413: Clinton Romesha—It Doesn’t Get Better

Hey guys, it's the way I heard it, and another Veterans Day is upon us.

We're very nearly so, Chuck.

How's that possible?

You know what?

It happens just about every year, Mike.

It's shocking.

Every single year, the time goes a little bit quicker.

Yep.

And I know that's a bromide.

I know it's platitudinous, forgive me, but there's truth in stereotypes.

And there's a whole lot of truth in the conversation you're about to hear.

My guest is Clint Romashe.

He is

a recipient of our nation's Medal of Honor.

And I think it's fair to say, Chuck, that in every imaginable way, although he might dispute this, he earned it.

Yes, he might dispute it.

And he says something very interesting in the podcast, and that is that he only came to accept it when the brass in the army told him that it was the guys he served with who recommended him, who said, yes, he deserves something more than what you're giving him.

Clint distinguished himself in the Battle of Camdesh in Afghanistan, specifically at Cop Keating.

Let me just give you some of the specifics because like a lot of guys who receive a Medal of Honor, Clint is really, he's kind of uncomfortable talking about the details of what he did to earn this distinction.

So let me spell it out here.

On 3 October, 2009.

Clint had been in the Army for over a decade.

He was a staff sergeant, as you said, assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade, Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, deployed to Cop Keating.

That's Combat Outpost Keating in eastern Afghanistan, which is a long way of saying our guest today drew the short straw.

This is not an outpost that anybody wanted to find themselves assigned to.

It's in a canyon, basically.

Yeah, surrounded on all four sides by hills.

Big hills.

It just does not look good on a map, and the map is the first thing you see in his remarkable book, which is called Red Platoon.

And then as you read, you learn that a force of between 300 and 400 Taliban insurgents attacked the base, and Clint was on the front line.

He did his job, and then some, as his best friends, literally were dying all around him, he led a counterattack against an enemy that outnumbered them seven to one.

He directed close air support.

He provided all sorts of suppressive fire to help the wounded get to an aid station, got himself shot up, and despite being wounded, he just, the guy just kept fighting for over 12 hours.

I mean, a 12-hour battle is unbelievably intense, and this one has been described as the most intense of the entire campaign.

Anyway, he left the Army in 2011 to spend some more time with his family.

He wrote this amazing book.

He's now working in the oil industry up in North Dakota.

There's so much to talk about with this guy, and there's so much to admire.

And since another Veterans Day is upon us, we just thought he would be somebody you might want to know.

Clinton Lavore Romashe is in the house.

You'll meet him right after this.

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So, what's weird, Clint, is in real time, this is Election Day.

We're recording this beforehand.

We have absolutely no idea what's happening in the world.

I don't think anybody does and won't.

Yeah.

This is my biggest complaint doing the podcast this way.

It's sometimes you feel like super relevant relevant and right on the cusp, and sometimes you're like, I'm going to say something that's so profoundly irrelevant to everyone.

These Yankees are going to sweep.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

What happened?

Who knows?

Thank you for making time.

Thanks for coming in.

Oh, thanks for having me.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Super excited about this.

I've known of you for a while.

I got your book.

I'm halfway through, which now is becoming my sad truth.

It's my mantra for all things.

I'm telling you, man, you got to listen to to them.

You can zip through them faster.

You know what, though, man?

Would you rather read a great book or listen to a good book well read?

I don't know.

Like I said, I'm a product to C's get degrees.

I limp through high school.

Every book it seemed like I wanted to read was not part of our accelerated reader program.

Pop-ups usually aren't.

I tried to do a book report on Spy versus Spy once because it was actually published in a Mad Magazine.

Oh, yeah.

The best.

Yeah, I got an F on that one somehow.

To me, it's got to be a good book for me to get in, and then I'm all in, and I want to read it to myself.

What makes a good book good for you?

I have no idea.

I mean, the books that I've read throughout my life have normally been like Michael Crichton's stuff.

So,

you know, some of that scientific futuristic stuff.

Some have been some fantasy stuff.

The last book I actually think I've sat down and read was a book called Forever by Pete Hamill.

Never knew of that author or anything like that.

I sit down and I bet I read that book in two days.

Is it a longevity book?

Like How to Live Forever kind of thing?

Yeah, so it's, shoot, I'm trying to remember the plot because I read it back in Afghanistan.

So it tells you how long it lives.

Well, you got a lot going on.

I know.

It's hard to retain things.

It's about this Irish kid that

back in like the 1700s or something, and it goes into kind of the Celtic traditions.

And he's avenging his family because his dad and his mom and everybody gets killed, but he gets cursed with living forever.

But he gets stationed in Manhattan and he can't leave the island of Manhattan Manhattan as part of the curse, but yet he can't fulfill the kind of the blood revenge of his family because the family line that he needs to kill has moved away.

It's a little bit of Highlander in that.

Yeah.

Right?

You live forever, but you got these rules.

But you got these rules.

Huh.

I love it.

I wish my partner Mary were here.

She represented Michael Crichton.

for a while

and did some of his deals.

And I never had a chance to meet that guy.

I'm a big fan, too.

I haven't read everything he's done, but I've read a lot.

And I asked her, is he as smart as it seems he must be in order to write things like from ER to sphere

to Jurassic Park?

He's so smart, he's still writing books.

Yeah, and he's been dead for years.

He's been dead for years.

Yeah.

The amount of research, like as you're reading his books, you know, he knows the material he's talking about.

Exactly.

And that's what Mary said.

She's like, it's weird to be in the presence of, first of all, a physical specimen.

He was like six, seven.

Oh.

He was so tall.

But she said his intellect sucked the air out of the room.

It was just kind of an intuitive thing.

They said that about Bob Dylan, too, not his intellect, but his presence.

Whatever made Dylan Dylan, whatever made Crichton Crichton, these guys, you know, I wonder if it translates into your vocation.

I wonder if men or women, warriors of sorts, like, can you tell when somebody walks in the room if they've got this?

this?

There are certain guys that would walk into the room and you're just like, man,

that's the guy.

I know for me as a young enlisted, my first duty station, that guy for me was a Sarn Gariantes.

He said, I was a young PFC, just got to Germany.

It was my first duty station.

First time I've ever been anywhere in my life.

I grew up, like I said, in a tiny town in just Northern California.

Which one?

Lake City, Cedarville.

I got another story about that.

Is it Lake City or Cedarville?

Well, it sounds complicated.

It is complicated.

We grew up in a valley called Surprise Valley.

So you had Fort Vidwell, Lake City, Cedarville, and Eagleville.

And we all had to transit toward Cedarville to go to school.

And I can always brag to this day that I graduated in the top 14 of the 15 kids.

I graduated my senior year.

One more surprise out of Surprise Valley.

You're in the top 15.

But like I said, when I met Garyantes, he wasn't even my direct kind of supervisor.

He was the commander's gutter.

But he was at NCO that you just knew he was a leader, a leader of men.

And as a young PFC, I looked at him.

I'm like, I want to be him someday.

And so everything I addressed kind of my leadership style offering came directly from him.

And he taught me great lessons, like good leaders, don't expect everybody to change their ways to them.

They know each of their guys individually.

And never tell someone to do it just because I said so.

Don't fall back on just because I told you to do it.

He's like, always have a reason you're telling them.

And always make guys feel listened to.

Because even the greatest ideas come from the dumbest privates.

How do you know, like, what parent manual is out there that got passed around that somehow resonated enough with moms and dads to literally rely on that for everything?

Because I said so.

It doesn't work when you're six.

It doesn't work when you're 16.

And it doesn't work when you're 26.

There's always, I think, going to be that one-off occasion where you just need to throw that out there.

But for me, it was always, there's got to be a task and purpose, and especially young men want that purpose, direction, motivation.

Like, if you don't give them that, they're going to go find it elsewhere.

It's going to create a divide between you and, like I said, I

was in the military so long, I always call them young men, boys, and stuff.

That would create a division.

My biggest quality I wanted in my guys was loyalty.

Duty, I know, would get them to do their job.

Loyalty would get them to go above and beyond anything that was asked of them.

So interesting, you know, because I think what you're talking about are bottom-up solutions, non-cookie-cutter approaches to getting a result.

But the military always struck me as the epitome of a top-down organization where there's forms and there's protocol and there's chain of command and all of these other things that are, I know, important, but balancing all of that together seems like a hot mess.

The structure that I, you know, I went through was, yeah, you've got that chain of command.

You've got here's the right way, the wrong way to do things.

I always like that, the right the wrong way, and hey, Lieutenant, look the other way thing to do things.

And what I always took out of the military is there is that structure, but I think that's what separated the U.S.

military from any other military you've ever seen in the history of man.

But they want every soldier to think for themselves and to know that those small teams, that victory can be decided by one person on that battlefield.

It can easily be lost by the top general making

just an

arid mistake of some sorts.

But a victory could be won by the lowest soldier because they are thinking outside the box.

So interesting.

Well, obviously, that dynamic is very much at work in Red Platoon.

Your book, at least the half I've read, is riveting.

I swear to God, I'm going to finish it this week.

I can tell you I survive at the end.

Spoiler alert.

Clint made it out.

But, dude, by the hair of your chinny chin chin.

That has to do entirely with the guys I serve with.

Shortly after receiving the medal, like I said, it was a medal of honor.

It was a whirlwind.

Does it embarrass you to say it?

It does at times.

I shouldn't say at times.

It just, to me, it's a bittersweet thing because as much as people call you a hero and want to celebrate you, to me, it's like I lost.

I didn't bring eight guys home.

Like a leadership fellow.

You lost eight men.

It's that bittersweet.

It's humbling to be acknowledged for that, but it's also, I had 50 other guys there that day.

I had eight that gave up their lives so I could be here.

So as much as I've been the one to be presented with the medal and now wear it, I don't wear it for me.

I just, I'm the caretaker of it, and it's for all of those guys that I serve with.

It's for all those men and women that are still serving today.

It's for those that will put on that uniform tomorrow and continue on.

For every American that's in this country, that's being givers and not takers.

Like I said, my big thing is service to country doesn't have to come from wearing the uniform.

It comes from just being a good person and giving back more than you're taking.

When did you enlist and why?

So I enlisted in 99.

I came from, like I said, a military background.

My grandfather served World War II.

He started off in the cavalry back as the Army was kind of transitioning from horses to mechanicals.

So once they were downgrading, getting rid of some of the horses, he grew up as a rancher farmer running heavy equipment.

So they turned him into a combat engineer.

So he went over to Europe, survived Normand Beach landings, the Battle of the Bulge, did his entire time over in Europe.

Front row seats, all that.

I mean, my dad, he ended up serving two tours in Vietnam as an infantryman.

My oldest brother, like I said, he initially joined the Army, had a break in service, was going to come back and try to be a California Highway Patrol trooper.

That was back when,

that was that, mid-90s.

That plan didn't work out for him, so he went back in, joined the Air Force.

He just retired from the Air Force, what, two years ago.

Second oldest brother, he was kind of weird, so he joined the Marines.

He did, you know, four years down at Camp Pendleton.

And so by the time it was coming to the end of my high school career, I said, I was, me and school didn't get along.

High school career.

I like that.

Yeah,

that's where I learned, fake it till you make it.

You know, just do just enough to get by.

Let me ask you something.

Just a quick sidebar, though.

Was your frustration with high school, you think,

maybe related to that one-size-fits-all approach we were talking about?

Like, did you need to be

talked to, educated, engaged with in a different way?

I thrived at anything that was hands-on during my educational growing up.

Like, my senior year, I had three English classes because I refused to take them throughout the course of my high school career.

I think I had two PEs and ag mechanic, shop, and welding.

Like, I had no problem with ag shop and welding.

Welding and PE.

But yeah, those senior English classes really kind of kicked my butt there at the end.

Needs three.

Well, that's what happens when you don't take them during your freshman, junior year, or sophomore year.

They accumulate.

They kind of self-inflicted.

And for me, yeah, that's what kind of irritated me with school was

I think I was from the generation where it got shoved down your throat.

If you don't go to college, you're not going to be successful.

And growing up, like I said, my dad was a heavy equipment operator out in Washoe County, Nevada.

We raised alfalfa, we raised dairy cows.

My dad was the only one that would work on like windmills and not like the ones that produce energy, the ones that suck up water for livestock.

He was the only one that could work on windmills in the entire state of Northern California, southern Oregon,

northern Nevada.

So I'd wake up at four o'clock in the morning, would go out and fix windmills on the weekends.

He wasn't running heavy equipment for Washoe County.

He never ever told us to go to college.

He always just said, go learn to do something.

A skill that's in demand.

And so when I joined the Army, my thought was, I'm tired of milking cows and I'm tired of digging fence posts.

That is not the life I want.

I want to go see the world.

It's 99, so we didn't have a whole lot going on.

And I wanted to follow in the, you know, just the footsteps of my dad, my grandfather, because all of their stories, they never talked about combat.

They never talked about war.

They talked about the buddies they served with and the shenanigans they got into.

And it was always those stories that.

We we few, we have, we few, right?

I mean, that's, God, I look at men today, young men in particular, who just seem not to paint with too broad a brush, but lost and looking for meaning and not finding it in their screens, not finding purpose, right?

And so just cocooned and wrapped up inside.

And, you know.

That's why I think like high school sports is a great thing for young men and women.

Friday Night Lights was a real thing.

Yeah.

That camaraderie, just having that challenge, because I like to call it kind of the at-base purchases.

You can just instantly get that upgrade with a little bit of money, but where's the reward in that?

And only the

said my best moments in life have come out of some of the worst things I had to go through because it gave it much more meaning when things are going good.

A crucible.

Okay, but it's 1999, so we're pre-9-11.

You decide to see the world, and you go to your dad, who has already been there and already done that.

And what words of wisdom might he have for you?

Well, I'm 17 years old.

Again, not because I was super smart.

My birthday is just in August, so I'm on the verge of graduate, and my graduation present was luggage, so I got the hint.

Very loud and clear.

And I tell him, hey, I've already talked to a recruiter.

I'm going to join the Army.

And my dad just looks at me and he shakes his head and he's like,

knowing I'm 17, he's got to sign.

He He just shakes his head.

He's like, I'm not going to sign for you.

And in my mind, I'm thinking, this SOB

is wanting one more free work of summer out of me because I'm the youngest of the three boys.

I can't say goodbye to my cheap labor.

Yeah.

Cows to mill.

Yeah, I worked every summer for $100.

That was my salary for the summer work.

I've never seen that $100, but I always got told about it.

And that's what...

bought my hand-me-down jeans and all my school clothes for the next year.

But very quickly, he followed up.

He's like, Clint, look,

there's not a whole lot going on in the world.

Maybe not tomorrow and maybe not in 20 years.

If you put that uniform on, you'll have to go and see things that no one should have to go do and see.

I said, I'm 17 years old.

I'm thinking, oh, he just wants to keep me around for another summer.

Like I said, he never shared his time,

any of his stories of Vietnam growing up.

I didn't understand any of that.

I'm just being a punk 17-year-old kid that used to complain that my life was horrible because the nearest McDonald's was in Susanville, California, 45 minutes away.

And how tough of a world that was that I'd never had McDonald's in my life.

And you had never really seen anything on the national or the global stage that would make your, you know,

well, you know, growing up, we had Desert Storm, the 100-hour war, so I got to watch that.

And that was the

over there and done.

And that was easy.

Yep.

So life is good.

He just said, you'll turn 18 and you'll sign on your own accord.

So

day of my 18th birthday, I went back to the recruiter, signed up.

And the other advice my dad said, hey, if you're going to join, don't go infantry.

Go learn to do something that will get you paid afterwards.

Don't tell me I'm keen to guess.

You signed on the infantry.

Well, wait, no, I.

No, I'm a little lazy and I don't like to walk very many places.

So I went and I joined Armor.

So I was

going to be on tanks.

And I came back and I told my dad, I listened to you.

I'm not going to be infantry.

I'm going to be armor.

And he just comes back and he's like, well, why the hell would you do that?

You're just the biggest target on the battlefield now.

It's like, there's no one pressing you, dad.

Like, every choice is not

obviously a tough audience.

Where was your basic?

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My basic was in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

I said, first time I'd, like I said, been out of that part of Northern California, get dumped in with a group of guys.

Palacios was my battle buddy.

I can still remember him to this day.

He was from, I believe, Houston, Texas.

First time I'd, you know, just, we had guys from Jamaica, New York, you know, Alabama, Alaska, and you're all thrown into this platoon together, not knowing what you're getting into.

And immediately right away, you learn how to meet some random person that now I'm going to put my trust in you, and we're all going to get through this together.

Honestly, when I joined the Army, I thought if I could make it through four years, maybe make corporal and not go to Leavenworth, that would be the highlight of my life.

Squad goals.

Set, you know?

Romache's on a roll.

All right, so you're in for, well, let's see, two years before 9-11.

Were you stayed side all the way up?

First duty station was Germany because I wanted to go there because my brother had been stationed there when he was in the Army.

Like I said, my granddad had spent time there after World War II.

My grandmother, without missing a beat, when I shipped off to go to Germany, the only thing she said is, hey, your granddad spent some time over there.

So if anybody looks like your uncle or your mom, will you let me know?

Like I said, I just wanted to travel.

But as soon as I got to Germany, my unit I went to was already pre-deployed downrange to Kosovo at the time.

And that was back after, you know, Milosvik and all of the genocide stuff.

And that was kind of the first dose of what my dad was telling me about, of going and doing and seeing things that no one should have to go do and see.

So as soon as I got to Germany, it was a week later, I caught up with the rest of my unit down in Kosovo out of, I believe it was Camp Bonstiel at the time.

And we started running, doing

security patrols and running Albanians through Serbian towns, escorting them to go get fuel for their tractors and Serbs through Albanian towns so they could have fuel for their tractors to plant their fields because if they didn't have a military escort, they were going to get killed.

And I thought, that was kind of the first light bulb moment where it's like, man, I am such a punk kid that I used to complain that 45 minutes away was the nearest McDonald's.

And how good was life that I never once, every time I was sitting there running the swather and had to go fill up with diesel, ever thought anyone would ever try to shoot at me.

You went from milking towels to risking your life so people could milk cows.

Yeah.

Basically.

You a corporal at this point?

Nope, PFC.

Basic training.

Like I said, I joined as a PV-nothing.

It was one of those things.

The Army was the greatest thing.

They told you where to be, what to be in.

And you didn't have to be the most squared-away guy.

You just had to be a little more less messed up than the guy to your left and right.

That's right.

Not a difficult thing.

We're not all, you know, special forces green berets or navy seals.

It's just, you just had to be not as messed up as the guy to your left and right in particular moments.

Yeah.

You don't have to outrun your buddy.

You got to outrun the bear.

You don't have to outrun the bear.

You got to outrun your buddy.

Right.

All right.

so you're just kind of force gumping your way through the whole thing then.

Yep.

And it just, I mean, it just excelled for me.

I, you know, my time in the military,

I wouldn't say it was all easy, but it came very natural.

Everything I did was very natural and it just kind of flowed.

And what I thought was just going to be four years, well,

started my family and then realized I had an opportunity to go to Korea and do a re-enlistment for there.

At that time, I said I did the four years in Germany, already re-upped to go go to Korea.

And of course, 9-11 had already kicked off.

Knowing we were on tanks, it was all going on in Afghanistan.

And we learned some good lessons from the Russians that tanks don't go to Afghanistan.

So I thought to myself, well, probably won't have an opportunity, especially since I'm going to Korea.

Really?

So you didn't think you were going to wind up there right in the wake?

On the path I was on at that time?

No.

Just the way it lined up, because at that time in Korea, it was a hardship.

deployment and we had permanent units there that were waiting for the north to come south still.

When I was on my way to Korea, that's when the ground war in Iraq kicked off.

And I'm like, well, crap, I've got 18 months minimum on this next enlistment that I'll be in Korea.

And I had a guaranteed return assignment to Fort Irwin, California, which Irwin for the Army is a training center and not deployable center.

So that's where you train everybody else up to go to combat.

So you're saying crap because I think you're not going to be in the fight?

Yep.

And you want to be in the fight.

Well, that's what I think everyone everyone signed up for, or at least in my eyes.

When I signed up, I was wanting to...

That's, I mean, I had a great first Arnold, First Arnold Rivera, that used to have a great quote.

And he's like, the only thing you guys do is just waste taxpayer dollars training to do your job.

The only time you actually do your job is when you get shot at.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's always kind of the desire.

You want to test your metal.

You want to see if I can really, as I call it, like have that brave heart moment.

Could I actually have that brave heart moment?

If the stuff's hitting the fan, do I have what it takes personally to rise up and face evil and overcome that challenge?

So, on a personal level, it was like the path I was currently on wasn't going to take me there.

That's super interesting, man.

The brave heart moment.

Back to what we were saying before about seven million able-bodied men currently sitting out of the workforce right now because they're consumed by their screens and not tormented or agitated by the prospect of having the very moment you're describing.

Some people get the appetite and some people don't, I guess.

I don't know what the answer to that is as far as is that self-inflicted because as every generation comes through, you want the next one to have it better in you, but you almost make it so comfortable that you take away that discipline of failure.

I guess, I think it's probably pretty complex, but I would bet, too, that there's probably something in you that looks back up the gene pool and goes, well, he did it.

and he did it and they did it.

I mean, that has to be powerful in some way, I would think.

I mean, like I said, two of the hardest and most respected guys I knew were my granddad and my dad.

I remember one summer working out with my granddad where he fell off the top of the haystack, and we know he broke all the ribs on his right side.

But he was the type of man you don't go to the hospital unless you're dying, and that's how he was until he passed away.

But when he went to the hospital, he was there for a week before he passed away.

That was the same summer.

I watched him wrap this four and a half-inch belt around his chest and his arm and continue to work the rest of the summer because if he didn't, obviously wasn't going to sell enough alfalfa and not raise enough beef to provide for the family.

Just tough as nails.

Like I said, he'd went through World War II, went through the Great Depression.

One of our punishments, if we messed up on the farm, I can't tell you how many nails I had to straighten because he wouldn't throw a single one away.

We had five-gallon buckets, and he'd be there with the hammer and the anvil, just straightening old nails out.

And at the time, like I said, I used to hate that stuff.

But looking back, if it wasn't for all of those little things, I don't think it would have put me in the position of where I am today.

Well, at some point, remind me to circle back and make the point of the fabulous metaphor of straightening nails with training men and leading them.

We don't have to go through every line of your curriculum via Tay, but somehow or another, there you are in Afghanistan.

And how did you wind up at what, according to your book, is probably,

I was going to say the last outpost anybody would ever want to be on unless of course you're looking for a fight which it sounds like you might have been and so I don't even know how to describe what it's one of those cases yeah cop Keating kind of came about cop standing for a combat outpost sorry I'm going to use a lot more acronyms than I probably should sometimes and it was one of those things where in the military that was just supposed it was a natural kind of resupply point in the terrain that early on during the invasion of Afghanistan when we were pushing north, that was just a natural stop where they could land and drop more ammo, more water, because the rest of that valley was just so inaccessible.

When the ground war in Iraq kicked off in 2003, there's one thing we learned, it's very hard to fight a two-front war.

You only have so many bullets, so many boots, so many helicopters, you've got to split your forces.

So eventually, the Army had planned to continue to push north, but until we could get things handled over in Iraq and get forces reshifted, we don't want to give up the terrain we had.

So what was supposed to be a temporary thing turned into, let's just hold it, and we'll get back to there eventually.

Well, six years later, you find us there.

And a little more got added, a little more got added.

And it's one of those,

that's what really blew me away.

It's like everybody knew that location was less than ideal.

Now you're a staff sergeant?

Yep.

I'd done, this would be coming up on my third combat deployment.

I'd been in for over 10 years at this point.

So I had quite quite a bit of experience under my belt.

I'd been in some other dicey and hairy situations.

Nothing like that, though.

One of the things I love to do, I love writing handwritten letters.

I hate emails and texting and technology.

It's just weird for me.

You really are a hard case, aren't you?

Yeah.

I get it, man.

I could see your dad looking.

I get it.

So I remember when we first got there, I wrote my grandma.

My granddad had passed away at this point.

So I wrote my grandma Smith a letter home, and it was just, hey, grandma, we're here.

The morale's high.

The guys are looking good.

12 months here, and we'll be back home soon.

This place is beautiful.

It reminds me of growing up.

Every morning I get to look up these gorgeous mountains.

It reminds me of the Sierra Nevadas.

Love you lots.

Talk to you soon.

A couple of weeks later, grandma sent me a letter back, and the first line in that letter just said, what the hell are you doing?

Look it up.

Everybody knows you take the high ground.

Like, my grandma knew that this location.

Yeah, you should explain to people like Keating's positioning and why he's.

I mean, if you're looking at this coffee cup here, like it's set all the way down at the bottom of that thing.

The mountains, all four sides, are landings.

The only way in and out was by helicopter.

The road that used to be somewhat accessible had long been taken over by the Taliban, had degraded enough that the outpost was named Combat Outpost Keating after Lieutenant Ben Keating, who unfortunately had died in a vehicle rollover trying to move military vehicles back to Faubas.

What is it with vehicles rolling over?

Isn't that what killed Patton?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's

it's just one of the nature of the beast sometimes.

I mean I not to go all squirrel on it, but it's just so

it's not the way you're supposed to die.

I mean you're not supposed to die, but

the vehicle accident with combat going on around you, it's just a, you know, there's no rhyme or reason, though, sometimes.

It's a dangerous place and everything's dangerous.

Everything's everything's dangerous.

Yeah.

So the only way in and out was by helicopter.

And unfortunately, there wasn't enough room inside of our position to land helicopters.

So we always had to land them literally in between two rivers.

They had to cross a little bridge to get over to.

All your supplies got dropped outside of your kind of secure area.

It's never one or two things that are wrong.

Disaster scenarios, right?

It's a build-up of things.

And we'd been there for about three months.

And like I said, it was pretty typical.

Once a day, would take some sort of indirect fire, fire, direct fire from the enemy.

It wasn't out of the norm.

You'd have a week of force protection where you'd be guarding the perimeter of the base and the other platoon would be doing patrols, trying to get out and see where the enemy's coming in at, try to influence them somehow.

At that time though, you know, it was a combination of every unit that was coming into that place got smaller and smaller.

So to put in perspective, we weren't an infantry platoon.

An infantry platoon's coming in at like 40-something guys.

We're a scout platoon.

We're the eyes and the ears of the commander.

We like to brag that we're the jack of all trades, masters of none.

Our list of stuff that we do is long and exclusive, and we always get to brag to the infantry.

We do way more with way less.

So they'd have 40 guys, we'd have maybe 18.

So how many were under your command?

At that time, I was the acting section sergeant, so I had about eight guys under me.

Okay.

And total number of people at Keating?

Total number at Keating was about 54.

Give or take, sometimes some of the headquarters elements shifting in and out.

We had a contingent of about three to four Latvian advisors, I guess you'd almost call them, Lucky and Captain Agree and them.

And they were mainly helping the Afghan army kind of get set up and get trained and be their kind of overseers.

We had about

40-something Afghan Army guys.

The first group of Afghan army guys were awesome.

Those guys, you could tell, had been through combat, they were battle-tested, they wanted to go out and they wanted to take the fight to the enemy the guys that replaced them not so much

you tried to take them out on patrol and they weren't high on hashi like that was kind of the constant turnover so I got to work with both ends of the spectrum on Afghani fighters some were super great the guys we ended up having that day were not unfortunately and we all knew less than ideal conditions Resupply was going to be a nightmare.

Reinforcements was going to be a nightmare.

We're getting attacked every pretty much every day.

We knew there were some hiccups and vulnerabilities in our perimeter defense.

We knew also that we might be leaving, we might be staying.

You didn't quite know.

And because of the indecision of that, what you'd need for resupplies to really reinforce it were kind of denied because if you were leaving, you'd have to remove all that out.

So it was always kind of a constant battle of, hey, can we get reinforcements to secure the front gate?

Hey, can we get some more sandbags to build a new battle position?

Can we get this?

Can we get that?

And sometimes it was yes, sometimes it was no.

And you were constantly kind of switching back and forth almost weekly on, oh, nope, the Army knows this is a bad spot.

We're going to get you out of here.

Do you feel like you knew it was coming or did you know it was coming?

No.

In hindsight.

In hindsight, yeah.

During the time, no.

You always thought it would happen to someone else.

That was the thing, and that was tough, was to try and beat back the complacency.

Because like I said, sometimes they'd show up one morning and they'd fire AK, magazine and AK rounds into you, and then they're gone for the day.

Sometimes it would be multiple, hit you on the west side with some sporadic gunfire, and then pound you with the B-10 on the east side.

Are you taking casualties with the or is it just pot shots?

We had taken Sergeant Jacobs was one of our first kind of big casualties.

They fired the B-10.

It's a recoilless.

I think it's 82 millimeter.

It's an old like World War II recoilless rifle that the

Taliban had had that they basically had set it up kind of like indirect.

And it struck the top of the Tactical operations center one day and part of the shrapnetal came and hit Sergeant Jacobs and hit him in the face pretty bad he ended up surviving getting taken out generally though we weren't taking any major casualties prior to that battle there's a lot of close calls and you always kind of laugh those off you know it's always be better to be lucky than good

but it wasn't until after hindsight that we really it was like oh no those weren't just little they were seeing our reactions they were seeing what we were they were trying to get our uh sops and our reaction drills down.

They were probing, they were testing.

Like I said, I remember many a nights being there with Gallagos and Sarn Kirk, and we would talk about, hey, if we're going to hit this place, how are we going to do it?

And it's like, well, we're going to suppress the mortar pit.

We're going to overwhelm the LRAS 1, the LRAS 2 truck 2.

We're going to overwhelm them with

suppressive fire.

Then we're going to push it on the front gate because that's the easiest access point.

The Afghani National Guard guys we got with us, they're probably going to just surrender anyway.

So we'll push through that.

And I mean, the plan we came up with night after night was exactly the ones that they that's exactly what happened

so the morning everything went sideways what was the date it was october 3rd 2009.

and this is where the book starts basically

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Yep.

We talk a little bit about building the platoon prior to that, which was, I think, a big component to the story too.

If it wasn't for the time I spent with Sergeant Larson, knowing Gallagos from years before, getting in trouble with him back in Fort Knox at reclass school, having almost a year training time with Lieutenant Bunderman to have that trust.

Because Bunderman, that that was his first combat deployment ever.

He ends up being the on-the-scene commander.

Normally, we'd have our troop commander there just by happenstance the night before he got taken away.

So, that night before the attack, literally, Stony Portis calls Bunderman and is like, hey,

they're not going to drop me back off.

You're the commander for the next day or two until I get back.

And all of a sudden, this Cherry lieutenant, first time being in a combat zone, graduate from the University of Minnesota history major, is the guy that day coordinating everything going on tactically, which I said wouldn't have anybody else in the room besides Bunderman.

Wow.

So it was 56 against how many?

They estimated the fighters were four, about 400 by the time they...

And they got the high ground.

I got the high ground and got us surrounded.

Like I said, it's not just one or two things that happen.

Normally, we'd have drone support and air coverage that would give us that early warning because as you sit at the bottom of a valley, you know, you call it dead spaces, you're looking up, you can't see behind a ridgeline or a mountain, you need higher elevation to look behind it.

Well, normally they would provide that with drone support, but just a couple of weeks before, our wonderful soldier called Bo Bird Dahl decided to take off.

So, all that air coverage got scrambled looking for him.

So, the night before, that allowed them to move in right on top of us without being detected or seen, like cleared out the entire village of Armoul from the civilians, staged out of that area, and like I I said, at 0-6,

they kicked it off.

And I said, I was still in my bunk.

I'd just gotten off the sergeant of the guard.

So I was the night before I was in charge going around making sure everybody's awake, alert.

We got shifts rotating out, making sure guys are getting to their proper positions.

And I'd gotten off that about, I think it was two or three o'clock in the morning.

So I had just started getting back to sleep before I had to hit my other shift when it kicked off.

And it was weird because, you know, we'd dub about six o'clock in the morning, we'd just kind of dub that our Taliban alarm clock time.

Like, they'd normally be shooting to wake you up.

And as soon as we heard the gunfire come in, and I remember, all right, here we go again.

And I threw my kid on, but as I'm sitting there listening and waiting for my radio to power up, I just have that sense.

It's like, this isn't the same.

Because normally, if they shot at us, you would go into what's called a cyclic rate of fire, meaning our defensive positions with our machine guns.

We would try to shoot back more bullets than they could shoot at us to gain that fire superiority, to get that momentum and and keep their heads down.

And as I'm listening, I'm like,

there's more coming in than going out.

This isn't good.

And as that radio powers up, I can hear every defensive position from Gallegos to Hart

to Gregory to Copus.

They're all stepping on themselves, calling overwhelming enemy fire.

We are suppressed, we're cyclic rate, we're going black on, I mean, they were trying to shoot back, but the enemy had them so well pinned and kind of so well fixed that they just could not gain any of that momentum and then of course right away we hear Kevin Thompson's hit at the mortar pit because as we come to find out like the first shot that came in was Kevin was going out to check the 120 mortar tube to make sure that morning you know it's ready to be it's just the mortars would set it up because they knew typically where we would get hit from so they could literally just walk out and start dropping rounds on the enemy and as he was kind of sitting there i guess making sure it was laid in properly, he had gotten taken out.

And right away, they suppressed the entire mortar pit, so we couldn't get that indirect fire.

We had

observation post Fritchie that sat on top of the hill that are a white platoon manned.

They were in a knife fight too.

They were on the verge of getting overran because normally they could give us their 120 mortar support as well, as long as they weren't tied up.

Well, the enemy was tying them up.

So we couldn't get support from them.

Our direct fire was ineffective because of the Bo Bird doll thing.

Like I said, they moved all the aircraft farther south.

So we knew any close air support normally would take about 20 minutes.

We knew we had about an hour at least before they'd even be on station.

What are you thinking at this point?

Is it salvageable or is it just unknowable?

Right now, it's just like, okay, game on, let's go do this.

Let's get an assessment.

Let's figure out what's going on.

Okay, it's pretty intense, but yeah,

that's life.

And at that point, like I said, I had the platoon sergeant of Red Platoon, our platoon, had, like I said, he was on lead that time.

We just started rotating our guys back for, we call it mid-tour leave.

You'd get about 10 days back home in a 12-month period.

So we had three of the guys already missing out of our 18-man platoon, so we're really down to like 15.

So you're trying to operate with even less guys than you normally have.

I was a senior NCO in the platoon, so I was acting as the platoon sergeant for the fight.

And normally that position, my job is just to figure out where the guys are and what do they need.

It's not really a tactical position job.

I'm not sitting there trying to move chess pieces.

I'm trying to be just the offensive coordinator of who needs what to go where.

All right.

The battle goes on for a couple days?

About 15 hours.

Does it ebb?

Does it flow?

Is it constant?

The first,

like I said, time sometimes stood still and disappeared in a moment.

It felt like about about the first eight hours was no matter what, you were just constant, just hitting that wall every step you took.

Losing guys as you go?

As we go.

Right away, Sergeant Kirk's trying to take a team out to reinforce Gallagos and Larson out to the west.

He gets hit, taken out.

The enemy had done their research.

Blue Platoon, their role normally during something like this was to resupply those trucks with ammo.

Well, the enemy had a sniper trained on Blue Platoon barracks doors.

So as soon as Specialist Scuza literally steps out the door, he goes down.

Like I said, we're losing guys just dropping.

The additional gun trucks that we'd have to reinforce have now ran out of ammo.

We can't get ammo back to them.

Those guys are trying to fall back.

But the 35 to 40 Afghan Army soldiers we had, from first shots fired, they basically threw their weapons down and just did him out.

Ended up being literally the only gun left in the fight was Specialist Copus on the eastern side with the Mark 19.

He said we had no idea idea when close air support was getting there.

All we knew was just Kevin was hit, Kirk was hit, Scuza was hit, guys were coming back, peppered in trap metal, you know, near-miss with bullets, trying to just figure out what the heck's next.

How much Akitting is burning at this point?

Right away, like I said, as the Afghan National Army guys left that eastern side, Taliban came in and just started firebombing their barracks.

So at this point,

you know, and I don't know if this is basically the first 45 minutes in, you know, we've already lost basically three guys.

Most of the Afghan side, the Afghan army side of the base is burning to the ground.

And we're still trying to figure out what we're doing.

So trying to come up with just, all right, well, I can't have you standing outside here.

Anywhere you're outside, you're open, you know, open invite for getting shot at.

Because every time we'd do patrols, we'd be, I mean, maybe 100, 200 meters up in the mountains.

And you could look down and see everything on that outpost.

There was not a spot you could stand outside or try to find outside that they couldn't see you from at least one or two angles.

And since they had us on all three sides, or on 360 degrees, the one position you might be clear from the north, you're taking fire from the south.

I mean, just pandemonium chaos.

But at the same moment, I don't know, for me, it was just...

And I know this is going to sound a little jaded and weird.

I don't remember like being scared or thinking, oh, shit, this is, oh, this is over or anything like that.

It was just like, okay, well, they got us there.

I'll figure something else out.

And my fear wasn't ever, oh, they're going to shoot me, or am I going to go back home to see mama and the kids?

It was just like, holy crap.

I'm losing this chess game.

That's interesting.

Interesting move.

Didn't see that one.

And it's, crap, I can't get to Giagos.

I can't get to the mortars.

That's scaring the shit out of me.

Yeah.

That's terrifying me.

As I told my guys, you know, a couple of things I would always tell them before going overseas.

I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by six.

So I will have your back no matter what.

You pull that trigger first.

Don't be afraid to save your buddies, because I'd rather you be judged by a jury of 12 than carried by six of us.

It is impossible to hear that and not

just not think about the withdrawal,

to think about the fact that we

had them, man.

We had them.

I think that's what we were kind of talking around when we started this.

A bottom-up bottom-up solution in combat that's rooted in trust,

trust in the person next to you, in your unit, in your platoon, whatever, versus I'm just going to wait to be told what to do.

And for the life of me, man, I just wish there was some kind of

instruction manual that could draw a bright and obvious line that would allow us to look back in hindsight and go, oh, see, that's why that's wise.

That's why that worked.

But it never works that way.

We always look back and go, oh, God, it's so obvious now.

But anyway, okay, you're all in.

Your mission no longer has anything to do with anything other than your guys.

And that was the beautiful thing from the day we got there was

the attitude of those men, especially from the lower enlisted, Copus and Mace and Jonesy and them.

Everybody knew that location was just atrocious.

And there's scribed on one of our pillars, one of our beams, and our barracks room was this stupid saying that said it never gets better.

I actually love that.

And those young men, like I said, that was my third combat deployment going into it, 10 years.

I was already pretty crockety in an old NCO that lived off nothing but nicotine and caffeine.

And I love the scene.

And we were soldiers now with Sergeant Major Plumlee.

Yeah, great day, Sergeant Major.

How do you know what kind of...

Like, that's the type of NCO I was, you know, kind of known for is my rough around the edges.

But I want to just dwell on the language for a minute because that's another great example of what we're talking about.

It never gets better.

Sounds like it would be self-defeating.

It sounds kind of negative.

It's like, hey, man, this is not go team.

This is not a morale builder.

But it's actually honest.

And when the guys,

I mean, I would think that the thing you're most desperate for out there in a...

in a situation like that isn't a bowl of warm milk.

It's something authentic, something that feels like genuine.

Real.

So you guys were like writing that in the barracks.

You were

that was popping up everywhere.

And by the way, you mentioned spy versus spy earlier, too.

So now I get it, dude.

You're a subversive, right?

I mean, because that stuff had to chap your CEO's ass.

It did not make our more senior leadership, because they looked at it in that kind of jaded light that, oh, you guys are just so.

It's going to get better?

No.

We're on an adventure.

And it was, like i said guys like copus and guys like mace and jonesy that embraced it like well it's never gonna get better because right here right now every day is the best day i'm ever gonna have in my life it can never get better and it was interesting like i said doing the book i said i had help with the ghostwriter and we went around the country it was almost two years interviewing these guys and they would tell them hey how was life at copkeating like oh you know we didn't have power most of the time and we had sand fleas and we we had lice and we you know all these horrible things.

We only got a hot meal maybe once a week.

We got a shower once every, yeah, well, no, we got a hot meal like once every three days.

We got a shower like once a week because we're on limited rations for water and everything.

You know, we had the first arm still bitching.

Why aren't you guys clean shaven?

It's like, if I can only shower once a week, it's kind of hard to,

and he would get done and hearing all their stories of just.

kind of the ruggedness of what we had to go through.

And Kevin would ask, well, man, how'd you feel about that?

Just horrible.

And each and every one of them, man, I'm so proud of them.

They would look him straight in the eyes and with a smile on their face.

What are you talking about?

That was the three best months of my life.

What just an amazing mentality and attitude.

You said something before about the sand fleas.

And I remember in the book, you talked about guys wearing flea collars around their ankles and wrists.

I just, I was like, what?

I mean, that's how bad it was.

It was, like I said, it was just logistically a tough location.

And priorities would go to water, bullets, food, you know, and then it was the creature comforts later on if the pilots would want to supply us.

And in hindsight, you know, that's one of those moments where, so Larson,

when you read in the book, he ends up getting direct selected.

He just retired, actually.

last month, but he ends up getting direct selected and he becomes a Chinook pilot.

Now, sorry, direct selected.

So he was enlisted and it was General McChrystal that said, hey, you're smart enough.

You're going to go be an officer.

Oh, okay.

Big deal.

And Larson was an amazing, amazing human being.

Love that guy to death.

Actually, I get to go see him next week, so I have to tease him some.

But

he ends up being that Chinook pilot, the same Chinook pilots that we hated because they would make every excuse not to come see us.

Because they would only come at night and only when it was dark.

And they'd be like, oh, yeah, we're going to bring your resupply.

Oh, no, we got diverted.

And they'd wait till just before sun up in the morning and be like, Oh, it's getting too light, we can't show up.

And we're like, Oh, here we go, another three or four days before we'll get resupply on water or any food or any of that.

So, we were so upset with them back at that time.

I don't know if the website's still open, but there was a website called poopcenter.com, and we'd got on there, and you could send all you could send fecal material from various things.

So, we sent them elephant dung as a token of how much we appreciated their hard work.

Larson goes and becomes a Chinook pilot, and I ask him after he graduated and had been flying, and he'd done a tour back over in Iraq by then.

Hey, so were those guys really, were they really that, you know,

he's like, brother, I've been to copkeating.

Rules were reverse.

I'd tell you guys to go F off.

I'm not flying in there.

It's like, oh.

He's like, those guys, anytime they came, those guys were so heroic and so brave.

You don't realize how much they risked their lives.

They're flying into a fishbowl.

Yeah,

just to bring us some water.

Like, and that, I mean, funny in hindsight now at the time, you know, a little jaded on that, but they really put in perspective.

Man.

You know, it is the small things, Chuck.

It's a good point.

You know, you don't, when you sign up, you don't think maybe I'll be wearing a flea collar or four of them.

My ankle, you know.

But it's also like the business of standing a post.

I don't think most civilians really understand that.

I mean, we've all heard the old maxim, you know, moments of incredible boredom punctuated by sheer terror.

We kind of get that.

It's a bit like crab fishing, you know,

with bullets.

But like the preface of this thing does a great job of capturing just the monotony of

this critical job.

You're out there.

You are the eyes and ears.

You've got everybody's life in your hands.

But your mind will go where it goes.

And if you have a magazine to distract yourself, you know, anything, it's just people just like try standing still or sitting still for four, five, six hours.

Most people can't do that.

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It's a blessing and a curse to be able to kind of shut your mind off to the mundane, but still be alert enough to have your buddies count on you and rely on you.

And that's, I mean, that's what I loved about combat.

And I don't mean to glorify combat in any way.

It was that connection you made with your guys on such a level.

Like you would have so many random conversations.

Like,

hey, who was your hottest teacher growing up?

You know,

what was the most trouble you got into at high school?

What was the dumbest thing you've done?

I mean, you learn so much.

about your brothers to your left and right.

You can't find that anywhere else.

And for us, I know, especially there, you know, it wasn't, hey, we're at Cop Keating because we're here defending America or whoever's politically in charge of the time.

It's for God and country or any of that.

No, it was like, dude, I'm in the suck with you.

You're in it with me.

We're here for each other.

Screw all that other noise because the only thing important in life right now is us together.

Warts and all.

Embrace the suck.

And your feet smell like corn nuts, Raz.

You got shot?

Shrapnel?

Yeah,

I call that I didn't duck fast enough.

It came to a point where we'd been cut off from the ammo supply point, running out of ammo.

It was just a terrible situation, what was happening over at LRAS too.

That's where, like I said, my good buddy Larson, he was originally on that 50-cal truck, trying to defend that western side.

Mace had went over there to reinforce them.

Sergeant Gallegos had been over there.

Sergeant Martin, our mechanic,

ended up in that vehicle too, as well as Ty Carter.

And they were cut off, couldn't get back, ran out of ammo.

The 50 cal had been blown out of Larson's hands by an enemy rocket-propelled grenade.

And I guess the things were just going from bad to worse, but it's always one of those things: if we can do something, let's do it.

Might not be the greatest idea.

But as I, again, another little thing I like to tell the guys: a wrong choice is better than no choice.

By doing nothing,

nothing happens.

At least if you mess up, you can learn from that, hopefully.

So make a mistake, make a poor choice over a a no choice.

So that's when I said at that point we'd basically consolidate it down.

We weren't quite in the Alamo position yet, but we kind of had guys in the barracks waiting to be directed where to go.

I assume that means the last stand position.

Yep, that's the Alamo position.

And it's, yeah, that last stand.

Hey, we're just going to defend, you know, this last little bit.

And when I went in the barracks, that's when I seen Specialist Gregory had a two or a Mark 48 machine gun.

We had about 200 rounds and I'm not gonna lie I'm kind of a weirdo.

I like machine guns.

So I told him hey give me your gun you be my assistant gunner meaning he'll feed me the ammo.

We were able to sneak out we get to this it was a like a 60k generator that was looking out toward the west and we somehow were able to sneak around.

I threw that up on the generator and that's when I called Gallagos because we still had radio communication at the time and I'm like, hey brother, I'm going to give you suppressive fire.

You need to displace and get back.

So Gregory loads me up with that first hundred rounds.

And I mean, this is really the first time I get a good look out to the west.

And you've got the putting green straight to the west.

You've got the switchbacks a little southwest.

You have the villager Armoul, and then you have the north face to the north, and then the diving board to the south.

And as I'm sitting there in this 180-degree kind of look, Like it's like ants coming down the mountain.

Like there are so many muzzle flashes and movements and guys

bounding and over.

I mean, and these, the fighters, they were doing all the same tactics we did.

Like, they knew put a machine gun position here, come around and flank you on the left.

Like, they were not just your man jams.

Nope.

They were, you could see

generations of warfighters all the way going back to Hannibal in those guys in the mountains.

And as soon as, like I said, to get the first gun up in the first hundred rounds, it's just trying to go from target to target to target, burning through that 100 rounds like it's nothing.

And calling Gallegos, I was like, brother, you've got to move.

I'm giving you suppressive fire.

You've got to move.

You got to move now.

And he's just calling back and he's like, brother, you can't bring enough firepower.

We can't move.

And

I said, going back and forth, trying to go to target to target, call him.

Get through that first 100 rounds.

Gregory loads me with the next set of 100.

And so just trying to call Gallegos, trying to get those guys to move.

And they just keep coming back.

Can't do it.

Made the mistake.

Again, I used to have all these stupid little lessons that I'd try and teach you guys, like, don't put your blinders on.

Your head's always got to be on a swivel.

But I was just so super focused on trying to knock down targets, I didn't realize the front gate had been breached, that it had been abandoned after Kirk had gotten hit.

And we had free access to come through the north, through the front gate.

So they come around with an RPG team, outflank us.

And I'm sitting there, like I said, just engaging out to the west and on the north side luckily

maybe that RPG was made on a Friday or something right right before the end of the work because it came up a little short and hit the generator and that took the main part of the blast peppered me on my right side threw me onto Gregory

dazed for a sec kind of shook it off grabbed Gregory, dusted him off, made sure he was good.

He said, yep.

Told him, you take off running, grabbed the machine gun, handled that,

then focused back out to the west and called Gregory.

And brother, I can't hold this position.

Like, I'm out of ammo.

They got me outflanked.

If you can move, you can move now.

And I just.

You by yourself at this point?

Yeah.

I sent Gregory back because there's no reason for both of us to be there if something were to go real bad.

Clint, something already went real bad.

I don't know.

I mean, Google real bad, Chuck, and just see what comes up.

It's all about perspective, right?

Dude, I just don't even know.

I mean, I'm trying to put myself in your place.

You're alone like ants on a hillside, muzzle flashes everywhere.

You send your buddy back to safety.

You hunker down and you keep squeezing off rounds with the muzzle flashes until all the rounds are gone.

It's simple.

All right.

Now what?

Now, as the last little bit of rounds kind of go across that feed tray cover.

The guy who goes to the last call, if you don't move now, I can't do anything for you.

And he just calls back and simply says, brother well we'll be here when you come get us

that's one of those moments where man

it's weird to think about how combat can show you so much love

like that dude trusted me so much and i knew if those roles were reversed

that dude was going to come get me no matter what like There's so many precious moments of love in combat.

You don't understand till you're in that moment.

And I just said, okay, we'll see you when we see you.

And I was able to displace back and get back to the barracks.

Things are just going bad to worse at that point.

It's like, crap, we're out of ammo now.

We're cut off from the ammo supply point.

And then I remember going in, trying to check on Sergeant Kirk, and that's when I get the thumbs down that he wasn't going to make it.

Go back into the barracks, trying to just get an assessment, trying to figure out what the next move is, and that's where I see Sergeant Stanley and Sergeant Hart.

They're sitting there and they're arguing.

And I'm kind of bewildered because it's like, not a time to argue.

You know, let's figure something out.

And that's when Stanley just points at me.

He's like, Sergeant Hart, go talk to Sergeant Romascher.

And Hart comes over and he's like, hey, brother,

I got an idea.

What is it?

He's like, we found some more 50-cal ammo because we'd gotten in trouble.

I got to back up a little.

We'd gotten in trouble because we were kind of squirreling ammo in our barracks.

prior to this, which is kind of a no-no because if your barracks gets hit, you don't want a whole bunch of rounds in there to create, you know, little 4th of july action uh so we'd gotten yelled at a few weeks before and had to clear some of that stuff out but just like any good there's a right way there's a wrong way and there's a look the other way had gotten left there because someone was looking the other way and besides it doesn't get any better no

and heart goes we found some more 50 cal ammo i think i can sneak out to truck two

and we'll take an armored Humvee over to get Gallegos.

And I don't know if me and Hart argued for 30 seconds or 20 minutes.

I just kept telling, brother, I just got blown off the generator.

I can't secure your right flank.

I can't secure your left flank.

I can't secure your six.

I've got no way to help you.

And Hart was one of those soldiers.

Like, no was not in his vocabulary.

It just did not register.

You couldn't tell that kid no for nothing.

And he understood risk versus reward.

No matter how slim a chance for success, even if the risk was super high,

well, there's a chance of success.

So let's go do it.

Maybe he knew he couldn't live with himself if he didn't try.

And

when I finally told him, yeah, when he walked out the back of those barracks, I knew that was the last I'd say of him.

And I said, that goes back to those moments.

I mean, you just hit it right there.

That love and that loyalty.

Like those are the moments.

I said a lot of bad stuff happened those days and as I reflect back, and that's that's what I like to share, though, is those moments that

the love for your brother.

Like I said, I knew him walking out the back of those doors would be the last I'd ever see of them.

And somehow they made it to that truck, they got it loaded up, they got that 50-cal rocking, they got pushing over,

and then the call comes across the radio of heart.

The last transmission he says is they got an RPG pointed right at me,

and then nothing.

It's one of those moments where it's just like,

shoot.

You knew.

But you hadn't experienced it.

And they experienced it.

But as I like to, I like to think back, though, I'm just, I said, talk about those brave arms.

That for me was one of those moments, man, I'm glad I didn't just crumple and say, darn, you know, we could still do something.

We're getting our nose punched in.

Everything's going sideways, but we can still do something.

I think about Benghazi sometimes that way.

And I think so many people watching it from here and hearing about it

were confused because everything

we read anyhow, like in the script, you're supposed to try.

You have to at least try.

And we were being told...

by our elected officials at that time that,

you know, what difference does it make?

It's too late.

I mean, and so if that rankled the likes of me, a former Boy Scout who had never worn a uniform, just sitting home feeling like, wait a second, that's not how this is supposed to work, what'd it do to you?

I always reflect back.

Like I said, I had so many great people in my life growing up.

Mr.

Euler was my ag teacher, my FFA teacher.

He was the first one that told me that story about the starfish on the beach.

A whole guy's walking through and there's hundreds of thousands of starfish or whatever on the beach, and he's sitting there and he's picking one up, throwing it back in.

The lady walks up, well, what difference does that make?

And he picks one up and he throws that one back.

It made a difference to that one.

Sometimes things are so overwhelming that you can think, what difference does it make?

Well, it makes a difference to that one.

So that's a difference.

Chuck, do me a favor and Google the captain for the Arthur Anderson.

You know, the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Jordan Delightfoot's one of his greatest songs.

Oh, my God.

And if I asked you why you loved it,

you would have an answer, I'm sure.

And I won't put words in your mouth, but I mean, everybody knows that song, and everybody understands the majesty and the operatic epicness of man versus nature.

And you can imagine the terror of the crew, but you can imagine them coming together.

The cook comes out and says, fellas, it's been good to know you.

It's all just so.

All that.

But there's another story of a boat called the Arthur Anderson who was in front of the Fitzgerald.

And together they were going through Superior down from

what was it?

I guess we were heading toward Whitefish Bay, or maybe they came from.

I don't remember.

I just know it was a terrible blow.

And the Anderson made it to where the Fitz was headed first.

And they lost contact during the time.

And when the Coast Guard got the captain of the Arthur Anderson, finally, they had made it safely to harbor.

They dodged a bullet.

They knew they never should have been out in that mess.

It was such a close thing.

And they said, we've lost contact with the Fitz.

We think they've gone down.

Those men are in the water.

And we're 20 hours from them, out of wherever, Ontario.

Who was the captain?

Captain Jesse B.

Cooper.

Cooper.

That's it.

The Ballad of Cooper.

Unlike Lightfoot Song, this has like 300 listens on YouTube.

But it's the story of Captain Cooper who goes to his guys and says, guys, the Fitz is down.

And I really can't tell you we're going to make it back if we go try and rescue them.

And I can't even really tell you they're actually in the water waiting to be rescued.

And if they are, I can't even tell you we'll make it in time to get to them.

But they voted.

And they said, you got to try.

And so they went.

And they got there in time to see the oil slick and, you know, some of the detritus of the wreck.

And I can't believe more people don't know that story.

But it's Benghazi and it's heart.

And it's people saying, damn it, how would I live with myself if I don't try?

And that's your book, man.

Well, I think you just seen that, too, with the storms that went through

the South a few weeks ago.

How many Americans rose up to say, hey, these towns are isolated and cut off.

Let's try.

Like, that's what's that's, I don't know, it gives me a goosebump.

That's why I'm not afraid of it.

Look, I'm sitting in this country.

What greater two words are there than Cajun Navy?

Like, I mean, in the midst of it, it's like, okay, you know, the National Guard's not going to make it.

Yep.

The feds aren't coming.

Cletus has a boat.

Yep.

Let's get it.

Well,

not to get too overly political, but I think we have kind of lost that as Americans, this self-identity, that I can take care of my own stuff.

I don't need someone else to rule and regulate what I can or cannot do.

And when you take off those gloves and give it to the individual spirit of let's try to go do something that betters yourself or someone else around you, that's the greatest accomplishment I think any of us can try to achieve.

It's the guts of an adventure.

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It makes no sense to assume needless risk, but most risk, you said it earlier, this kid understood risk and reward.

And people calculate it differently.

This isn't actuarial accounting.

This is something else.

It's alchemy in a way.

I don't know that, I think the reason people write books and poems and songs about these things is because it's very difficult to sum up.

But it's the essence of kind of everything,

it seems.

It's a great book, man.

And I just want to pivot to a couple of things.

You were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

And what in the world did that feel like?

This kid who's tired of milk and cows all of a sudden.

It was weird and awkward.

Like I said,

so I'd got back from that deployment.

I'd already made that choice that I was going to get out of the army.

I was finally going to grow up and figure out what I was going to do with my life.

So after 12 years of service, before that deployment, I'd already, at that time, my first wife had made the decision, hey, this is going to be my last hoorah.

I'll spend my last year in, make that transition out, figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

And that's where I found myself,

like so many other veterans, on that way out the door.

My plan A fell through.

My plan B fell through.

I tried to get a job with Department of Energy's transportation security for nuclear waste.

That all fell through.

And as I stepped out the door in 2011, I found myself going to chase oil fields up in North Dakota.

Said, I was not going to go to college.

That was not going to be my calling.

And like I said, I had so many of my other peers and stuff that had gotten out that did that college route that they were so angry and bitter that I'm in these classes with these 18, 19-year-old kids that are complaining how hard their life is.

Can you imagine?

You survive Keating and you're sitting there

listening to

kids needing safe spaces because people are using harsh language.

Anyway.

I went up North Dakota chasing oil fields.

First job.

Williston, Bio.

Mine not.

But yeah, we operated out of Tyogo, Williston area.

First job up there, I was a swamper on a hydro excavator truck.

I knew I had to start somewhere and shoot there, paying $75 a day per diem and $21 an hour.

Sold.

I was golden.

I paid more in taxes my first month working in the oil field than I made as a staff sergeant with 12 years of service.

And it was awesome because I'd be on overtime by the time it was Wednesday.

And what I didn't think at the time was any of those skills that I had.

in the military would transfer over.

That's when I found out right away.

Like the HR guy loved hiring veterans because we could, I don't know, show up to work,

show up to work on time and pass a drug test.

And so I said, I went, got my CDL, started driving the trucks,

figured my way through life.

And I was out for two years.

And don't hold this against me, but I did make the transition.

I became a field safety specialist.

Oh, the irony.

Oh, I know.

What are you at?

31 at this point, maybe?

Oh, shoot, you're making me do math.

Went in at 18, did 12, came out for two?

28, I think, Keating.

Yeah, I would have been early 30s.

and it was funny the reason i ended up being uh safety because i asked the safety manager why would you hire me i'm the most unsafe guy you know and he goes well you know what wrong looks like

let's avoid that too

and then he's like you know i like you guys with the military because you have tactfulness to actually tell people and not just write out safety violations You understand risk versus reward, and there is a way to get this job done, and you don't try to shut the stuff down, which it's a whole different different story.

But I'm sitting out there in the oil field one day, minding my own business, trying not to fall asleep in my pickup truck because that's what safety guys try not to do.

And all of a sudden, my phone rings, and I look over, and it's a number I don't recognize, but I'm a safety guy, I'm bored.

Figured maybe it's a telemarketer I can mess around with while I'm watching the pipeline guys

backfill some trenches that day and answer the phone.

And on the other end of the line, I hear, hey, this is Colonel Davis, G1 from the Pentagon.

First thought, it's, oh, crap, what'd I do?

Statue of Limitation should be up by now.

It's been two years.

And like I said, when we got back from Keating, my commander who wasn't there came up and told me, hey, I heard what you did.

I'm thinking about putting you in for a distinguished service cross.

And I looked at Captain Porter and I told him, you're the commander, sir, you do what you do.

We got nine more months.

We got to get these boys home.

And I kind of put all that stuff in the back of my mind.

And it was...

That was another super awesome moment: watching every man from Red Platoon push through another nine months of combat and all all came home and are all still here to this day, knock on wood.

We have yet to lose a guy from Red Platoon because of suicide.

And it's because we always talk crap to each other.

Yeah.

Keep in touch.

But

I had no idea until I got that call and it was, hey, Colonel Davis, G1 Pentagon, asked me to identify.

He's like, hey, we need you to come out to D.C.

I said, well, I'm working six to seven days a week.

I mean, shoot, my first stent in the oil, I worked 48 days straight when I first got up there.

That was awesome paychecks back then.

And I said, I don't have really any vacation days.

I got six, seven days a week.

I'm thinking he's just wanting to bait me in to get me back there so the MPs can arrest me or something.

You seriously think you're in Dutch?

Normally, yeah.

I said, well, we talked about I would avoid the upper chain of command.

Right.

And I said, well, I'll talk to my boss and I'll get back to you.

I think I waited maybe like two, three weeks before I went and talked to my boss.

I'm like, hey, got this thing that kind of popped up.

I might have to go to DC for something.

And, oh, for what?

And the guys in the oil field knew I was a veteran.

They didn't know what I did.

Just like my dad and my grandfather.

Who you got to talk to?

Put that stuff in the back of your mind and put your nose to the grindstone and just get back to life.

I can't change any of that stuff.

And that was a process in which I was dealing with.

And so eventually I did go to DC and that's when they set me down.

And as I remember getting to the Pentagon, they sent me down and there's all this brass all over colonels and generals.

And like I said, normally if I had to go see anything above a colonel, that meant one of my guys was in some serious trouble.

And it was not going to be a good day.

So I'm sitting there now.

I'm in the room with two-star, three-star generals, and Fulbright colonels.

And they're all congratulates this.

And thank you for that.

And as I sit down, I've got three posters in front of me.

So they have told me nothing.

In my mind, I'm thinking, well, it's probably for whatever happened that one day.

And they're probably going to downgrade maybe that DSC that Stony Porter's talked about to maybe a Silver Star or something.

They're just going to hand it to me, shake my hand, congratulate me.

And I'll be on my way and I'll just give it a little bit of a ton of stuff.

So Silver Star, Distinguished Service above that.

And then

Medal of Honor at the top.

And those three posters, as I sat down, of course, Army's got their PowerPoint presentation going on because they're never going to back away from doing something like that.

I see Sal Junta.

the first living recipient since Vietnam from

Afghanistan, 173rd airborne guy.

Next one is Leroy Petri, Ranger, saved his guys, lost his right arm, saving his guys from a grenade.

And the third one was Sergeant Sabo, Vietnam posthumous MOH.

And

I'm kind of like a peanut character in class, and all I'm hearing is want, want, want.

And I finally look up and I call a timeout, and I'm like, hey, what's all this?

What is all this Medal of Honor stuff?

And one of the colonels looks over and he's like, oh, you don't know Sergeant Romache?

And I'm like, wouldn't be asking a question I'm going to answer to.

I got told I got put in for a DSC, so why am I looking at MOH stuff?

And they go, Well, you've been recommended for upgrade.

Short of the president signing your award, you'll be receiving the Medal of Honor.

And I remember just kind of looking back down and looking up, and I'm like, Well, for what?

I didn't do anything special.

I just did my job.

It's like, I had eight guys that gave up their life so I could be sitting in this chair right now, so I don't understand this.

And they started, and I just kind of, I just shut down at that point, just turned everything off.

And that's when I got to meet

the first recipient I ever met in my life was General Foley, retired three-star Vietnam.

I sat down and I got to chat with him for about two hours, and that was one of the first questions.

I'm like, sir, you know, why me?

Like, I didn't do anything special.

And he kind of cuts me off, and he goes, Quent,

we talked to your guys, and it was based on their recommendation.

We asked them, do you believe that Sergeant Romas deserves?

something more and they all said yes.

And to me, that put into perspective, man, if my guys believe that I did something good,

all right, I can accept that.

On a personal level, though, it still was tough, you know, especially right then because I'd put all that stuff in the back of my mind.

And all of a sudden, people are calling me a hero, and they're just all this stuff.

And I'm thinking to myself, no, heroes, heroes are those guys that don't come home.

I was a warrior, and I was a warrior around 52 other great warriors, and eight of those warriors turned into heroes, not me.

I said, And all that came out initially and came flooding back.

Are you in the Pentagon at this point?

Are you in the.

We went over at the time, General Foley was still in charge of Army Emergency Relief, the big nonprofit for the kind of the Army.

But you're in a conference room with a bunch of big shots who are explaining to you why you deserve a thing.

And I'm just sitting there thinking,

let me just crawl under a rock.

Let me get out of here.

I don't want this.

I said, I got to go home shortly after.

And of course, I'm calling my buddies back up.

And that was the other great thing about working in the oil.

I got to drive 76 miles one way to work.

Every morning I'd get to call one of those guys, talk to either Stanley or Larson or Raz or Copus or Jonesy, guys that were either still in.

So for me, that transitional kind of therapy, I got to talk to every one of my guys almost every day.

I didn't have that kind of break where a lot of guys did, where they get that isolation.

Even though I'm living up in Minot, North Dakota,

I mean, you just get spread to the four winds as time goes on, but it's that constant communication.

To me, that was always, my guys used to kind of razz me.

He's like, hey, would you, did you ever get your, you know, anything for that day?

I don't know.

Well, Raz, you got your silver star, right?

Yeah.

Marson, you got your, yeah.

Bunderman, you got, you got DSC, right?

Yeah.

Okay, well,

don't worry about me.

Let's just, let's keep going forward.

Like, that's the thing I've noticed, too, is the guys that have struggled the most are unfortunately the guys that can't get out of the past.

They don't know what tomorrow brings because they're too worried about, say, hey, remember back when, man, life was so much greater when we were, well, life's still great now.

You've got to find out what tomorrow is going to bring because I like to talk to them.

And I can't change anything in the book of Clint.

Like, all those chapters have long been written.

I can't change them.

I can't rewrite them.

I can just reread them.

learn from them.

The only chapter I can influence is what's happening tomorrow.

I can write that that one.

And besides, it doesn't get any better than this.

It's weird.

There's this ecosystem now that I, I don't know how I've stumbled into it, but there's so much triangulating.

You know, Evan Hafer over at Black Rifle Coffee.

I know you guys have a history.

I just ran into a guy named Jay Orvis, a writer, who's one of the founders of Black Rifle.

Saw him up in Salt Lake on this totally unrelated thing.

Jack Carr.

Know it.

Right.

Travis Mills.

I don't know if you've crossed paths with him.

He's awesome.

And then Pure Talk sponsors this podcast, and they told us about you and sent us your book and said you were doing some work for them.

So part of my question is, what are you doing now?

How are you taking all of this and using it in a sensible way?

Or maybe a better word is a practical way.

You've mentioned veteran suicide a couple of times, and

we do what we can to shine a light on that, but

damn, it's hard to look at.

You know, it's been a, like I said, it's been a blessing and a curse.

Never in a million years did I ever think I'd be a recipient or be in a position to have a platform.

And that was part of the struggle when I first got it.

I just wanted to put my head in the sand and just wanted to get back to be in Clint.

And I realized I was very selfish.

I've been blessed with something that gives me a platform that so many other veterans will never have the opportunity for.

And through that, I've been blessed to meet and interact with great organizations, great people.

Pure Talk, I've been a brand ambassador for them for going on two years now.

An amazing American-owned company that's keeping jobs here in the U.S., that is ran by military values and leadership.

And they have been one of our great supporters for another nonprofit I work with, America's Warrior Partnership, where we were trying to connect veterans into local communities to help solve their problems.

Because as we look at the suicide issue that's going on, it's not just a mental health thing.

It's so many things that contribute to it, relationship issues, it's financial issues, especially in today's era with ridiculous inflation and all the struggles that are going on now.

And if we don't address those things, you can't just give one pill to solve everybody's problem.

Pure Talk has been so

just important to raising that awareness for America Warrior Partnership.

I think we've had almost 400,000 individual donations from the customers out there.

That's amazing.

They round their cell phone bill up each month.

And that goes back to like service to country doesn't come from wearing a uniform.

It comes from doing what you can.

And that is such a blessing to see so many great Americans do what they can to support a company that, like I said, has those values of loyalty, honor, patriotism, that wants to keep jobs here, that wants to make affordable quality products that understand competition elevates quality.

I know, I I want to say

Pure Talk and MicroWorks have came together, right?

Well, we're looking, I met Reggie, the guy who runs the thing, and I had a lot of questions about his business.

All he wanted to talk about was you and AWP.

You know, now he did his time in Vietnam, and he cares deeply about this stuff, too.

And you really kicked the door open for me on this when you said that, you know, go figure.

These veterans, they show up on time, they stay late, they're trainable,

right?

It's like we need to build vet-friendly on-ramps into corporate America in a meaningful way.

And I don't know what I can do with Microworks, but what I'd like to do is find ways to do that here and to make sure that

so many people who come home know that there's money available and there are companies who love them.

And there are citizens like us, really, who feel awkward because we're indebted.

And we don't want to just say thanks for your service and buy you a beer in an airport because

nothing wrong with it.

But, right?

It's like people aren't quite sure what to say to a Medal of Honor recipient with a story like yours in the same way that it's taken you a long time to figure out how to tell your story without feeling like a douchebag, right?

It's like it's

the whole conversation's hard.

And if you really want a 10 exit into difficulty, well, then let's talk about 21, 22 guys a day punching their own ticket

because

some

form of essential communication has been broken.

They're not in touch with their guys the way you've stayed in touch with yours.

How can you fix that?

I don't know, but it's going to take a bunch of people like-minded.

That's one of the, I mean, benefits and great things I've seen doing a lot of travel and troop visits and stuff.

And like I said, there's not one size fits all.

There's not one perfect way to do it.

I've seen time and time again, though, how many veterans are making that transition and they want to be kind of the masters of their own destiny, but they don't know how to get there.

So one of the big things, like I said, I'm C's get degrees.

I like working with these.

I'm not that smart, but I can pick things up and put them down.

To me,

we are doing a grave injustice of not promoting more of the skills and the trades and to have a pipeline.

And that's why I love going to do troop visits and talk to guys.

Like I went and worked to oil fields.

I worked with guys that literally walked out of high school, got into the oil fields, and are now project managers making $400,000, $500,000 a year with a GED that to go to college and get that piece of paper means nothing.

And we've got so many getting out of the trades now.

Our oldest son, he's 18, going to graduate this year.

He's going to go down to Bismarck College for HVAC and stuff.

And it's like, if we could get more people willing to work and understanding these trades aren't a dirty job that should be this derogatory thing.

You want to be your own boss?

Start being an electrician now.

No kidding.

No kidding.

In 10 years, you're going to own your own company.

You're going to dictate your own price.

And your own schedule.

Your own schedule.

Like, I am all about that because I love the fact that this country was built on that individual,

just take care of your own stuff and learn how to do it.

We got to get back to that.

Clint Romashe, you're a jagged little pill who can't take direction, but a wonderful leader and a great American.

You give Reggie my regards and tell him I'm serious.

If there's a way we can triangulate all this, you know, I got a drawer full of challenge coins.

People have been giving them me forever.

I appreciate it.

This is the only one I've ever seen

that commemorates the men that you lost.

You made this,

I mean, this is not standard.

I get my my blanks from the blank copper from a guy out near Flint, Michigan at a great company, American-made company, because I'm a stickler, want to bring skills, trade labors back.

Buckeye Engraving out of Kent, Ohio, that made me the hand stamps, and I heat those copper blanks, and I stamp each and every one of them individually, that they're all unique, and everything on there has the meaning, especially the...

the number eight for those eight men we lost.

Well,

I won't say you deserve it because that'll just make you blush.

But I'm glad you took the call from DC.

I'm glad you showed up.

And I'm glad you're out in the world spreading the good news because, in the end,

you've got a story to tell.

That's what makes a book great, a story.

And yours is bursting with story.

Clinton Romache.

Thanks again.

Thanks, Mike.

If you like what you heard, and even if you don't, won't you please, won't you please, briefly, please, breezy, please

Well I hate to beg and I hate to plead but please pretty freaking please

please sub

please