're not entitled to anything. You know I remember me saying that right up front of the chapel. You're not entitled anything. You know, you did something that ninety nine point nine percent of your peer group didn't do. You should be proud that you came over here and acquitted yourselves well, but this doesn't entitle you to anything. If people don't like the fact you're in the military, that's their business. You know, people shouldn't get- bow down on their knees. You're- you're a civil servant. You swear an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That's that's what you do, right? Silent professionals. So if you're grateful, thanks. I don't like it when people thank me for my service because I feel uncomfortable, you know, but I don't care. That's probably not the answer you're looking for. But it's nice if they are. Don't care if they're not. So... I'm grateful for my service for, you know, being allowed to serve. So, a lot of people can't serve.
J.S. [02:01:51] Well, Marc, thank you very much for taking the time to sit for this interview. As you know, this interview will be submitted to the Library of Congress to be preserved for the benefit of future generations. So it's very possible that your descendants will be watching this interview in the future. Is there anything that you'd like to say to your descendants at this time?
M.C. [02:02:10] Think about stuff before you do it. I feel like I had to pass down- to talk to eighteen year old Marc from now, like, think- think about, like look at yourself from the perspective of others, not care about peer pressure. But whenever you're going to make a decision or do something, just think if you were outside looking in, how would you, how would you view yourself? because I feel if I did that in my younger years, I would have had a much better run at my 20s, let's just say that. But I think that that goes through every aspect of your life. Any time you're making a decision, think about, you know, any decision- how do I look from the outside? Don't get wrapped up in yourself is, you know, in life you're inconsequential. So. Yeah, and I love you guys, whoever you are.
J.S. [02:02:59] Thank you again. I really appreciate it.
M.C. [02:03:01] That was cool.
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