Marathon Deployments in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne | Andrew Bragg | Ep. 318

Andrew Bragg is a combat veteran who served in the US Army for four and a half years after graduating high school. During his time in the military, he served as an infantryman and deployed twice to Afghanistan, first with the 173rd (1-503rd PIR) for a fifteen month deployment and second with the 82nd (2-508th PIR) for a twelve month deployment. He grew up in Hilliard Ohio but has moved west since getting out of the military. He worked as an EMT while going through school and graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Currently, he lives his days in the Rockies where he enjoys rock climbing, hunting, and various other outdoor activities while spending time amongst friends and family. Grab Andrew's book "The Devil's Playground: The Story of Two Charlie and The Arghandab River Valley" https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Playground-Charlie-Arghandab-Valley-ebook/dp/B0DG6KP34Q?ref_=ast_author_mpb Order Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" today! ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnPodcast/featured —————————————————————- Today's Sponsors: GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 50% OFF!!! Mando ⬇️ https://shopmando.com Promo code "TEAMHOUSE" for 40% off your starter pack. ____________________________________ Pre-order Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" today! ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— To help support the show and for all bonus content including: https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Team House merch: ⬇️ https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ [email protected] 0:00 start #82ndairborne Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:30Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month, and when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad-free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers, but this is the biggest and best way that you can support The Team House channel and podcast if you'd like to, and we really appreciate that. So go and check us out at patreon.com/the team house.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Special operations, covert ops, espionage, The Team House, with your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 1:32Jack Murphy?

  Everybody, welcome to episode 318 of The Team House. I'm Dave Park with Jack Murphy, and tonight, we're happy to welcome Andrew Bragg. Andrew, with the 82nd Airborne, actually, with the 173rd and then the 82nd, or are they both?

• 1:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, I did a deployment with both.

• 1:52Speaker 04

  All right, great. And, um, and we will get to some very, very harrowing tales right after, uh, Jack thanks one of our sponsors for tonight.

• 2:02Jack Murphy?

  So I want to tell you guys about Mando. They make a whole body deodorant that's safe to use anywhere on your body. It's created by a doctor who saw firsthand how normal BO is being misdiagnosed and mistreated. It's clinically proven to block odor all day and control odor for up to 72 hours. Mando deodorant product has, uh, options. There's a solid stick deodorant and a spray deodorant. All products are baking soda free and paraben free. Choose from a variety of fresh scents like bourbon leather, clover woods, Mount Fuji, or pro sport. Clinically proven to control odor better than a shower with soap alone. 12 hours after a shower, the average man's grundle odor level was

• 2:43Jack Murphy?

  five out of 10. With Mando, the average grundle odor is zero out of 10.

• 2:48Speaker 04

  And we, Jack and I have tested this personally.

• 2:52Jack Murphy?

  There's a sniff test. Uh, no, I have been using the deodorant and the, the body wash also. It's, it's good. Uh, Mando's starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant, cream tube deodorant, two free products of your choice, like mini body wash and deodorant wipes and free shipping. As a special offer for listeners, new customers get 5% off a starter pack with our exclusive code that equates to over 40% of your starter pack use code. Team house at shopmando.com. That is S H O P M A N D O dot com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Smell fresher, stay drier, and boost your confidence from head to toe with Mando.

• 3:35Speaker 04

  That's like the new Ranger Creed.

• 3:40Speaker 04

  Anyway, Andrew, thank you very much. Uh, one of the things I failed to mention is your book, The Devil's Playground, um, that talks about one of your deployments, uh, the, the one in the Argandot Valley. But let's start from the beginning. Tell us your origin story. Uh, how did you grow up and, and what led you to the military?

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Alright, um, you know, I'll tell you a little.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  Hello, uh, Hilliard, just, uh, uh, just west of Columbus. And, uh, just corn and soybeans, uh, that's, I was a country boy. And, uh, I really just loved military movies. Uh, I watched Black Hawk Down and, and Saving Private Ryan. And, you know, just like any young, young lad would do. And, uh, uh, that's what really kinda sparked my interest. Uh, but, uh, I remember when nine 11 happened, I was in the eighth grade. I was in art class and, uh, my teacher turned on the TV and I watched the, uh, second plane crash into the tower. And it really kinda solidified my, uh, wanting to serve my country.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Um, and I knew that's what I was gonna do ever since that day. So, once I graduated high school, I enlisted into the army. And, uh, yeah, that's where it all began.

• 4:58Speaker 04

  So, uh, I got it, it's like, I feel so old when I hear somebody who was in the eighth grade when nine 11. So, um, uh, how old were you or what year was it? Yeah, I imagine you're 18, but what year was it when you enlisted?

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Uh, so I enlisted in June of tw- 2006.

• 5:17Speaker 04

  Okay, alright, uh, and so, uh, you went in infantry?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Yep, uh, I was in 11 X-ray contract. So I had, uh, the RIP airborne and RIP, uh, made it through airborne, went through RIP, um, made it all the way through coal range. The day we were supposed to, uh, buy our tambourades, um, they, uh, pulled five of us aside and was like, "You guys didn't pass your history test, you're out." So, uh, we got recycle, yeah, we got recycled and, uh, I don't wanna go to coal range again. So, uh, I chose to, uh, go worldwide. That and it was like right around Christmas time and, uh, I was just tired of being in training, you know? I wanted to, uh, actually do what I set out to do in, in the military.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  So, I decided to go worldwide and I got orders to go to the 173rd, uh, in Italy.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  Very nice, out of Vicenza, right?

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Yep, yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, and how was that for you?

• 6:19Speaker 03

  Uh, that was all right. Uh, I didn't spend a lot of time in Italy, unfortunately. Uh, cause that was the uh, fifteen month deployment timeframe that the army was sending out guys for fifteen months instead of the usual twelve months. Uh, so I got to Italy, immediately went to uh, Hohenzollern, uh, Germany to do kind of like our uh, their version of JRTC out in Europe, um, to kind of like certify us for deployment. Uh, got back from that, um, and then went on pre-deployment leave and then deployed to Afghanistan shortly after that for fifteen months.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  Wow, wow. So, none of the, none of the glamour of being stationed in Italy.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I, I didn't get, I did get to travel a little bit, but not as much as most would like.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. So you, uh, where did you guys end up in Afghanistan when you got there?

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Uh, so with the one seventy-third, we were in uh, Paktika province. Uh, that's eastern Afghanistan. It's right along the uh, Pakistan border. Uh, we were, our company, uh, was at uh, FOB Bermeil is what it was initially called. Uh, but then I, I, I believe it was renamed FOB Boris, cause uh, one of the cavalry first sergeants died there, uh, after hitting an ID in his Humvee. So they renamed his, uh, or that FOB, uh, FOB Boris. And uh, we spent the entirety of that deployment, um, building and manning, you know, combat outposts. I don't know if you guys heard of the uh, documentary Restrepo?

• 7:58Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  Um, that was that timeframe. Uh, I was with uh, the first of the five oh third, and that was the second of the five oh third. So they were up in the corn goal just north of us, but uh, we were doing the same, same stuff, you know, we uh, we built a, we had, the, one of the problems was all our major bases were, you know, in the valleys, so they would rocket up.

• 8:22Speaker 05

  Girl, guess what?

• 8:23Speaker 06

  Hey, what's up?

• 8:25Speaker 05

  I'm looking into PrEP for HIV prevention.

• 8:27Speaker 06

  PrEP? I didn't think that was for women.

• 8:29Speaker 05

  Same. Then I asked my doctor and she said anyone who is sexually active should know about PrEP.

• 8:35Speaker 06

  Really?

• 8:36Speaker 05

  And there are long-acting injectable options.

• 8:39Speaker 06

  Long-acting? I like the sound of that.

• 8:42Speaker 05

  Sounds like it's time to talk to your healthcare provider. You can also check out PrEPisForWomen.com for more information. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  That's an easy lot of indirect fire to engage us. So to mitigate that, or minimize that, we would build our outposts and give them something else to shoot at. So that's what we did. We built a Malakshay Kop out in the mountains, right along the Pakistan border. So we'd intervene with their... limit their freedom of movements across the Pakistan border. And yeah, just fight out in the mountains instead of at Fabr Mal. And yeah, we constructed from the ground up, Malakshay Kop. And it was a pretty sweet Kop, I'm not gonna lie. That thing was... Yeah, oh yeah. We eventually ended up getting Humvee glass,

• 10:04Speaker 03

  so the bulletproof glass, and installing that in the guard towers and stuff like that, because we had a lot of... A lot of fights going on and we had the 120 mortar tubes up there and the 60 millimeter mortar tubes and got to learn how to be a Charlie just in case something happened to the Charlie team up there. So I did a couple of fire missions, you know, with the 60 on my own. That was pretty cool, but I really got to learn, you know, what it meant to be a soldier and, you know, what it meant to fight and yeah, really master, you know, my lane.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. And what, what was the, like, what was the operation? First off, what size was your element up there? And then what was the operational tempo like for you guys?

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, so our company was out of FOB or MEL and we'd leave a platoon up at Malakshay Kop and then we'd have a platoon, so we'd have a platoon at the, at the FOB for like force protection and kind of like a down week. And then we'd have a platoon up at the Kop doing force protection and patrolling out there. And then we'd have like another platoon doing mounted patrols. And you just kind of rotated through that cycle. I don't exactly remember how long those cycles lasted. Like, I don't know if it was like a week and then you rotated, but I know once like winter would hit, access to the Kop was very limited with the snow and stuff. So, you know, we got stuck out there for like 90 days.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  One time, yeah. And you get resupplied by, you know, helicopters and they'd drop off pallets and stuff off of planes and we'd go secure them. But yeah, I can't remember the the rotation, you know, of that schedule. And then, you know, we do support operations. We had like Operation, I can't remember, it was like Winter Storm or something where we would go and for a whole month, we'd do just basically a presence patrol in a village, just kind of letting the locals know, hey, like, yeah, the Taliban might be hibernating, but we're still here. We're still, you know, trying to win hearts and minds. But a lot of our operations were along the Pakistan border and we were trying to intercept, you

• 12:21Speaker 03

  know, guys that were, you know, coming in and out of Pakistan. Taliban going over there for R and R and then coming back with more guns and ammo and guys. We got in a lot of fights in the mountains out there. Yeah.

• 12:38Speaker 04

  And what were those fights like? Because you guys, you know, you know, we have a lot of people from special operations on the show and a lot of times, you know, the it's a Gucci mission. I mean, it's a hard mission, but it's a Gucci mission and you generally have whatever support you need. You've got air, you've got dedicated fires and if you don't have dedicated, at least you're high on the priority of fires. For you guys, what was that like?

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Well, during that deployment, we had a lot of priorities assets set out to us just because of who our company commander and battalion commander at the time were. McChrystal was at my my Captain McChrystal was my company commander at the time there. So, yeah, we I mean, it's not like we didn't have a lot of like, you know, like HBT hits that we would do, kind of like the special operations with you know, like the grabbing goes or stuff like that. It was kind of like a movement to contact, you know, we were doing presence patrols. We were trying to engage with the locals, establish relations with them while

• 13:48Speaker 03

  just, you know, playing a big game of fuck around and find out. And yeah, we wanted to see if anybody would find out or you know, fuck around with us. And I mean, most of the time since we had such a huge area to cover, we'd be mounted in our Humvees. So I was always the lead truck 50 cal gunner. That was like my bread and butter. I love that gun. But yeah, so we we'd be driving around the Wadis and the low grounds because that's kind of where the where the roads are and that's with the terrain. That's really all you could really drive through was, you know, the creek beds and stuff. So then, you know, we'd get into a lot of fights where they're up on the hills, shooting down on

• 14:27Speaker 03

  us and very rarely would we it. There was occasionally some close contact, but a lot of the fighting was mountain top to mountain top. So, you know, your launch and machine gun rounds, you know, from one mountain to another, we're just watching tracers, you know, and then seeing their muzzle flashes and stuff.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  But the number of enemies that we had coming across the border was was quite significant. There was an operation where we were in support of an engineering company that was building an outpost, kind of similar to what we were doing by ourselves. But we would secure the surrounding areas and basically try to give the enemy something else to shoot at while the engineers were building this compound. And yeah, we, when we were exfilting from that operation, we, our company came into a 150-man ambush and the kill zone was over a kilometer long.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  And they, you know, it was a, they were waiting for us there. I'm just glad they didn't have an ID set on that road because there was only one road in and one road out. So the entire operation, they were just messing us, messing with us with indirect fire, you know, rockets and mortars. But on their way out, that's when they, they hit us with their direct fire contact. And they disabled one of our vehicles. We had to like exfil or, you know, get guys out of a burning vehicle and the whole shebang. And yeah, it was a, it was a long day, but yeah.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  I bet. And how did you guys fare in that fight?

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Oh, that's the crazy part about that deployment was is we didn't act, we had casualties, but we didn't have any KIA. Everybody made it out of there. I say, you know, with minor injuries, but that's, you know, that's in perspective. Because yeah, taking shrapnel to your legs and stuff's, you know, not minor to you if it's your legs. But after dealing with like the amputation injury, the multiple amputation injuries and stuff that we were dealing with on my second deployment.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like, it's a little minor, but yeah, I apologize if that offends people that, you know, that might not be minor to them.

• 16:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So are there any like major stories or any like high points or low points of that deployment that you want to talk about?

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Uh, there was one day, um, where we were out on a mounted patrol, uh, close to the border. And, uh, truck two, I was truck one always. So truck two, they got high centered on something. I don't know. They, they, they got stuck. So, um, myself, uh, our truck and my, the, the dismounts in our truck. We pushed, uh, to the nearest, uh, hilltop to kind of provide overwatch while the rest of the platoon was like unfucking truck two. And, uh, so we, as soon as we crested this hill, the dismounts, uh, in my truck got out. And as soon as their doors closed, uh, that's when the enemy on the other hills, hilltop started opening up.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  So it was myself on the 50 cal, uh, our saw gunner, and then my squad leader were the only ones, you know, that were able to engage this element. Um, and, uh, that, they sticks out to me because, uh, man, I, I could like just, I don't know if you, you've ever had the chance to, uh, use the 50 cal machine gun. But when you have a 300 round start about belt on that sucker and you go through it cyclic, that's a, it's always a good day.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  And, uh, yeah, it just, uh, no one got hurt that day. Thankfully, uh, we were able, the rest of the platoon was able to, uh, get the truck two unstuck and, uh, assist us. Uh, and we had the mortar team, uh, in the third truck. So once they got to us, they were able to assist and we were able to fight off that force. But, uh, for a minute I had to lay waste, uh, by myself so that my dismounts could get back to the truck. So that I, I hold that day, uh, special in my memories.

• 18:44Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm at full mast just listening.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, me too. Yeah. I mean, it's, and it's, it's funny. It's, it's, did they have a dishka on their side? Or was it like, like smaller arms, like AKs and maybe PKs that they like?

• 18:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, they had a lot of PKMs, uh, RPKs. Uh, they were shooting RPGs at us, but thank God there wasn't any dishkas there that day. Otherwise I might've been, met my match, but. But uh, no, it was just, it's funny when you guys are hiding my, behind trees and then you shoot the trees over.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  That's what I was gonna say is I, I, I like to imagine the uh, their, their shock and awe. When they open up and all of a sudden a fifty opens up in, in response and it's like, oops, oopsie.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think they were ready for that one.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, it's, I, I, I love hearing stuff like that. So, um. So how long was that? You said that deployment was sixteen months or eighteen months?

• 19:42Speaker 03

  No, that was a fifteen month.

• 19:43Speaker 04

  Fifteen months. Um, and then how, yeah, how did that wind down for you?

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Uh, like I said, uh, I mean, it was, we had a lot of fighting. Um, so once we were done. Uh, with that fifteen month, it felt pretty good to, you know, take off the cape and go back home. Uh. But we got pretty lucky. Uh, we didn't take any KIA's. Uh, our FOB mates, like I said, the Cav, the Cav unit that was with us, they lost their first sergeant. But our company, uh, we didn't take any KIA's.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Company, I lost a couple of guys. Uh, and I, I, I'm sorry, I apologize. I can't remember if any of the other companies had KIA's. But I do remember that our company, uh, was pretty fortunate and we didn't have any KIA's. So, uh, after that experience and, uh, getting back home with all your buddies, I was kinda like, alright, like, you know, let's celebrate. But for myself, uh, I got orders to go to Fort Bragg once, uh, shortly after we got back. So usually the unit, once you get back, you go home on leave and then you start back up on your train cycle. And for the, for us, it was, uh, doing EIB courses. So because I had orders to go to Bragg, they wouldn't let me go through the EIB course.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  So I just had to kinda hang out and, uh, yeah, just, uh.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  Still going to the infantry. Right, yeah, exactly. It's so weird. It's so weird.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  Part was is like the 50 cal lane like I knew so much about the 50 cal like I could disassemble that thing better than most of the armors could like I was breaking down that thing like the bolt and taking out the firing pin and everything so they had me my squad leader was in charge of the 50 cal lane and he had me assist even though I didn't have my EIP.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's funny.

• 21:38Jack Murphy?

  So you end up getting assigned to God's division, the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I went to the the mothership.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  Yep, so I PCSed from Italy and on my 21st birthday, I was flying to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  And yeah, I got to the 82nd and I was assigned to the second of the 508 parachute infantry regiment. And yeah, got into Charlie Company and I was assigned to second platoon. Once I was there, initially I was the RTO. They didn't quite make me a team leader yet, but I wasn't a Joe. I was in kind of like a weird spot. I didn't know who to fall in with. So I fall in with the the team leaders and the leadership because you know, I'm not a I'm not a cherry. I got a 15 month deployment under my belt. But I'm not I also wasn't an NCO yet. So I was like, all right. So but I'm, you know, or do I

• 22:43Speaker 03

  fall in with the Joes? And so I was just in a weird spot. So the platoon sergeant at the time made me his RTO and went through all the training cycles that you usually do before deployment. Initially, we were slotted to go to Iraq. And then with the Obama administration, then the surge in Afghanistan, that shortly shifted after most of our training was over. And we got a slot to go to Afghanistan to the RC South.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  And yeah, so because we had a change of mission, our command at the time did every like they worked their asses off to run us through another ITC cycle to, you know, get us as much, you know, trigger time as we could to get ready for that fight.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, real quick, before we get into that, let me just give a shout out to our second sponsor of the evening. Thanks to Ghostbed. If you sleep hot at night, Know just how disruptive it can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of the night, or all the above. That's where Ghostbed can help. As the makers of the coolest beds in the world, Ghostbed is your go to for cooling mattresses, cooling pillows, and even cooling bedding. From their signature Ghost Ice fabric to patented technology that adjusts with your body temperature. Every Ghostbed mattress is designed with cooling in mind. So whether you want a plusher mattress that cushions your shoulders and hips, or a firmer option with exceptional support, your Ghostbed will keep you cool and comfortable all night long. When you purchase a Ghostbed mattress, your comfort is guaranteed.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  You can try out your mattress for a 101 nights risk free and make sure it's the right fit for you. Plus, they offer free shipping and most items ship within 24 hours. If you're not sure which Ghostbed is for you, check out their mattress quiz. You'll answer a few questions and get your personalized recommendation, or reach out to their friendly team of sleep experts for all the help you need. Even better, uh, Team House listeners can get 50% off site wide for a limited time. Just visit ghostbed.com slash house and use code HOUSE at checkout. Again, that's ghostbed.com slash house with code HOUSE at checkout to save a whopping 50% off site wide.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  And if you're not in the market for a mattress, check out their pillows, their bedding, they have all kinds of great stuff there. So thanks to Ghostbed and check them out. So normally, um, you know, you would just come off, you, you have a four year enlistment, I assume, right? Three, three year or four year?

• 25:15Speaker 03

  It was a four year, yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 04

  Four year. And you just come off a 15 month deployment. And generally in the, in the deployment cycle, I'm sure that the 173rd, like they have maybe about a year, right? Before they're looking at, at deploying again. But because you switch units, you're all, you're automatically like you just came off a deployment and you're looking down the pipe at another one, at another long deployment.

• 25:41Speaker 03

  Uh, it was, uh, like, uh, I'm trying to think of when we got back from the 173rd deployment. I want to say it was July of two thousand and, uh, eight. Um, and then I didn't PCS until January.

• 25:56Speaker 04

  Okay, so you had a little bit of time.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I had a, I had, it wasn't like, you know, I was like, you know, getting off the plane just to get in to another plane and, you know, go right back.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  I did have a, a little period of time, uh, and then we went through, uh, you know, we went through JRTC, we went through, uh, OP-13 at Fort Bragg, and then we went to another RT, uh, ITC cycle and stuff. So, uh, we didn't, and we didn't deploy for that Argon Dog deployment until, uh, uh, September of two thousand and nine. Uh, so it was a little over a year before, you know, I was boots back on ground.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  Okay. So can you tell us, because you said that, you know, they were planned, the ATC was planning on doing this trip to Iraq, but then it got switched to Afghanistan, so they were running you through the cycle. Can, can you tell us what the difference is in training or preparing for Iraq, uh, and Af- Afghanistan? What are the differences for those?

• 26:52Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, so, I mean, when we were doing the Iraq, uh, fight, we were doing a lot of mount training, you know, entering, clearing rooms just all day, every day. Uh, you know, you're training for an urban fight. Um, versus like in Afghanistan, it's a different type of fight and it's a different operation. Like we were kind of like, uh, like the coin fight was a lot different, right? Yeah, you were fighting alongside, uh, your Afghan National Army forces and your Afghan National Police Forces. It was almost kind of the Green Berets mission, you know, to train up this foreign army to, you know, fight on their own.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Um, so when we were started to do like the ITC cycle, uh, going towards Afghanistan and that, and like what we were gonna do there, there's a lot of more. Uh, like we did mock villages where we would in in interact with villagers, kind of conduct shuras and um, you know, talk to like people that, you know, not for people that pretended to be villagers and stuff. And then we would get, you know, in in engaged by enemies, you know, in in on the way to kind of simulate ambushes and stuff like that. But um, there was a lot more movements to contact stuff and kind of patrolling as opposed to just kicking indoors and uh, you know, really focusing on that aspect.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Very different environments for the most part.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 04

  So um, so how does that uh, the your second trip now to Afghanistan, how does that start off?

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, so initially when we get there, our battalion didn't really have an A O of its own. Uh, we kind of were scattered all throughout R C South. Um, and our platoon, uh, second platoon of Charlie Company, um, we got assigned to a Canadian task force in Panjway District. And uh, we were just kind of the Canadians bitches and uh, we would go, we'd go out with them uh, and conduct like uh, you know, anti IED operations. Uh, we do presence patrols in the area. We go out on our own uh, quite a bit. Uh, we found out very quickly uh, where we could go get into a fight. Um, there was uh, Chowgar and

• 29:12Speaker 03

  uh, uh, Three Tank Hill. Those were the two places where we could always go and we knew we were gonna get into a fight. The enemy just liked to, you know, shoot at us there. Um, but for the most part, those fights in the Panjway District were pretty one-sided. Uh, and we got gotten lucky up to that point. Um, uh, we we would always win. We'd always have call in the Kiowa helicopters to, you know, do gun runs and stuff and chase off the enemy. Sometimes we'd even have the Canadians. Uh, they were a tank force. So they had strikers and tanks. So you'd be in a, you'd be dismounted and in a firefight in like a gray portrait and you know, you call for a Q R F and then you'd hear a huge

• 29:54Speaker 03

  explosion and both sides would stop shooting. And then you'd see it, this Canadian tank bust through a wall and you're like, oh, okay, they're on our side. So it was, it was pretty cool. Um. Uh, yeah, and I mean, we got to stay on, uh, it was a cop, um, Mason Gar. Or, yeah, Cop Mason Gar, um, and that was the Canadian outpost. And, you know, they had a chow hall, they had a gym, they had Canadian women, they, you know, like, they had, like, it was, we were living life, you know? We'd go out, get into a firefight, come back, and we wouldn't even have to pull tower guard. We can go to the chow hall and get Haagen Dazs ice cream. And, uh, yeah, it was sweet. Yeah.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  Uh, but, uh, that, uh, came to an end, well, before that came to an end, we did, uh, we did take our first casualties in Panjway. Um, on one of the operations that we were supporting, uh, Canadian, um, forces, uh, on our exfil, uh, our convoy hit an IED and, uh, we lost two guys and, uh, had three more wounded in that IED blast. It, uh, it blew the Humvee in half, uh, the, the whole, like, when you're looking in through the, through the front, you're looking in and you can see the back seats, the front seats are gone and.

• 31:18Speaker 05

  If your phone sounds like mine, you know life gets busy. But no matter how busy I am, my health, including my sexual health, is a priority for me. When I learned PrEP could be an option for women, I looked into it. PrEP can be about 99% effective in preventing HIV through sex when taken as prescribed. And it comes as a long-acting injectable, which might need more time between doses. Ask your healthcare provider about a long-acting injectable PrEP option and visit prepisforwomen.com. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  As soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. The whole front half of that Humvee was gone and uh, yeah, it uh, it took from us uh, our first two, two guys and it really kind of uh, was a gut check to be like, hey, man, like, you're not invincible, uh, you can die too.

• 32:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  And uh, that real- that realization, um, yeah, definitely was kind of like a foreshadowing of what was going to happen once our battalion got our own AO in the Arghandab River Valley.

• 32:48Speaker 04

  For you personally, because you had done a 15-month deployment where you had WIA, but no KIA and, and no necessarily serious, serious injuries.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  What, was there any sort of shift for you in how you looked at combat or war or anything like that?

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Um, I guess, so we all go through this cycle, right? You're a brand new Cherry Joe, the first thing you want to do is pop your cherry.

• 33:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  And you want to get into that firefight.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  And you want, you want to join that club, right?

• 33:24Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Um, you want, you want your CIB and you want to earn it. And I went through that phase when I was a Joe, you know, with that 15-month deployment with the 173rd. And we got into a lot of fights. So by the end of that one, I was good. I would have been uh, happy if I didn't even fire my rifle that second deployment.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  But uh, seeing the, the new Joes and, and their eagerness to get into a fight, you know, it's, it's kind of,

• 33:50Speaker 03

  I don't know how you put it, but it's, you see a little bit of yourself in that, right? And you're like, man, like, you don't, you don't know what you're getting into. Uh, like, you know, it's like, be careful what you wish for type thing.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Um, so we did end up, you know, uh, taking those, those uh, those first, those first KIA's and I mean, that was uh, it definitely hit me, um.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  It definitely hit me hard, uh, but I had already experienced, you know, combat and stuff. And so seeing like you just kind of try to get your guys through it, the Joes, you know, that hadn't been there. And up to this point, the only thing that they thought was is, oh yeah, we go and we win.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  So, uh, yeah, that was the first time where we experienced like, oh no, we can lose.

• 34:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  And, um, yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, uh, so after that, and you said it's a foreshadowing. So what, what happened in terms of the next phase of your deployment?

• 34:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, uh, our command, uh, actually they got us our own, uh, area of operation, uh, in the Argandog River Valley. And, uh, our battalion got word that we were moving in and replacing the striker unit that was currently there. Uh, we, just from word of mouth, we heard a lot of information, like all these guys had sustained so many casualties that they are combat ineffective and we're replacing these guys who had a rough go at it. Um, which is terrifying to you a little bit, you know?

• 35:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  But I mean, to some, some might like like that, you know, but, uh, you know, when you, when you hear this unit before you's taken so many casualties that they can't even continue, you're like, oh, fuck.

• 35:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  It's like, it's like, we're going there now and we have like 10 months left. Oh, man. I think, you know, buckle up. Um, so, uh, yeah, we, uh, Charlie Company, uh, we moved in. And, uh, there was three different outposts that, uh, Charlie Company secured on the north side of the river. We are the farthest northeast in the battalion. So Bravo Company, uh, they were on the south side of the river. Um, south of Delta Company. So just across the river from us was Delta, uh, and Bravo. Um, and then we were in the north and then Alpha Company.

• 36:23Speaker 03

  But yeah, we moved in and first platoon and third platoon secured what would be called Cottineland and that was just that was like further into the pomegranate orchards and and great great venues of the of the valley and then second platoon which is you know where I was we moved into Cottines and our platoon we probably had the biggest AO of the entire battalion in that valley like our I can't remember the exact square kilometers of our AO but it was huge and we'd be doing like seven kilometer movements which isn't

• 37:08Speaker 03

  long you know it's not very big you know but in the Argonad River Valley seven kilometers you might as well be on the moon because you're walking through a maze and a labyrinth of mud walls pomegranate orchards grape fields it's it was it was pretty you know slow moving through the valley

• 37:26Speaker 04

  And Andrew, can I interrupt you real quick just because you know you mentioned that the unit you were replacing you were replacing them because they were combat ineffective due to the level of casualties so I have to assume that the leadership in their wisdom came up with an entirely new strategy new manning requirements new assets and resources for you guys right they didn't just simply put you back in the exact same situation that caused these other units to become combat ineffective

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Well, the difference is is we're paratroopers so I can't speak to what the command decision making was you know I that's one thing is my book's kind of written from the lower enlisted point of view so the decision making that went into that I I'm not sure of but for what from my point of view yeah we just kind of took over and Yeah, I had to learn and, you know, do what they were doing. If you look, uh, it's kind of crazy looking back because the literature wasn't available at the time, or maybe it was and we just didn't know about it. But, uh, um, there's books now written about the Arghandab River Valley.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  And if you look at the history of the valley, uh, this has been a fighting area since, uh, don't quote me on this, but like Alexander the Great.

• 38:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Uh, you, you know, and it's got history of the, like, the, the Muja, Muja Hadeen, uh, like origin stories, like with, uh, Mohammed Omar. I think one of his wives was from the Arghandab River Valley. Um, and they fought against the Russians in the valley. And if you read the book, uh, I think it's like Over the Mountain, uh, I can't remember the exact name. But, um, it, the, the teller, or the Muja Hadeen commander in that book, uh, speaks of, uh, how they fought the Russians in the Arghandab. And they would, uh, just litter the area with anti-personnel mines.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  And they'd set up their ambushes and they would wait until, it was basically their version of wait until you can see the wider their eyes before you shoot. They said they'd wait until they knew they weren't gonna miss so that they could kill them all. And, uh, the Russians had two major offensives, uh, and they lost both of them. They lost a whole, like, uh, I don't know what the size element was, but, uh, it was bad. But you look at the names of the villages that they were fighting in, in this book. And they talk about, you know, ambushing, uh, Russian soldiers out of Jelawar. And Jelawar was just in, uh, like right next door to us. And, uh, they would medevac their wounded, uh, to the village of Bubur. And it's like, we fought in the village of Bubur almost every day.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  So it was really spooky looking back and being like, we just repeated history, you know? History doesn't repeat, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

• 40:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  And, uh, to, uh, just be, uh, yeah, it just kind of like, it's like, oh, it gives you the shivers. Like, oh, man, I know exactly where, where they're talking about in this book. Um, but yeah, so when we, when we moved in, uh, it was December and, uh, it was the winter time. So the valley itself was like kind of hibernating.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  Uh, all the, the grapevines and the pomegranate orchards and stuff were like all the leaves were gone. Um, it's just kind of like skeletal branches and like a Tim Hortons film. Uh, and, um, but, uh, it allowed us to kind of really see the valley. We could see for like hundreds of yards and stuff, which is kind of a blessing in disguise because we got to learn the terrain. Uh, and we had the freedom of movement at the time because the fighters weren't in the area. I, I'm sure you guys know that Afghanistan, like they're seasonal fighters.

• 41:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Like to fight, fight in the cold. Um, so that, that's not to say we didn't have anything happen in the wintertime. We found, you know, historic IEDs all over the place, uh, and we dealt with those, but for the most part, we spent that time kind of getting a census of the area, learning who was who, uh, who was, you know, village elder here, who lived where. So that way when, you know, the fighting season did begin, we, and we came across people that weren't, you know, normal people. We could be like, hey, who are you? Where are you going? Why, why are you here? Um, but yeah.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, uh, so you guys move in, um, and what size element did you guys, you had a company?

• 42:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. So our company was kind of split up between, uh, Cop Nolan, uh, Cotines. And then we had another outpost called Terranova. So he, our headquarters element was, uh, out of Terranova. And I think they had like a squad from either one or three Charlie. And then one and three Charlie were out of Cop Nolan and, uh, and, uh, two Charlie, uh, we were out of Cop Tines. So we'd be moving around the valley in squad size elements because out of Cop Tines, we had to provide our own force protection, uh, our own QRF and, you know, patrol. So.

• 42:35Speaker 04

  For a platoon.

• 42:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, for a platoon, yep. So, uh, we'd, we'd patrol in squad size elements and then we'd have the QRF squad, uh, just kinda staging at the outpost and then we'd have a squad doing, um, you know, like, uh, tower guard and force protection.

• 42:52Speaker 04

  So for people who might not be aware of, of the sizes, when you're talking about a squad, you, you are talking about nine, nine soldiers. Um, so you essentially have nine soldiers going out, uh, looking for a fight, essentially.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 04

  Against unknown elements.

• 43:11Jack Murphy?

  And that becomes a very difficult grind too, when you're having these different duties back to back. You know, you're, you're out on patrol, then you're on the QRF for the guys who are on patrol, and then you're on, you know, tower duty. Um, you know, okay, when, when do the Joes sleep?

• 43:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:26Jack Murphy?

  I, I mean, it gets to be difficult for such a small element to do all those things.

• 43:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Oh, it got worse. Like, that's when you're at full force. Like, I wish I had a platoon to do all that the whole time.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Well, we got down to, once we started really taking casualties, like, uh, I was telling you guys earlier, we were down to two and a half squads to do all that. So you had a squad on patrol, a squad on QRF, and then you had a, like, the skeleton crew to stay back at times, you know, one man per tower and then one guy in the talk. So, um, yeah, but, uh, I mean, we, in the beginning, it was kinda weird because, like, we were anticipating this huge fight because we had heard all the, the stories from the striker guys before us and stuff, and it just wasn't there. And it was just because it was winter time, but, uh, yeah, we were kinda anticipating this, you know, huge battle.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  And it's not that we got complacent at all. I don't want to insinuate that, but like, you know, you do, like, you can't be at like a high stress like that intense of a, you know, like on your guard at all times, you know, so the winter months, it was kind of just like a walk through the mud of the valley fest and come back and try to dry off. And we were building up the outpost because the outpost that we inherited from the striker guys was bare bones. It was, they had like a couple sandbags filled up and they put like literally a bed frame with a parachute over it to kind of shield the guy up there from the sun. And that was one of their towers. You times

• 45:10Speaker 03

  that by three and that was their force protection. So it was like, oh my God, we gotta, we gotta start, you know, improving our defenses and, you know, we started getting HESCOs and filling HESCOs by hand. So if you weren't out on patrol, it wasn't like you were, you know, out back at cop times chilling. No, you were filling sandbags to dump into HESCOs.

• 45:32Jack Murphy?

  And how long does it take to fill one HESCO by hand?

• 45:36Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh. I don't even know. I mean, I don't like to think about that time in my life.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  But, yeah, you're doing it all by hand. And it just, it just sucks. And so initially in the valley, we were doing three patrols a day. Well, two, two during the day and then one at night. Just trying to saturate the valley because much like our first deployment, where our kind of task was to kind of limit the enemy's freedom of movement. Because they had, they had wanted to kind of limit the enemy's entryway into Kandahar, which the Argandad River Valley was just northwest of Kandahar City. So it's kind of crazy that you were in this like Vietnam jungle and like maybe a couple of miles over one ridge line, this Kandahar City. So, yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. So when did, like, when, I assume it was kind of springtime when things started heating up for you guys?

• 46:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, uh, the, uh, is really when the, uh, we, we talked with one of the village elders, uh, and we were kind of asking like, hey, like, when are the, when are we gonna see these fighters that everyone talks about? And, uh, he kind of laughed at us and he, he's like, you see those trees? And we're like, yeah. And he's like, when the leaves return to the trees, the fighters will return to the valley. And, uh, yeah, you're right. Spring came and, uh, the leaves started budding on all the pomegranates and, uh, the grape field started, you know, getting leaves. And, uh, that's when we kind of had our crescendo of fighting. Uh, it wasn't like, you know, it

• 47:25Speaker 03

  was a light switch, but, uh, there was like some, a couple of events that happened and then it just escalated very quickly. And, uh, once those leaves returned to the valley, your visibility went to zero. Uh, uh, it like, we joke and say it was like Vietnam, but that's really what we compare to is like the amount of vegetation and like you couldn't see more than 50 feet in areas because of all, all the trees and all the leaves and the, the grapes and the mud walls. And, uh, so when we started seeing, uh, uh, contact initially, it was just a small group of guys that would, you know, send pop shots our way. And they were kind of watching and seeing how we would react, how we would, you know, conduct battle drill

• 48:09Speaker 03

  one alpha and, you know, flank and maneuver on them. And they would collect their data and they would learn. And that's when they would start to be like, okay, so we're gonna put IEDs in here and we're gonna put IEDs in here. And there's gonna be an IED on our flanks so that when we ambush them and they try to maneuver, oh, they run, we're baiting that, they basically were baiting us into IEDs.

• 48:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:30Speaker 03

  Um, so their, their tactics started to become less of pop shots and more of let's set up L-shaped ambushes, you know, on an IED. And they would wait and they'd They'd wait for us to set off the IED and then they'd pop over the walls and engage us with PKM machine guns from less than, you know, fifty feet away. Um, or if we were by chance walked over an IED and didn't set it off. They would pop over the walls and try to create some sort of panic and in hopes that we would step on the IEDs. Right. And the IEDs in the valley, um, really evolved. Initially, they were all just kind of pressure plate IEDs.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  Um, but the problem with those is we had a lot of villagers set setting those off. Cause it's a farming community. So they're out in their fields every day digging and you know, tending to their their crop. Uh, so they'd walk through, uh, walk down the path and walk through a gateway and they'd step on an IED and blow themselves up. So there uh, initially, there's a lot of village villager or like local casualties. Um, but that's when they kind of had started to evolve, uh, and you know, fix their problem of like, okay, like, how do we prevent that? So what they would do is they would, um, they'd bury the main charges, so like jugs of homemade explosives or HME.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Or, you know, unexploded ordinances that they got a hold of from like the Russians back in the eighties or whatever they had on hand. They'd bury the main charges and then they would wrap that in deck cord. And then the deck cord would lead up to like the surface and that's how they'd have like their initiation device, which whether it be like a toe popper IED. Or a pressure plate. Or, um, you know, we ran into trip wires. Um, but the the initiation device is what they could actually like disarm. So say we were at coptines, they'd take off, they'd take the trip wires down, they'd take away the the toe popper. Uh, they'd take off the pressure plates, you know, off the deck cord or yeah.

• 50:32Speaker 03

  And so then, once we left the outpost, they were always watching. So, okay, which way they heading, they're heading east. All right, all those guys set up your IEDs. So they'd put up the trip wires, they'd put up the pressure plates, they'd put in the toe poppers and, you know, bury them and. Uh, and then wait. And, um, yeah, that's, uh, that's how it it got. But then there was a point where like. The fighting force actually got into the valley. That was just kind of like the IED task force, if you will. Yeah. Um, and then, then there was a point where like, okay, the fighters are here and, um. Yeah, those guys really um had uh, I mean, they needed their stuff. They've been fighting. We taught it to them in the eighties when we were, you know, like fighting the Russians with them. So um.

• 51:24Speaker 03

  Village elder and we're like, hey, man, like we're like, everybody in the village was panicking because we were in it and we had snuck into this village without the enemies, you know, noticing. Uh, but we did, we came in under the cover of darkness and uh, once the sun came up, the villagers realized we were there and they started panicking. So we snagged the village elder and we're like, like, what's going on? Why is everybody freaking out? And uh, this was the first time like a, and a village elder actually told us the truth. He just pointed to the south and he's like, "Look, they have a bomb on every bridge and every path down there and they have their ambushes set. They're waiting for you. You can go down there and fight them, "or you can go home. I don't care. Just get out of my village."

• 52:09Speaker 03

  And that was terrifying to hear, like, like him speak truthfully to us.

• 52:14Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  They go, "Shit, uh, we're not going down there, right? You heard them. They have a bomb on every bridge and every path. Uh, I'm not rolling the dice on this one." So um, but that's kind of like the, the fight we, we saw every single day was them baiting us into IEDs, them close ambushing us and uh, Yeah, it just uh, came, became like a day in, day out task of uh, You know, just going, you know, going down into the, the orchards and into the grape fields and uh, duking it out.

• 52:48Jack Murphy?

  And what's the attrition like for your platoon as you go on?

• 52:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, so uh, we, we had another IED incident uh, the beginning of March uh, where we lost uh, We had another KIA in our platoon and we had uh, four more uh, wounded. Of those wounded, I think uh, one was able to return to us.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  And uh, yeah, it, we had another one uh, where we lost. Um, We had another KIA and then we had, let me think, one, two, uh.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Three, four, so four more wounded in that blast, and then two of those guys were able to come back to us. But so when we were taking casualties, you know, it was usually from IEDs and blast injuries. And it was mass casualties. It wasn't, we did have like firefights where we had one of our guys get shot in the face. And we, you know, we take direct fire injuries and stuff like that. But a lot of our casualties were from the IED emplacements in the area. And it wasn't just, you know, one or, you know, it was usually a decent amount of people. I remember after one day, like first squad was down to like four or five, or no, four guys.

• 54:16Speaker 03

  So we had combined squads at one point and we formed what we we call, or we coined thirty first squad. So we combined third squad and first squad. And so thirty first squad would go out on patrol and second squad would be QRF. And we just, you know, we didn't have enough guys to do stuff. So we'd just be piecing guys, you know, into other squads and filling slots. And like guys would be going out every single day. There wouldn't be a rotation anymore. It was either you're going out with the squad or you're going out on QRF or, yeah, it was.

• 54:53Speaker 04

  Where?

• 54:54Speaker 03

  We, we, sorry.

• 54:56Speaker 04

  Where was that coming, where was that directive coming from? Yes, you guys are getting hit by IEDs yesterday or every day. But we want you to keep going out to these basically channeled avenues, right? Because you, you don't, you don't really get to choose where you're going in places like that. You're going where the paths and the roads tell you to go. You're not sneaking, or you're not sneaking around by some route that the, that the Taliban don't, don't know about. There's no, you know, secret goat path that they're unaware of. So who has given you that directive to, hey, guys, tomorrow, go out and get blown up?

• 55:40Speaker 03

  Uh, I mean, well, that wasn't the exact order that was given. No, okay. But, um, I mean, that's kind of the objective of the, uh, uh, the area was to saturate the area, right? Try to limit the enemy's, uh, freedom of movement. With nine guys. Yeah, uh, we did, well, we didn't have the numbers that we needed to do that. Right. The unit that replaced us, they had more manpower, so they did and they were, but like the fight in the valley, like you needed to take ground and then you needed to keep it. Right. Uh, what, what we, we weren't able to do that because we had to man cop times. So we'd go patrol, we'd do our patrols and, uh, and then we'd have to come back at the end of the day. So we take ground and then we'd have to leave it. Right.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  Uh, what you really needed to do was take it and keep it. And, uh, we just weren't able to do that with the manpower we had. Um, but that's not to say that like, uh, so as a team leader, I was, I was point man on every patrol. And yeah, they, I got orders on where we were going, but how we got there, that was up to me. So the route selection, a lot of us team leaders spent a lot of time, uh, with route selection. Right. And no, no, I wasn't on the paths. I would climb over the walls. Yeah. Climb under the walls. I'd climb through the walls. I'd climb and tree, like guys, my guys in my squad give me shit all the time for my routes. But I'd make it the most unpredictable route that I could. Yeah.

• 57:07Speaker 03

  Uh, so that the, you know, and I feel like we lot, we missed a lot of IEDs because of it. Yeah. Um, and yeah, uh, just being unpredictable was the only way to combat that kind of a fighting in the, in the valley. But they were always watching. So you had to, you know, we cataloged all the routes that we had taken as team leaders. And we had like a database and we'd overlay it and be like, okay, we haven't gone here yet, you know? So let's do that. And you just try to be unpredictable and, um, but you can only go so many ways. And who, who's to know that, oh, you know, we're not just combing the whole valley for IEDs. And it's like, yeah, we haven't gone there yet. So maybe that's where an IED is, you know? Yeah. You're just rolling the dice.

• 57:50Speaker 03

  But as a point man, my main objective was is just to be unpredictable. And it's like, oh, like, here's a path. That looks like, obviously, like, I want to take it. I'm not going to take it. Or, oh, I'm going to walk in the canal. Or, oh, I'm going to walk in this, like, shit drainage ditch, you know? I I take, like, areas of approach that didn't look convenient.

• 58:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  And my guys gave me shit for it, but that's, uh.

• 58:17Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  That's, yeah. Um, so, yeah, we did. I mean, our TTPs evolved like that, uh, as the fighting evolved and, you know, and they learned from us and uh, their IEDs evolved, so they became less and less pressure plates. And that's when, you know, like, I came across a tripwire. And that day was crazy for me, because, uh.

• 58:38Speaker 05

  If your phone sounds like mine, you know, life gets busy. But no matter how busy I am, my health, including my sexual health, is a priority for me. When I learned prep could be an option for women, I looked into it. Prep can be about ninety-nine percent effective in preventing HIV through sex when taken as prescribed. And it comes as a long-acting injectable, which might mean more time between doses. Ask your healthcare provider about a long-acting injectable prep option and visit prepisforwomen.com. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 59:06Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to two hundred thousand dollars right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  Literally was, you know, one step away from setting off a tripwire IED. Um, and that would have taken up.

• 59:46Jack Murphy?

  Like, how would you describe that IED? I mean, was it like, uh, like, I visualize in my mind, you know, like, fishing line attached to the pin of a hand grenade or something?

• 59:54Speaker 03

  I mean, what what was it? Uh, it says, uh, it was an old Russian, like, the initiation device was like an old Russian, uh, I don't even know what it was. I have photos of it. I can send it to you guys, but basically, that's what it was, is like fishing line across a, uh, a path, and they tied the other end to a twig, and then they used a, kind of like a, a branch to hide that, like, pin. And then that pin, once it's pulled, it it sets off the, uh, initiation device in the main, and it set off, like, there's deck cord that ran all the way, and there's like, they putted the mud against the wall. So there's all these signs that I just, like, wasn't adding up, you know, at the moment, until I saw the actual tripwire.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  But that deck cord ran down to an anti-tank mine that was in the, in the path that I, my face was literally two feet away from. And I'm like, looking down at this, like, weird, like, like, dry mud area on the path, and seeing this ant trail up the wall, and seeing this bush, and just going between the three of them, like, this is weird. And it just didn't dawn on me until, um, the, you know, when you walk through the woods and you see like a spider web, and there's like that shimmer of that? I saw that out of the corner of my eye, and the wire was literally right over my shoulder, because I was standing in like a drainage ditch. And, uh,

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  uh, that when, when I saw that shimmer, I looked and I looked and I, that's when I added it all up, and I was like, oh, shit. Uh, so I had my guys climb back over the wall, and, uh, we called EOD on that and waited for EOD. And, uh, yeah, that was a, that was just a crazy day for me. Like, there's a parallel universe where I'm, uh, I'm gone.

• 1:01:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. Did, did you have EOD, uh, at one of the cops, or did they have to come out from the primary fob?

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  Uh, it really depended on timing, uh, like, a lot of the, they, they, like, time, it said.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  If they were attached to us, it was uh um at Terranova. But a lot of the times we'd have to call them and they'd have to either get a convoy to escort them out or they'd fly in and then we'd have to escort them out from Tyne. So it's it's not like, oh, you know, it's like we found a bomb like this, uh, cool. No, we we'd be out there for hours and sometimes even overnight securing the area uh and waiting for EOD assets to become available to uh, you know, blow, blow the the ID in place. Um, it's actually kind of cool, though. Um, like I was I was sharing with you, like I can send you the photos of my tripwire. Uh, one of the EOD guys that was there that day uh and there for a lot of the days uh where they blew,

• 1:02:42Speaker 03

  you know, they did bit, they performed bips of uh IEDs. Uh, this EOD guy, he read the book and he reached out to me and he's like, hey, man, like, I think I was there. And he's like, would you like to, you know, have a folder of all the bombs that you guys came across? And I was like, yes, I would. And yeah, I went, I was going through that and I found this, the photo of my tripwire from that day and I saw Sergeant Mayer. And I was like, I was like, this is 100% my my tripwire. And so, but uh, that was crazy that he, you know, was

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  just, I mean, there was so much shit in the valley between Charlie Company, Bravo Company, Alpha Company, Delta, you know, like they had, they were just hopping around from company to company. They only had so many guys. So it's like, you know, how much, like, it only covers so much ground. Um, yeah.

• 1:03:30Speaker 04

  That's it. It's so wild to me that, you know, uh, you you guys didn't have like it ready access to support like that. What was your air support like when you would get these tics and and and, you know, these prolonged tics sometimes?

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. So uh, we had Kiowa helicopters, um, kind of on call for a lot of the time. Uh, uh, but there'd be times where, you know, the valley would be perfectly fine, clear skies, but for some reason, air would be black. And I don't know if if there's, you know, sandstorms or or, you know, what was going on in in Kandahar or what. But like, you know, we'd be like, why is there black? And maybe those assets were designated elsewhere, but um. Yeah, so there'd be times where we'd be out on patrol and it's like. All right, you know, you might as well be on the moon, you know, it's it's us, no one's coming to help you and uh. It's like expect self-rescue.

• 1:04:26Speaker 03

  So that's why like a lot of the times, you know, our QRF came from us, from COP times, you know, is your buddy out there, so you were going. To get out there to him and. You don't know what you could do, but you wanted to be there for him.

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  So uh, but the Kiowas uh. Like they were, uh, don't get me wrong, I loved having those guys and uh. One of our TTPs was um. We would uh, when we would get engaged by the enemy, so the Kiowas couldn't really engage unless the ground troops were getting direct contact. Um, so they'd fly over and they can be like, hey, look, there's a uh ambush line about a hundred meters to your south. Just giving you guys a heads up. And be like, okay, cool, shoot them. And they'd be like, are you guys getting engaged? We'd be like, uh, was it, what was that direction, a hundred meters to our south? And I'd be like, yeah, and they'd be like, okay, and tell my salginner, hey, start shooting to the south.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  And you just start opening up, you're like, oh, hey, yeah, we're we're getting engaged from the south. Can you uh, you know, and we call in our gun runs and stuff like that, but. A lot of times what we'd do is we'd bait the enemies into engaging us. Uh, so we'd call off the Kiowas and make it seem like they were going to refuel or something, so. Our FOs would uh, you know, constantly be, you know, in contact with them on the radios, but they'd. Have them fly out of earshot, so the enemy would think like, aha, they're alone now. So that's when when they would engage us and then we'd have them come in guns hot and uh. That was uh, that seemed to be pretty effective, but um.

• 1:06:08Speaker 03

  The fighting, uh, once it pushed further south and into like the pomegranate orchards and stuff like that. Uh, the Kiowas can only do so much because those orchards are so thick and they can't see through them. Uh, so you're you're down in it and uh, the enemy knows that they can't be seen, so uh, yeah. They got a little braver.

• 1:06:30Speaker 04

  What what what did your BDAs look like um, after like some of these larger tics?

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  Uh, if some, I mean, a lot of them, uh, so, I mean, sometimes we, we didn't have the manpower to conduct, you know, BDAs, you know, so you, you'd be, it'd be a lot of break contact, really.

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  And plus with the threat that they would in place these ambushes, hoping that you would maneuver on them to bait you into an IEDs on their flanks, like, it, you know, our battle drills really shifted. We didn't really maneuver, uh, uh, as.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  I should base a line of fire, call in Kaiwaz if you could, um, but, uh, for the most part, like, it was just, you know, engage the enemy until one of you, uh, ran out of ammo, or, you know, until the enemy ran out of ammo and, and, uh, ex-filled, uh, or, you know, you guys had to ex-fill because, you know, you had a casualty, um.

• 1:07:28Speaker 04

  But the old battle drills of either assaulting through or flanking because of the IED threat, the way they had in place their IED threat, you guys kind of put a pause on those.

• 1:07:38Speaker 03

  I mean, initially, uh, we did, you know, we had assault through and stuff and we conform, uh, we, you know, perform our BDAs and, uh, we came across a lot of like, uh, blood trails and what like, and stuff like that, uh, but you gotta think like, these guys aren't just leaving their dead and wounded, their, their ex-fill and their guys too. So, it was nice to come across, uh, blood trails, uh, and like drag marks and stuff. It's like, oh yeah, we got them. But we never actually came across many bodies.

• 1:08:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:05Speaker 03

  That kind of came from like, uh, listening over the ICOM radios with our interpreters, you know, and they do their roll calls or they, you know, report up like, hey, we got, like Omar's dead, you know, and stuff. So that's when we would cheer. But as for us coming across like actual bodies and, you know, like that, that never happened.

• 1:08:24Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, that's what I, you know, all the Vietnam veterans would say about like the NVA, like, you'd have a huge firefight and then in the morning, all the bodies are gone and it's, it's very spooky. And so it's just amazing to me to listen to this and, and hear like, you know, when you compare it to Vietnam, I understand where you're coming from.

• 1:08:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I don't wanna like, I feel like I'm doing like a disrespect to the Vietnam veterans. No, no. But man, like it was. There's parallels. It was like Vietnam, like you'd be, I mean, I ran into a tripwire, come on, man. Yeah. It's like, you know, and it's these close ambushes, uh, like, you know, you're already outnumbered and you hit IDs. Like I said, it's not that we didn't maneuver, uh, we just had to be very careful about maneuvering. Sure, I get it. You had to be like, it's like, okay, why did they ambush us here? Yeah. Is it because they're trying to bait us to flank them and there's the ID? Or is the ID here and they're hoping to spook us and, you know, cause chaos and oh, oops, we stepped on it. Right.

• 1:09:23Speaker 03

  Because, uh, the day that, uh, Loveless got shot in the face, uh, that, uh, where they shot him, that's what they were trying to do is they had an ID there and the guys danced all around it, but somehow didn't set it off. Wow. So I was on the QRF that day, so I did, we flanked my squad, we flanked the enemy and we chased them into Tarot Kalacha. Uh, and that's when, you know, we came across the blood trails and drag marks and you're like, oh, heck yeah, we got a couple, it looks like, but, um, yeah, so, uh, we got surrounded in the village of Tarot Kalacha and this, this firefight ended up being like an, like, it ended up being like an 11-hour firefight for the guys of third squad and maybe like a nine-hour firefight for my squad.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  But, uh, we, when we entered into Tarot Kalacha, we found a lot of HME material and just bomb-making material, ammo, stuff like that. So we had to call in EOD to blow it in place and because we weren't taking all that crap back with us, it was just way too much. So, uh, we found one of their stashes and they didn't like that. And, uh, they surrounded us and fought us throughout the whole day and, uh, the element that was escorting EOD out to us, they hit an ID, uh, exactly where they, uh, where Loveless got shot in the face. Yeah. So they hit the ID that was intended for us. And, um, so it's just, you know,

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  you're just rolling the dice, you know, it's like, what do you want to do? Do you want to flank and possibly hit an ID there? Right. Are, are they, um, trying to make you hit one where you're standing? Uh, it's, it's really like a crazy fight, like, like. From my first deployment to my second deployment, like they limited our freedom of movement. And I cannot tell you how effective that is. Like my first deployment, yeah, we could flank, we could, you know, conduct all our battle drills. We, you know, you weren't afraid to go anywhere. But the second deployment, it's like you were afraid to take every step and you had to try not to get shot while doing it.

• 1:11:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:26Speaker 03

  So it's just a, it's a kind of a crazy, a crazy fight.

• 1:11:29Speaker 04

  It, it really is. And you know, it's interesting because CQB changed a lot during the war because of how the enemy adapted to it. And, you know, and, and how, how they would barricade rooms or, or hide and things like that. And I think this is the first time that I've heard how much ground operations, like, you know, the regular army battle drills had to adapt to the, the evolving situation. Because, uh, because of how they were, you know, adapting to US tactics.

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  Well, it's just like even the way we moved, uh, adapted, right? We no longer went through, uh, we, we no longer moved in wedges. You know, the standard squad movement is, you know, fire team wedges. That is asking for a bad day when you're walking through a minefield, right? We, we filed everywhere. That way the, hopefully, you know, the man up front was the one who's stepping on it, you know? And you're not combing a, a minefield with, you know, a wedge. You're, everybody's walking on the same footsteps and yeah. Um, so that type of movement's not the best for firefights, right? Because, you know, once you get into a firefight, you gotta get online and everything like that.

• 1:12:47Speaker 03

  But like when you're dealing with, uh, you know, counter ID, you know, uh, measures, like that's, that's the best way. Is to get behind the guy in front of you and walk into his footsteps. Um, which is, um, you know, it's what we had to do. Uh, ran your file everywhere and, uh, you know, we use the canal, we utilize the canals as, as best we could. Because we figured they couldn't put an ID in the water. You know, so it's like, if you were in the water, uh, you know, like you, you were kind of safe. You just had to stay away from the banks. Um, because they'd started putting in homemade claymores and stuff like that. Um, but, uh, They'd fill coffee cans with like nuts and bolts and stuff and you know make directional

• 1:13:30Speaker 03

  charges and you know and it's basically their version of a claymore.

• 1:13:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:34Speaker 03

  But yeah, you'd be walking through the canals with your rifle over your head and you're like, man, this is Vietnam. I don't care what you guys say.

• 1:13:40Speaker 04

  No, e- even, e- even, uh, even walking in file everywhere, like in Vietnam, you know, they, they weren't doing wedge formations through double canopy jungle, you know, and, and try, you know, trying to maintain, you know, eyesight of each other and things like that, you know, like there's, there are a lot of similarities to how you guys were fighting for sure.

• 1:14:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, uh, I mean, we even like, so Vietnam vets call, uh, Vietnam Nam. We call the Arghandab the Dob. So that was our joke that we'd have. It's like, oh, it's the Dob.

• 1:14:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. Were, were, were there, were there at all? Because what I'm hearing are a lot of lessons learned, right? And a lot of things that you guys are innovating based on enemy tactics. Were there, uh, were there people at all interested in what you guys were learning?

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  Um, well, you know, you do your, uh, AARs for every major like event that happens and like every patrol was a major event for us. So we were doing a lot of like documenting what happened and what we did and stuff like that. I don't know who is interested in that.

• 1:14:49Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:14:49Speaker 03

  Um, like, I don't know, are you referring to any like organization?

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  I'm talking about, I'm talking about anybody outside of your direct, you know, your company chain of command. Um, this seems like, even though this was not, y- y- you know, one of the things about Afghanistan is because of the varied terrain, obviously combat was different everywhere, right?

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  Um, yeah.

• 1:15:12Speaker 04

  But you guys are learning or relearning very specific lessons of a type of warfare.

• 1:15:18Jack Murphy?

  I, I hope somebody out there is like writing this up as a case study.

• 1:15:21Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:15:22Jack Murphy?

  That people can learn from in the future.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, there, there was, uh, so this was my last deployment before I ETS'd, um, but I do remember hearing from the guys, uh, that, you know, had a deployment, like the Joes. The deployment after that, uh, how like, kinda like the counter IED measures have like shifted completely. And we were kinda the guinea pigs of trying to figure that out, right? Like, we were the, the first wave, if you will. And then, so like the, their second deployment was to a different area. But like, their tactics shifted dramatically, like with, like the way they used the, uh, mine sweepers. And they had like all this other, like, uh, like, uh, I can't remember what the term was for it. But like the electronic warfare, like,

• 1:16:06Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  like training that they received, uh, and how they maneuvered their second deployment was very interesting. I was like, man, I wish we had that kinda shit while we were there, when I was point man. But, uh, uh, no, we were kinda on this, like the tip of the spear, like first wave. Hey, this, you know, like, and it, there was data collected, uh, I don't know who,

• 1:16:27Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28Speaker 03

  who looked through that and stuff, but that, that, we definitely learned, uh, from it. And, uh, yeah, that, like, we developed a whole new kinda way of fighting in that kind of a area. And Afghanistan is so crazy, cause it's like, there's so many different regions, you know? The Argadad River Valley, that river valley was like a jungle, but the Paktika province was, you know, mountainous. It's like Colorado and then you got Helmand, which is like Tatooine or, you know, like some desert, you know? It's like, so it's like, there's so many different types of ways to fight out there. But, uh, the IEDs were what was the most important, or the, I guess what most sought after. Like what types of IEDs were you encountering?

• 1:17:09Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:17:09Speaker 03

  Uh, and that's what you, like, the, the, the PowerPoints you get at CAF when you're flying in is like, be on the lookout for coffee cans, be on the lookout for everything, you know? It's like, so, um, yeah, I'm sure that's evolved and like they, the EOD guys did an amazing job of documenting everything they came across, right? That was part of their job was to conduct their BDA's and stuff. And before they blow it up, they document, um, and, uh, yeah, what they did with that, I don't know. That was, that was over, over my pay grade, but, uh, yeah, no, um, but yeah, it is definitely, we were, we were the first wave of that.

• 1:17:49Jack Murphy?

  How, how did that deployment start to wind down for you?

• 1:17:53Speaker 03

  Uh, so we, I mean, there, there's a point, like I said, where we were down to like two and a half squads and we still had to.

• 1:18:01Jack Murphy?

  It's crazy.

• 1:18:02Speaker 03

  There, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

• 1:18:08Speaker 03

  Uh, even though we didn't really feel that way, uh, we all thought we were just all gonna all die out there. Uh, we kinda went crazy at, at one point, I feel like, but, uh, we did get reinforcements. We got, uh, some, some leadership back, uh, and we got some new Joes and stuff, but we got, uh, our replacements came in. And, uh, we did what was called like, you know, what you always do in the army when you're being replaced is, uh, the left seat, right seat.

• 1:18:32Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:18:32Speaker 03

  And, uh, so we were replaced by a artillery battery. We were not replaced by infantry, which blew our minds. We were like, are you kidding me? Like, oh my God. So, uh, they took a battery from the hundred and first and, uh, they, uh, replaced us at cop times and, uh, we did everything we could to kinda get them ready for the fight that they were able to, or that they were, you know, going to inherit. But, uh,

• 1:19:08Speaker 03

  it's also the end of our fight, right? So you got away, like, what, you know, do you risk losing another guy to give these guys the best chance you can? And, uh, we did. We ended up, uh, you know, losing another guy.

• 1:19:22Jack Murphy?

  Shit.

• 1:19:22Speaker 03

  Uh, in, uh, during our left seat, right seat. Um, uh, but, uh, it really opened up the eyes of the hundred and first guys and, you know, showed them the fight they were about to inherit and, uh, they actually, uh, they're writing a book of their own right now, uh, and it'll be out in June. So there would be a sequel to our book kinda, uh, if you're interested in hearing their story.

• 1:19:47Jack Murphy?

  Your, your book dovetails with Yaski's book, that it's the same battalion?

• 1:19:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, so William Yesky, his book, Damn the Valley, he was in Bravo Company, and he tells the story of Bravo Company during that same time. So the 2009, 2010 deployment to the Argadon River Valley. So his book talks about his platoon, and like I said, they were on the south side of the Argadon River. And yeah, my book talks about my platoon, so second platoon of Charlie Company, and our fight on the north

• 1:20:23Speaker 05

  If your phone sounds like mine, you know life gets busy. But no matter how busy I am, my health, including my sexual health, is a priority for me. When I learned prep could be an option for women, I looked into it. Prep can be about 99% effective in preventing HIV through sex when taken as prescribed, and it comes as a long-acting injectable, which might need more time between doses. Ask your healthcare provider about a long-acting injectable prep option, and visit prepisforwomen.com. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 1:20:51Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:21:19Speaker 03

  Side of the river. I didn't include a lot from One or Three Charlie, mainly because, you know, I didn't know a lot. We didn't interact with them a lot. Because like I said, we were doing our own patrolling, our own QRF-ing and stuff like that. We did have some interactions, and they came out and helped us, you know, here and there. And, you know, the Boots and Rifle ceremonies, they would all come to and stuff. But for the most part, Two Charlie was out on her own, out of cop times. And One and Three Charlie were operating on a cop no one. So I didn't, I didn't speak to their story as much, because I kind of want them to come out and tell their story. And I don't want to take that from them.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  Excuse me, but um, yeah, uh, so that's the same timeframe as damn the valley, uh, just on the other side of the river.

• 1:22:09Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:09Speaker 03

  And, uh, yeah, I, I feel like, uh, like, um, it's just, uh, reading his book and stuff, it was just crazy to hear the difference. You know, just on the other side of the river.

• 1:22:20Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:20Speaker 03

  And it's, uh, it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's a crazy story.

• 1:22:25Jack Murphy?

  What, uh, and, and how did, how did your book, The Devil's Playground, how did that come about for you?

• 1:22:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, uh, about November of twenty twenty three, I wanna say, yeah. There was a book that came out called Bravo Company and it was, uh, I'm gonna give Ben Kessling his kudos. Uh, it was written by, uh, uh, Wall Street, uh, journalist, um, named Ben Kessling. He, uh, was doing like, uh, kinda, I think he was doing an article about, uh, Operation Resiliency, uh, with the Independence Fund. And he met the guys at Bravo Company and decided to write a book. Um, so when that book came out, it, it kinda lit a fire under a lot of our asses. Uh, because the story was out, right?

• 1:23:12Speaker 03

  Like, uh, a lot of guys have been struggling with the Aragonado River Valley for over twelve years.

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  Um, we all, you know, our own ways after that deployment, some guy is, you know, went to special operations. Some guys like myself, ETS, uh, the company got mixed around, you know, uh, but I, I, I quit it too. Like, we, we ran away from the valley like, you know, cockroaches in the light. We didn't wanna have anything to do with it and stuff. So when this book came out, uh, I kinda let the cat out of the bag and it's like, hey, man, like, the story's out. Uh, you know, so I read that book in like two days and I don't read a lot. So the fact that I was just so drawn to the sights, the smells, the sounds, you know, it just brought it all back.

• 1:24:03Speaker 03

  And I'd really been thinking about it every single day for the tw- past twelve years. Uh, but because it was now in a physical form of a book, I was like, man, we gotta tell our story. And I know there's hesitation in the past with two Charlie guys not wanting to, you know, share what happened and whatnot, but I think it was because it was one of us that was doing it that, you know, they were kind of more on board. So I reached out to everybody who I was Facebook stalking. And I asked them, I was like, hey, guys, like, what do you think about me writing a book about our deployment?

• 1:24:42Speaker 03

  And and us and they were all in. So what I did was is I got ahold of as many as and as many of the guys as I could. And I traveled around the country and interviewed each one, collected our stories. And the way I I wrote my book is it's a third person. So it's third person omniscient. So you get in the heads of all the guys. And so it's not just my story. It's our story.

• 1:25:08Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:25:08Speaker 03

  And that that was the most important to me is to keep it our story because, you know, it's like I, in order to do this story justice, I couldn't just tell it from my perspective. So.

• 1:25:19Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, that's that's really cool. Well, I I think I think that's the right way to do it, man. That you go around and, you know, you take sort of like a historians or a journalist's approach to it. And you get all these stories from your teammates and then collect them together. It's really incredible.

• 1:25:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I conducted over like thirty interviews. I didn't get everybody. Some guys were harder to track down than others, but I got a lot. And I think I saw thirty five guys, but I only did thirty interviews because you gotta understand I was playing with fire. Um, a lot of guys had buried a lot of demons and try to unbury those, you know, it's it's very risky. Um, and then some guys were more willing to or be be open with it than others, and I respected that. But I I wanted to see everybody. Um, because I know, like, I hadn't spoken to any of them for twelve years. It was weird. Uh, we just, like I said, we all scattered and tried to figure it out on our own.

• 1:26:20Speaker 03

  And I think the one thing that we were missing was each other. Um, so we got the band back together. Dale Nollinger was a huge help in that. Uh, he's a two Charlie guy and he was the one getting me phone numbers, getting me addresses. And we'd conduct Zoom calls.

• 1:26:41Speaker 03

  Excuse me, during our, during my trip around the country, which kind of mimicked my routes in Afghanistan, because I'd just go everywhere, like back and forth, like, but, yeah, so we'd be doing Zoom calls and we'd have those discussions together. We'd talk about the hard days, we'd talk about, and we'd catch up, you know, we'd see what guys are up to now, you know, and that was the most powerful time for me was seeing these guys' current day. And seeing their, their wives, their kids, their families, their jobs, what they're up to, where they're living, the men that they had become. And, yeah, that, that meant a lot to me, to see that.

• 1:27:25Speaker 03

  And, yeah, so, we had a reunion. Our platoon sergeant's son was getting married and we went and crashed that wedding. That was the first, eighteen of us showed up to that. And that was the first time that we had seen each other for twelve years.

• 1:27:44Jack Murphy?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 1:27:45Speaker 03

  It, it was like we had just saw each other yesterday.

• 1:27:48Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:49Speaker 03

  And we picked up right where we left off and same old stupid jokes about each other and, you know, calling each other names, it's the same name, Colin, and, yeah, it was awesome. But after that, the honeymoon was over and I had to get to writing the book. So I went to the local library with the rest of the homeless population. And every day I just sat down and listened to the interviews, took notes and kind of put it all together and now I've got the book right here.

• 1:28:21Jack Murphy?

  Where, where can people go to find the book now?

• 1:28:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you can order it off of CaseMate's website or you can get it on Amazon. It's available on Audible or like audiobook. I think it might be on, basically wherever you get books, you know, wherever you, I think it's on Spotify even, you can order the audiobook on Spotify. I got a Facebook page for the book. It's The Devil's Playground Book. And then we got an Instagram, @TheDevil'sPlaygroundBook. But, yeah, make sure you put The Devil's Playground Book, because if you just put The Devil's Playground, there's like a lot of like romance novels out there that has that title, which I think is hilarious. Because our, our, I mean, our story's kind of a romance story if you think, if you want to dig deep into it, I guess, but.

• 1:29:08Speaker 04

  So I, out of curiosity, you know, you, you mentioned, and it's very understandable. You know, um, that a lot of guys kind of buried this and, and, you know, uh, stuffs it down deep. And for you personally, and maybe for some of the guys, did you, did you find this to be a cathartic process and then getting all the guys back together? Because I think, I think that there's a thing where a lot of guys like divorce themselves completely from the community, from the service, from everything, when they're trying to create a new life. And, you know, move on with things. Um, but that's not necessarily the most healing way to go about it.

• 1:29:49Speaker 04

  So for you, for the other guys, did you find this whole process to be, was there any kind of catharsis in it for you?

• 1:29:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, so, I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I mean, I guess I can speak to some of the guys. Uh, they've come out forward and, you know, like thanked, you know, thanked me, thanked Dale for just getting the band back together because we were, that's what we were missing. Uh, there wasn't a day that went by that we hadn't thought about the valley. I hadn't thought about one of those guys or, you know, like not, not just the bad times, but just, you know, I'd see a tree and it would remind me of a tree in the shoe-ins or something, you know, something stupid like that, you know, like it, it had, uh, had taken a hold of so much of my life that I didn't even realize it. And, you know, you keep moving to stay alive. If you're, if you're stagnant, you're dead.

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  So that's the, that's the kind of the philosophy that I had is like, I just gotta keep moving. You just gotta keep moving, go to school, you know, become this, do this, get your degree, do that, you know, it'll go away. Um, but it never did. Um, and, uh, yeah, I, I think, uh, this is, this was so much more than a book. And it, to me, it never really was about a book. Yeah, I told the guys I wanted to tell our story, but it, it was really about getting the band back together.

• 1:31:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:09Speaker 03

  And, uh, so much healing has gone on over the last two years of this whole process. And it's going to continue to go on because, uh, we're continuing to do reunions. We had, uh, a reunion last, uh, November, uh, we're planning our next one. Uh, we had a reunion at Fort Bragg, uh, a couple of weeks ago. That was pretty cool, but, uh, Initially, yeah, uh, our first get together, there's a lot of talks about firefights. There's a lot of talks about remember this, remember this, remember this, you know? That's our origin story.

• 1:31:41Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:31:41Speaker 03

  We're always going to have that and we're never going to be able to get rid of that. But the more we do these reunions, the more memories we have that aren't linked to just the valley. And, uh, you know, the most recent one, we were talking about the wedding or we were talking about the Colorado reunion. And, and we, we, the questions kind of shift from, you know, talking about firefights and asking about, you know, this stuff to, hey, how are the kids?

• 1:32:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:09Speaker 03

  You know?

• 1:32:09Speaker 04

  It's because like collectively, you got some closure on it.

• 1:32:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, by no means are, are I a therapist and I don't know what the heck we're doing, but we're doing, we're doing something and.

• 1:32:20Speaker 04

  But you're building, you're building new history too, right? Like you're building, like now, so that will always be your history. But now with each reunion and, and each get together, there's new history to, to revel in and cover and talk about.

• 1:32:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Like I said, we'll always have our origin story. Like we're bonded through trauma.

• 1:32:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:32:42Speaker 03

  There's no getting away from that, but, uh, hopefully as time progresses and we have more of a bank of memories together, we'll recall and, you know, we'll recall less and less of the bad ones and we'll talk about more and more of the good ones. And, uh, I feel like we're on that path. Uh, uh, I mean, we're on a path. I don't know which one we're on, but, uh, I, I can speak for myself that like, I think I got a part of me back.

• 1:33:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:33:08Speaker 03

  Uh, I, I didn't have and, uh, it feels good. Yeah.

• 1:33:13Speaker 04

  We've got, uh, questions for Andrew? Uh, let me check. Um.

• 1:33:20Speaker 04

  No, I really loved it. Yeah, no. Okay. Yeah.

• 1:33:23Speaker 03

  I've been, uh, one thing I'd like to say is like with the book coming out and other groups of veterans reading it, especially like Argonab veterans, cause there's been guys from the unit we replaced that reached out to me. There's guy, I mean, I told you the hundred and first, their book is coming out in June. Uh, Joseph Fontenot is, uh, the author. He was one of the hundred and first guys. Uh, it's called, I believe, The Sons of the Arghandab, uh, the big, big guns in the devil's playground. Um, so these stories are coming out and it's like a snowball effect.

• 1:33:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:54Speaker 03

  And, um, I'm not saying you guys have to go out and write a book, but. Get the band back together.

• 1:34:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:34:00Speaker 03

  Talk, talk with your guys and there are organizations that do that. Um, but really what it's going to come down to is team leaders, squad leaders, reaching out to your Joes and being like, hey, what are you up to? How you been? You know?

• 1:34:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  Let's get, you know, let's, let's do this and uh, I, it's really awesome to see different units starting to do that. Uh, guys reaching out to me and being like, hey, man, I was with this unit, you know, you replaced us. We're getting together in November. We're going to start talking about maybe telling our story.

• 1:34:36Speaker 05

  If your phone sounds like mine, you know, life gets busy. But no matter how busy I am, my health, including my sexual health, is a priority for me. When I learned prep could be an option for women, I looked into it. Prep can be about 99% effective in preventing HIV through sex when taken as prescribed. And it comes as a long acting injectable, which might mean more time between doses. Ask your healthcare provider about a long acting injectable prep option and visit prepisforwomen.com. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 1:35:04Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star trust pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:35:32Speaker 03

  And the guys after us having reunions and I've been reached out by a lot of people. And this snowball effect is what is necessary to get, you know, the healing started with a lot of veterans, you know, struggling.

• 1:35:46Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:35:47Speaker 03

  That's the coolest thing I've ever done.

• 1:35:49Speaker 04

  It's incredible. I mean, honestly, there should be an Arghandab association for all the guys that were there because it is, it is one of those areas, like it's like a Ramadi or a Fallujah. It's, it's a unique experience within the GWAT that really only the guys that were there are going to get.

• 1:36:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:08Speaker 04

  You know?

• 1:36:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, and like I said, I really appreciate you guys letting us, you know, giving us a platform to kind of share our stories because like, a lot of the stories out there are all Green Berets and, you know, Navy SEALs.

• 1:36:21Jack Murphy?

  Oh yeah, man, send, uh, send, send that 101st guy our way when his book comes out. Yes. We'll have him on the show, even though he's a leg.

• 1:36:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, aerosol, aerosol. No, but we, we, we do, we want to tell more of these stories and there are, there are people out there, I'll put you in touch with, uh, Matt Tardio, I think, who also wants to tell more of these stories. These are stories that need to be told and unfortunately, you know, in, in the market, you know, for, you know, in the market, it's, you know, the Delta or SEAL or Green Beret that's going to get the views, but, but, but these, but these are really stories that need to be told, need to be heard because like I said, you guys were out there with

• 1:37:07Speaker 04

  like 1/20 of the resources, um, and hooking and jabbing every single day. You weren't flying out with the 1/60th, doing a DA, you know, mixing it up and then flying back for hot chow in the morning.

• 1:37:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's like, uh, what I like to tell people is like, yeah, those guys, those guys are lucky. They get to fly in, fly out, and then they're done, you know? We had to stick, stick around the neighborhood where the, one of the top dogs just got, you know, smacked and we had to deal with the aftermath.

• 1:37:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:37:39Speaker 03

  This sucks.

• 1:37:40Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:37:42Jack Murphy?

  So I just want to tell the viewers out there, uh, we're taking two weeks off for the holidays, but we will have an episode for you next Friday. Uh, Jason Davis served, uh, in Ranger Battalion and in the Asymmetrical Warfare Group. And then around New, right after New Year's, I think it is, it's going to be our New Year's, uh, review episode. Um, so you'll have two shows coming up.

• 1:38:05Speaker 04

  They're both pre-recorded, so we won't be here, but you know, you guys will do your thing. Where can people find you, Andrew?

• 1:38:12Speaker 03

  Uh, like I said, I got Facebook and Instagram, just the Devil's Playground book.

• 1:38:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:38:17Speaker 03

  And yeah, there's a bunch of photos that didn't make it into the, uh, into the book itself. I was only, I was, you know, I was limited as to how many photos I could have.

• 1:38:27Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:38:27Speaker 03

  I just photo dumped on the Facebook page and I add, add photos throughout the week. Um, but yeah, you can check us out on Instagram, Facebook and, uh, yeah, just, I'd love to hear what you guys think about the book and what you guys think about our story and, uh, yeah.

• 1:38:42Speaker 04

  Hey guys, um, and do please like and share this episode again. This is one of those things where, you know, it, it's, these are stories that absolutely need to be heard by the American public. They don't really have an appreciation for what, what guys were doing. They really don't, I mean, it's, it, it, to me, it's amazing, you know, and, and, you know, sometimes talking with the conventional guys are my favorite interviews because like I said, you guys were hooking and jabbing like non-stop. The, the idea that you guys were innovating battle, battle drills based on what was happening on the ground. That's important, that's historical, that's important stuff.

• 1:39:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, uh, we really kinda fine tuning everything to a very specific fight. And, uh, yeah, um, it's a, it's kinda, you bring up like, uh, like the people, like, like people don't know what they don't know, right?

• 1:39:44Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:39:44Speaker 03

  And if we keep, we keep showing them like the sexy stories of, you know, like the, you know, uh, all those, all the, you know, special operations in, in Navy SEALs and stuff like that, that's all they're gonna know.

• 1:39:55Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:39:55Speaker 03

  And, uh, I remember, uh, kinda, kinda to pivot off of like that idea was, it's like when I was coming home on my mid tour leave from my first deployment, you know, you're in your uniform when you're flying home. So, uh, I had some lady like on, on the flight, you know, ask me and it's like, oh, where, where were you? And I told her, I was like, oh, um, you know, I was in Afghanistan and they're like, oh, thank God you weren't in Iraq. This was like after I had been on like in a hundred and fifty man ambush and pulled guys out of a burning vehicle and I'm just like, oh yeah, you're right. Thank God I wasn't in Iraq. But people, people don't know what they don't know. And like, they didn't know at the time, the media was covering Iraq and that's all they would cover. And you know, Afghanistan kind of got shadowed. And then once that was over, Afghanistan got

• 1:40:38Speaker 03

  the light. And that was my second deployment. That's when we were kind of starting to get the light. And we were on CNN and you know, the Argandad River Valley were, was where all the reporters would go because that's where they would get their story. And yeah.

• 1:40:51Jack Murphy?

  Andrew, thank you so much for doing this show and for writing your book. Hope people go and check it out. A Case Mates website or on Amazon. There's a link down the description for you guys if you want to click on that and find it there. Thank you so much, man.

• 1:41:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:41:08Jack Murphy?

  And we will.

• 1:41:12Speaker 05

  Girl, guess what?

• 1:41:14Speaker 06

  Hey, what's up?

• 1:41:15Speaker 05

  I'm looking into prep for HIV prevention.

• 1:41:17Speaker 06

  Prep? I didn't think that was for women.

• 1:41:20Speaker 05

  Same. Then I asked my doctor and she said, anyone who is sexually active should know about PrEP.

• 1:41:25Speaker 06

  Really?

• 1:41:26Speaker 05

  And there are long-acting injectable options.

• 1:41:29Speaker 06

  Long-acting? I like the sound of that.

• 1:41:32Speaker 05

  Sounds like it's time to talk to your healthcare provider. You can also check out preppistforwomen.com for more information. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 1:41:40Speaker 00

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat with flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment. Get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:42:10Jack Murphy?

  Well, I won't, and Dave won't, and Dee won't, but there will be a pre-recorded episode for you guys on Friday. We'll see you then.

• 1:42:19Speaker 05

  If your phone sounds like mine, you know life gets busy. But no matter how busy I am, my health, including my sexual health, is a priority for me. When I learned PrEP could be an option for women, I looked into it. PrEP can be about 99% effective in preventing HIV through sex when taken as prescribed. And it comes as a Long-acting injectable, which might need more time between doses. Ask your healthcare provider about a long-acting injectable prep option and visit prepisforwomen.com. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 1:42:47Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:43:17Jack Murphy?

  And go check out Eyes On, our sister podcast, and subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't. So, see you guys after the holidays.

• 1:43:28Speaker 05

  Girl, guess what?

• 1:43:30Speaker 06

  Hey, what's up?

• 1:43:31Speaker 05

  I'm looking into prep for HIV prevention.

• 1:43:33Speaker 06

  Prep? I didn't think that was for women.

• 1:43:36Speaker 05

  Same. Then I asked my doctor and she said anyone who is sexually active should know about prep.

• 1:43:42Speaker 06

  Really?

• 1:43:43Speaker 05

  And there are long-acting injectable options.

• 1:43:45Speaker 06

  Long-acting? I like the sound of that.

• 1:43:48Speaker 05

  Sounds like it's time to talk to your healthcare provider. You can also check out prepisforwomen.com for more information. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 1:43:56Speaker 00

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000.

• 1:44:32Speaker 05

  $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:44:56Speaker 02

  PNC Bank brings you Call of the Wild Money Moves. Hear that? YOLO! That's an internet troll telling you to put all your money into a single investment. YOLO! YOLO, YOLO! He wants you to liquidate your emergency fund. YOLO! And buy a digital racehorse named Silicon Steve. YOLO! Stay vigilant, he's very persistent. YOLO! Guard against wild money moves with PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. What would you like today? Can I get a number two? Anything else? Same shift. Different day.

• 1:45:34Speaker 00

  I need a smoke. What can I get you? Can I get a number four, number seven, number eight? Same shift. I need a smoke. Different day. Can I get a... Using nicotine to relieve stress might just make you feel worse. Break the cycle and quit nicotine with free daily texts, expert tips, and community support from X Program. By Truth Initiative. Visit Xprogram.com to start your quit journey today.