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#204 John Dailey: Tough Rugged Bastards: A Memoir of a Life in Marine Special Operations
What drives someone to write a memoir called "Tough, Rugged Bastards"? Join us as we host John Dailey, a seasoned veteran of Marine Special Operations, who gives us an insider's look into his forthcoming book and shares the untold story behind the formation of MARSOC (Marine Special Operations Command). John recounts the early challenges faced by Force Recon Marines post-9/11, including the often-overlooked frustrations of being overshadowed by Navy SEALs. Through his vivid storytelling, John takes us back to the rigorous and resourceful beginnings of building a special operations unit from scratch.
What does it take to build a specialized military unit from the ground up? John Dailey walks us through the grueling process of establishing a recon unit with minimal equipment and high expectations. He shares compelling stories of senior team members adapting to and overcoming these tough conditions, coupled with the strategic advantage of an extensive intelligence network across Iraq. Hear about the innovative tactics used during early operations, including a mission that hinged on thorough intel analysis, cooperation with SEALs, and navigating complex terrains—all of which highlight the resilience and ingenuity that became synonymous with their operations.
How do support personnel contribute to special operations success? In this episode, we underline the critical roles of intelligence officers, mechanics, and other support staff through anecdotes from deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. John sheds light on the importance of teamwork and mutual respect within the special operations community. As he transitions from active combat to a mentorship role, John emphasizes the significance of documenting experiences for future generations. Learn about the camaraderie that binds special operations forces, the psychological tactics used in high-stakes missions, and the bittersweet journey from elite warrior to mentor. Don't miss out on this rich, multifaceted conversation that pays tribute to the often-unsung heroes of special operations..
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Speaker 2:Let's go, you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who's the best with guns, with knives, with his bare hands, a man who's been trained to ignore, ignore weather to live off the land job was disposed of enemy personnel to kill period college. Oh, wow, yeah, I had to catch the red fly, or red eye, back from uh to fly out to California overnight. And yeah, so I'm in. I know what you mean.
Speaker 1:We're hurting, but we're going gonna make it through, man. Uh, john, thank you for being back here, man, it's good to see you you too, man if you are not a fan of this show and you haven't listened to our previous episodes.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's john daly, uh, mild mannered american by day, uh, but in reality, our man here has, uh, lived quite the life you've been part of something that is, uh, it's just amazing. Uh, you're now inked in history forever, whether you like it or not. Yeah, so let's dive in man. Uh, the book comes out in a few weeks Tough, rugged Bastards A Memoir of a Life in Marine Special Operations. For a lot of us, we tend to think of MARSOC as this big thing that just popped up overnight one day. But that could be further from the truth. So today, on Secure Podcast, john seven-year book my man, oh, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be on shelves here in, I think, a month from today, or yeah, so pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's take it back to the beginning. Man Debt one um all those years ago. How did that come into existence?
Speaker 2:Right. So it uh, actually the story starts a little bit further back. I can't remember if we talked about it last time, but after the failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran, the government decided that they needed a special operations command and when that was formed in 1987, the SEALs joined, the Green Berets joined, the Air Force, paratroopers, cct guys joined and the Marines were asked to contribute force recon to that and the Marine Corps said, no, we're good. And that led to a lot of consternation among the force recon Marines because money and equipment and training and things like that weren't as and missions really weren't as uh, easy to come by for us as as they were for the you know, our brothers in SoCal and the first time I really saw it was, uh, I was the platoon sergeant for a force recon platoon went on our, our deployment, um uh um on ship in uh 2001, you know, sitting in in australia at a bar when we had 9-11 happened right, um, when we got to, you know, setting off the coast of afghanistan, the, the mu commanders colonel came in and said, hey, I want to send your boys in early to do the you know, reconnaissanceissance of the site before we send anybody in and we realized that in order to do it, we were going to need to borrow some special operations aircraft.
Speaker 2:And we went and asked, hey, can we borrow some helos? And they were like, nah, we think we'll just have the SEALs do it. So you know the SEALs great guys, you know. But they did the initial landing in Afghanistan, to the south, not up north where the SF guys were at, but to establish what was FOB Rhino. And then we went in shortly thereafter. That was, you know, seeing it from.
Speaker 2:Uh, I was pissed right seeing it from, you know, having to go back and tell my guys, hey, yeah, we're, we're stand out, we're not doing this because, uh, and worse, the seals are going right exactly but uh, you know, on our way back, you know, to the states from from afghanistan in, but you know, on our way back, you know, to the States from Afghanistan, in early 2002, you know, we started hearing rumors that, hey, there's going to be an increase in special operation forces and the Marines have been told that they're going to participate no-transcript. So he was tasked with putting together it wound up being less than 100 men a test unit that was going to work for SOCOM for a period of two years, and so he picked me to be one of the team leaders. And when he called me into his office and told me, hey, you can pick your team. You know, find the guys that you want, we'll get them. But uh, the stipulation was that they're tough, rugged bastards and I kind of I filed that.
Speaker 2:uh, filed that away in my head and I'm like you know what, if I ever write a book, that's going to be the title of it right there. Just read a notebook annotated yeah, got it. Yeah, I'm like that's the easy parts done. I got the title, now I just got to write it.
Speaker 2:But, um, so we, we got, you know, put together out of that, you know, roughly 100 men. There was about uh, a third of us were the former, you know, were from force recon, you know, recon marines about uh. Another third were intel guys and and they had gone all out, I mean, they were pulling marines back from the nsa in different places, so we had really no shit heavy hitters on the, you know, on the intel side of the house, which which you know was, was critical to our success. Yeah, and then the other third were, you know, our communicators and and jtacs and admin, logistics guys, mechanics, all this stuff, and we were short, we were really short on all of that. So a lot of those guys were doing, you know, more than one job, and then they were manning a machine gun when we went out for raids.
Speaker 2:We just didn't have the ass to do much else. But we trained up really not, you know initially not knowing where we were going to deploy to. We had assumed that it was going to be Afghanistan. So we were spending a lot of time in the mountains. You know a lot of uh with the expectation that we were going to be doing you know, long range uh, reconnaissance missions. And then about uh, like halfway into our training cycle it was allotted. They said, hey, now you're going to Iraq and the focus will be on direct action.
Speaker 2:So we shifted gears, shifted our training and prepared for that. And then in 2004, we deployed, and so we deployed. It was a strange relationship. We deployed underneath a Naval Special Warfare Task Group, so it's kind of like a, I guess a little more like a ODB sort of, and we were like a SEAL platoon or like a big-ass ODA. And when we got there, a lot of the hundred men that we had were like cherry picked and sent, so a lot of the intel guys were pulled from us to go support other SEAL teams and so we were an assault element of about roughly 30 guys. Yeah, beefy, I mean, we definitely brought some firepower. Yeah, beefy, I mean, we definitely brought some firepower.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's having to get back into that mindset and it's happened so often. No Green Beret has ever put together a long-range training calendar and actually executed it completely. Everything changes right before you go. How did the guys take that initial? Like, oh shit, like we're not, we're not going up. Guess, we're going to iraq.
Speaker 1:Because that that period in time in iraq was chaotic oh yes that was not a pleasant time and you know there's a lot of people that can recall back then nobody cared about Afghanistan. It was like well, you know, like hey Afghanistan's, like whatever dude you want to get combat, you're going to go to Iraq, like those were some wild, wild West states.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were. Yeah, we still. When we stood up I still had two of the guys who were going to be in my team were still in OIF-1. So we had to wait for them to get back before we could. So when we started I mean, you start a unit from scratch we had nothing. So we were borrowing buildings to kind of hang our hats in, but no weapons, no equipment.
Speaker 2:The only thing that every recon marine has is their own Atlas pack. Everybody had their own ruck that had been more shit sewn onto it and modified how they wanted it. So the first couple of months, I mean that's really all we did. We just load up our rucks and go out on 20-mile rucks through the hills of Pendleton, through the hills of Pendleton, and that set the baseline of expectation that, hey, you know, because we were a very senior group of guys, I mean we had as a team leader I was an E7 and I was like the junior guy. We had E7s, e8s, which is very or, you know, before MARSOC was very irregular in, you know, reconnaissance units. Usually E5, e6 were team leaders. You know, as an E7, I had just come from running a 30-man platoon in Afghanistan and now I was in charge of four dudes.
Speaker 2:So, kind of nice. But it set the expectation it won't give a shit how senior you are or how, how you think you are, you know, throw your rock on and and the expectation is that you, you know you become a tough, rugged bastard if you, if you aren't one already, exactly. And so guys took it kind of in stride. I mean, really it's, it's, you know, knowing that you're going to do less, um, you know long range patrolling, which sucks, and you know more, uh, just, you know blowing open doors and and going in and shooting bad guys. So everybody, nobody was too terribly sad about that.
Speaker 1:Nobody went uh and uh turned in their gear and said I'm out of here, turned in their gear and said I'm out of here Getting on the ground and having your guys being cherry picked and losing Because I mean, you created and you built teams and you enhanced our capabilities. And then you get there and they're like, hey, we're going to take your awesome intel dudes. How'd you leadership and how are you able to take that when stride and just focus on the bigger picture, which is like, hey, the rep of this entire thing, like it's an experiment, like we still have to go out there and produce and bring back some relevant numbers and show and prove that this is a good concept, how'd you guys take that all in stride?
Speaker 2:I mean we were absolutely annoyed by it when it happened, right, because I had, I mean, attached to my team I had a human guy, you know human intelligence, a SIGINT guy, all sorts of analysts you know I had, and they essentially worked for me, you know, during our training and that was phenomenal. But so we were annoyed initially. Phenomenal but so we were annoyed initially. But what we quickly came to realize was that, you know, when we took our dudes and sent them, like all over Iraq, we had guys in the green zone, you know liaison at the, you know OGA and things like that. Suddenly we had access to like everybody's intel. So we, we had, uh, I mean, we could, you know, very, very quickly we had a better overall picture of what was going on in the country than anybody did. Yeah, um, and that wound up being a huge paying huge dividends. So the the first mission that we did, we we essentially got into country and, uh, we were not replacing a SEAL team, you know another team, so we were kind of the first guys in the area. So normally you would show up and you know they'd be like, hey, here's a bunch of leftover target folders that we didn't have time for we had nothing we got. I tell this story all the time but we got met by Jocko. Got met by Jocko. I had deployed with him when he was an enlisted guy years before a couple of us had. We knew him a little bit. He was like, hey man, we really got nothing. This was his deployment before Ramadi and his task unit bruiser. He's like we don't have a whole lot. We just we know that there are these two guys that everybody's looking for, but we don't know, you know really who they are, where they are, anything about them. Um, so it really came down to us. We had to make some shit happen. And uh, one of the, the Intel analysts that we had just started like digging through Intel reports and he realized something that nobody else had kind of put together. You know there had been a number of. I mean like I think it was like 20, 23 interpreters, iraqi interpreters that were working for us, that had been killed over a series of a couple of months. You know it's all like executed. You know it wasn't like. You know heart series of a couple of months. Um, you know it's all like executed. You know it wasn't like. You know heart attacks, things like that, you know, um, and so he started like kind of just doing his thing and figuring out that, hey, they were all connected to this one person. And, uh, you know, hey, this, this person still works as an interpreter, oh shit, yeah, so he's, you know like. You know, like, hey, if you can, you guys can go find this person, grab this person. Then, you know, we'll probably be able to to make something happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so the the you know, I got picked to lead this first mission and it was because it was a little, it was unusual. We had to, we to, we had to take a SEAL with us who was I don't know if he was supposed to, like keep an eye on us, or he knew the territory a little bit and he had some, some skills. One of our human intelligence folks went, another, another Marine, myself, and then this person that we're going after was a female, a female, yeah. So we had they're like man, you got to have a female to search. So we were like we don't have any females. So we looked around and we were adjacent and working with a Polish Grom platoon and they had a female operator who is a total badass. All right, so Kate, kate comes with us, with us. So this the first mission we do. We've got a seal. Uh, you know, polish female. Uh, we're in cities and you know, uh, light skins, you know, uh, savans just driving, cruising through baghdad, um know, looking for this lady. Welcome to special operations.
Speaker 2:So, you know, we went to the place where she was supposed to work, like the contract company that, and they're like, oh well, she's not here, she works at this other place. So we're, you know, all day long, you know, we get to a place and they're like, oh, she's not here anymore, she's over here. So we're getting further and further and further. Uh, kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Finally, we locate the place that she had most recently worked and she had quit, like unexpectedly, you know. So like, yeah, that seems a little fishy, maybe, but uh, yeah, we convinced them to and we couldn't tell them why. We, you know, we wanted her, but we convinced them to call her in and tell her that they had a paycheck for her or something. So they bring her in and a guy drives her in. So we wound up grabbing both of them, taking them back, and at that point, 2004, we had our own interrogation facility. This was just a little bit before Abu Ghraib, I mean like a month before. It changed a lot of things.
Speaker 1:Rules were still a little different.
Speaker 2:So as soon as they start questioning this lady, it became very apparent quickly that, yes, she was responsible, but she was unwitting, right, so she had. It was like a reverse honeypot situation, right, some dude had, because she was not a very attractive woman, but some some good looking dude had, you know, hit on her and, you know, befriended her and then said, hey, you know, can you give me some addresses and things like this? I need to hire some interpreters or whatever. So she had kind of handed out the phone book of the recall roster and when she realized that, right, the saying that hell hath no fury, like a woman scorned, right, so she was pissed, obviously. So she was like, yeah, I'll do whatever you want, I'll give you him his friends.
Speaker 2:And that's how we went out that night. We grabbed him, you know, went to his place of business and you know, it just happened to be, uh, I don't know what, what, uh, he had like a VHS store, vhs cassette tapes, you know. But uh, you know, there's they're also producing propaganda and bombs and everything else. So, you know, we kind of put ourselves on the you know, with a win on the board quickly. And then, uh, from there, you know, you just shake that guy and and you know exactly Intel drives operations and we have to give a shout out to, to all those human those sing it, the all, the it's.
Speaker 1:All you hardworking, yeah, we pick on you, we call you nerdss, but at the end of the day you guys drive the operations and and that's why 18 fox, that's why the warrant function in 18 fox those two nerds going in doing deep diving into targets, like that's the beauty of it, like that's like when they took away your intel, guys, I can only imagine at first for that, that brief moment of like away your intel guys, I can only imagine at first for that, that brief moment of like great.
Speaker 1:But then you realize, like wait a second, I've got marines that are plugged in everywhere. We're still in this fight. That's a beautiful. I can't wait to read that in the book because it just shows the importance of every other support element. That's getting you guys in the fight and we and they get lost, they get forgetting about, they get forgotten all they get forgotten about all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's, it's really easy to forget about those guys, but we had, uh, we deployed with um. For some reason they decided they wanted to send this with these, uh, g wagons, mercedes bins, which are great for driving to the, you know, the chow hall on base, but, uh, they're not, uh, but they're not big enough to really put a whole lot in. We got them for Afghanistan and they were pretty good for Afghanistan. I had them in 2001 driving around Afghanistan. It was light enough where you could almost get a bunch of guys who just lifted over things if you need to, but not quite. But you can put them in helos, you can, uh, you do a lot with them.
Speaker 2:But so we realized that they weren't going to be useful, uh, in iraq. So right before we left, we got the only humvees that we could get and they were like barely running. They were uh, this. No, you know that this was still in the days when the you know no armor on vehicles, I mean not even the pretense of like doors. You know, we just had, you know, gun mounts on every, every door. Everybody rode sideways, you know, with a 249 or uh, uh, you know uh during, for uh or something. So we had uh look you know, like porcupines, with just tons of tons of barrels and just out everywhere, yeah, hoping somebody would screw with you.
Speaker 2:Um, and this was before like a really big, you know ied threat started but uh, yeah, we had the mechanics that you could hear them just, and they're just, you know, you know, turning those vehicles into something that was, it was useful. So I mean, from those guys, the communicators, the uh, you know, everybody, the admin guys, I mean you don't, you know, the mission doesn't happen. I had the like, really great opportunity, like I told you, I was out in California, flew out quickly to talk to the Marines, marine Corps basic reconnaissance course graduating. I was graduating today. I got to talk to him on Wednesday and you know that was one of the things.
Speaker 2:I was, man, you know, realize that it's it's team. You know you can build a big team around you, you know, full of all sorts of people that want to help you because they want to accomplish the mission and they are good at their job too. Or you can just sit around wondering why everybody else sucks and you're, you know, know they're not as awesome as you. Yeah, you know, and, uh, you know I was in the first. You know I was in that second category, you know, for a while in my younger years, and then you start to realize, man, read like dale carnegie, you know how to win friends, yep, influence people and you're like you know what it's a life's. Life's a lot better when you you bring your buddy on the team and and let the pros be pros at their job it's so true, man, it is.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely. It enhances your ability to really go after the enemy. Like no one wants to work with somebody that thinks that they're just a cream of the crop greatest thing on earth, like who gives a shit what badge funny hat you have on your head. Y'all wear the same uniform and you're all part of the same friggin team. Support each other. You can't do it alone. Friggin from motor pool guys to your, your s function that individuals like they all help you get in there. Like yeah, and Once you get that first little momentum on that operation, how fast did things pick up?
Speaker 2:It was incredible. We were just going out every night, a lot of times just multiple targets in a night. We'd go for weeks where it just that that cycle every single night, and that was really what we uh, we were also very comfortable with that. I mean, it's what you know as force recon platoon. You do a lot of training for direct action, close quarter battle, and so that wasn't, uh, outside of of our scope at all. So then they were like, hey, this is also a test, right? So we've got to, you know, try to throw some other things at you and see how you, how you perform.
Speaker 2:So we got pulled to provide a security detail for the Iraqi vice president. Oh shit, when they had the interim government before the first election. So, like, we were in charge, the, the paul burmer or whatever was the, the ambassador who's kind of running the country, and they're like, hey, we're gonna make this, this interim government, and then you all can hold your own elections. And so the uh, they had president, two vice presidents, and we were responsible for the Kurdish vice president, who?
Speaker 2:had the biggest threats against his life because all Iraqis aren't huge fans of the Kurds and this guy had been in Peshmerga He'd gotten after fighting with Saddam and everything. So he was a badass back in his day, but now he was a politician and so we we did that for a while. I got to lead the advanced team, just again, you know, doing a whole lot of driving, checking out, you know, route reps and things like that, checking out facilities before they had meetings and, um, really really cool time. But uh, had kind of pulled us off of the hunt. We were really hunting these two guys that that they had initially told us about. And uh, you know, again our Intel dudes were starting to dig up info, get a little, you know. We got relatively close to one of them who was kind of codenamed X right, they just called him X we had.
Speaker 2:This guy had been a part of Saddam's, you know, the former regime element. He was one of the deck of cards dudes. We found out, you know, the intel guys found out that he had been responsible for massacre and or at least assisting in the massacre of a whole bunch of Kurds, all right. So so he was also now, like, heavily involved in bombs, right, and they were, you know, they're running bombers, you know, uh, uh funding them and and things like that. So there there was a big push to prevent people from coming out to the real elections.
Speaker 2:So, um, we get, we had uh wound up detaining a couple of his relatives and, you know, we hit like his family compound essentially, and yeah, started to notice that hey, all of these dudes look alike, there's a really strong family, family resemblance, right, so we're like all right, so we didn't get him that time. But then we go on the security detail and then they pull us off of it because we have a lead on this guy. So we, we, we grab him and uh, we don't know it's him, we're pretty sure, because he looks just like the rest of the family. You know, one of his uh relatives pointed him out. It's like, yeah, that's that's the guy. Um, but he just wouldn't admit to it. He's like that's not me, man, that's not me. And finally we brought in a bunch of his family and they were like, yeah, that's him. And he's like, all right, it's me, but I'm not a bad guy, I'm just a farmer, you know, I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm just a farmer, just a farmer, but like man. A farmer, but like man. You hold up really really well under interrogation for a farmer. Um, so we, uh, we, you know, we can't, can't get at this point. You know he was going to go in front of an iraqi court, right, that was the way that things were being dealt with then he was. So, you know, they were gonna have to prove beyond, you know, a shadow of a doubt that he was this guy. And we had no hard evidence, all right.
Speaker 2:So somebody came up with the idea. They're like, hey, well, you know, we know the Kurdish vice president. You know why don't we, you know, see, if we can, you know, fly this guy out to the, you know his kind of hometown where the Kurdds hang out? Um, I think up around urbeel. And uh, you know what, if, what would happen if we just handed him over to the kurds? And like, oh, that would be bad for him, right, and like, well, but what if? What if he thought he was being handed over to the kurds? And uh, we're like, yeah, let's check and make sure that that's legit, that we can do this right.
Speaker 2:So we wound up taking him out. You know, he gets handed off. You know, when the bag comes off his head he's in a room with a bunch of angry Kurds with you know that obviously aren't there to play games and he doesn't know that we've got guys behind him, you know watching, and he just starts admitting to everything. Right, he starts talking and he wants to go back into the US custody. And so, man, you got to talk, bro, so he does, and so that, you know, led to kind of taking a pretty big player off the board and moving us closer to the big guy that we were, they've been.
Speaker 2:I mean, this guy had been another deck of card guy that had been, you know, eluding everybody, and again it was our Intel dudes that got, were able to get a source, like you know, as this driver. Yeah, they recruited a guy, got him in kind of into the network, got him know as this driver. You know, they recruit, recruited a guy, got him in kind of into the the network and got him in as this guy's driver and ultimately we're able to able to roll him up. You know, at a lunch, you know, at a fine dining establishment in downtown baghdad at noon that's fucking awesome.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's, that's 100, that's that success is so amazing. But it's short-lived, like you get to go, you go back, you debrief, you write it up on the whiteboard and then, uh, reset the clock and uh, everybody starts redevving. Start, hey, everybody has their marching orders, refit your kit. And uh, start devving out the next target. And, man, in that, in that period of time, there was no shortage of it. There was. There was always another asshole to go after oh, yeah, it's like.
Speaker 2:You know, people always call it whack-a-mole. Yeah, you hit, hit one and then you know a couple more will pop up. But so we, you know they were trying to give us some other mission sets to prove whether we could handle those. So the security detail thing we did, and then we did a lot of coalition sniper support during the joff was really kicking off. They would not let us, which a lot of us were kind of pissed about. But Fallujah was obviously going on while we were there too. But that was a Marine fight. Yeah, they didn't want us. Uh, they're like yeah, we know you can support marines. Um, you know we want to. Uh, so we, they kept us from there, but they sent us on a job which wound up being a pretty, pretty, uh, eventful time. What was that like that was. So I got to take a team of about eight snipers and we had a lot of guys who were sniper qualified and we did quite a bit of training. We were pretty well prepped.
Speaker 2:Najaf, if you're not I mean a lot of the readers probably aren't terribly familiar with it. It's not that big of a town but it has, on the outskirts, the largest cemetery in the world right. It's been a cemetery for thousands of years and it's a lot of above-ground graves. I mean it's like a little city made out of mud, little structures, below-ground tunnels. It's just a little city right made out of mud, little structures, you know, below ground tunnels. It's just a nightmare. It would be like an absolute, like fighting in way city right combined with trench warfare combined with like whatever you could imagine, and that's what really.
Speaker 2:That's what the Marine Corps was looking at the Marines and the Army. In the middle of the city is this mosque, called the Imam Ali Mosque, and it's the third holiest site for Shias, I think. So it's a big, you know, big golden dome, like a lot of them, but that had been taken over the compound, the complex around the mosque, by the Mahdi army, and so they had like five or 10,000 fighters in there. There was a lot of concern about the mosque. They're like, hey, if we accidentally destroy this mosque, then we're going to have every Muslim in the world pissed at us. So it was very restrictive on where forces could go. The Marines were out. The Marine Expeditionary Unit was out in the desert waiting to start fighting. In the cemetery there was an Army Cav Unit that I was attached to initially and then some other units around.
Speaker 2:But we showed up with the, the polls and a sniper team, uh, or some, you know some snipers. The seals had some teams that were, uh, sf teams, and we kind of ring the place and they let us, um, nobody else could go in to the city. You know any? You know, beyond a certain phase line yeah Right, because fear of damaging the mosque. So the only people that were allowed to go beyond that were us, the soft guys, and only snipers. We took a JTAC with us and we had to be very, very careful with that. But it was such a cool opportunity, we got in very, very close. So we were looking down into the mosque facility Over the course of a week, week and a half. According to SIGGN reports that we got, the sniper teams had whacked several hundred dudes, something like I mean we had whacked you know several hundred dudes and like something like 50 to 70 other snipers. I mean it was. There was a lot of like there was a whole lot of like Stalingrad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, it's like sniper battle stuff.
Speaker 2:that was just. You know why I'd read books about, but you know we don't really focus a whole lot on that, but we were just all like, hey, man, try to remember back the books you've read about the sniper battles, and it was just. There was a lot of really old school sticking hats up on sticks and trying to put different guys and trying to yeah.
Speaker 2:Trying to triangulate. You know where guys were. I remember one, one position we were in, just getting getting rocked. You know we had a round hit and then, like, threw up concrete and hit one of the guys. So I mean he was guy, was close. You know, a couple of times we stuck up the hat and they weren't that you know, they weren't hitting the hat, but they were coming close, you know.
Speaker 2:So my eye in a building that's, you know, like 200 meters away, and you know, see a brick. There's like dust falling and this guy pulls out a brick and then you see him. You know, behind the, you know the muzzle, and he pretty well, I mean pretty good tactics, so I could, you know, muzzle it, stick out of the hole or anything. Tactics, so I could muzzle it, stick out of the hole or anything, and he would take a shot or two, put it back, move to another room and pull out the brick. And we're like man. So we had one sasser with this 50 cow and there was an Army team not too far from us that had another, and so we called him up like dude, you know, get over. You know pointed out the, the building to him and we're like you know, wait till the brick comes out, let's make sure we're communicating and just fucking unload, you know, with, uh, roffus ammo.
Speaker 2:Um, so this, yeah, brick comes out again and you know, our guy started. It's just like kind of like talking guns right, just rubbled with this exploding ammo, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, like 10 rounds of the mag went to two mags each Just had dropped most of the wall on top of this guy. So it was I mean, that's what it was kind of day in, day out. And then ultimately the guys decided that it wasn't a fight. They wanted to continue. So they all turned in their weapons and prevented a whole bunch of Marines and soldiers from having to get into a really, really ugly street-to-street fight that was already going on at Fallujah. So we were able to avoid that and that was definitely a.
Speaker 1:That's huge.
Speaker 2:That's a huge win, awesome experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, talk about the morale and the adverse effect for the enemy, like when you see when your dudes are able to quell that with precision sniper fire and like fuck, that must have been.
Speaker 2:like that's a great check, the block for well, well trained, yeah yeah, yeah, it was, um, I mean, that was, that was, uh one of the most rewarding missions. You know that that we did, I think.
Speaker 1:No, uh, yeah, it's great, great time yeah, how did it all and what was the length of time for that rotation? Because back then conventional forces like army was like doing years and soft rotations. You know you're looking about seven, eight months like what were your guys on the ground? How long were you guys on the ground for About?
Speaker 2:seven months, yeah. And then we wound up that final X guy. I think that may have been our last mission, if not. It was really really close. We were spinning up for another couple, but yeah, so we worked right up to the end and kind of capped it off with a pretty, pretty big win.
Speaker 2:So towards the end of that, the deployment, the, the marine corps and the navy sent out the you know kind of bean counter guys to the center for naval analysis and they're, like you know, trying to quantify, hey, well, you know, on a scale of one to ten, how well do you guys do, what missions did you perform that are in the soft spectrum? You know who did to quantify, hey, well, you know, on a scale of one to 10, how well do you guys do, what missions did you perform that are in the soft spectrum? You know who did you work for, and so it was a whole lot of you know them trying to to figure out what their report was going to say. Because still, we knew that and we, you know, although we did, you know, cherry pick our Intel guys the Navy commander that we worked for was, uh, there were people in naval special warfare and plenty of people in, uh, you know, across, you know and the marine corps and socom and you suck that did not want us to be successful or didn't want, weren't interested in in marines and saw, but uh, the uh commander bill wilson was uh the guy who was our boss.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he gave us you know every you know um and he said he was like, hey, man, if a seal you know team had showed up with all this intel support, I would have taken it, you know, from them too, right so he's like y'all had all this extra capacity so, um, he, he was a straight shooter with us and came back and was very, you know, complimentary and, and you know, recommending that, uh, that marsau continue, and the, uh, the uh, everybody, you know the everything came back saying, yeah, this is good, let's, let's keep this thing going.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, uh, I think it was general brown who was the commander of socom at the time, and the common on the Marine Corps it had to go into to the secretary of defense, uh, donald rumsfeld, right, and they were like, hey, these guys did great, phenomenal, phenomenal, but we don't, uh, we don't think this should continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and uh, he was rumsfeld was like, well, fuck you uh you know it's it's going to continue and, uh, in fact, you know, make it instead of, you know the current structure, you know, build a several thousand person component of socom. And that was, uh, you know we were a little bit pissed about that because, you know, we really thought when we got back that they were going to to say, hey, kind of double inside, you know, half of you split. You know, getting to some new guys and kind of build slowly, and that would have been, you know, we wouldn't have been able to produce. We would have produced, you know, quantity, quality, yeah, um, but we, you know, couldn't produce quantity, yeah it's like an entrepreneur, like scaling yeah, and we were, you know they were.
Speaker 2:You know there's you can't take a hundred dudes and turn them into a several thousand person you know organization, which you, you know g-level shops and you know everything that's necessary. So we, uh, we got back from the deployment and we spent another year just kind of showing up every day, like, and there was always a rumor, right, there were, there were rumors that we were going to, they were going to take us and send us to brag and we were gonna, um, you know, work there. There were, you know, as a whole unit. There was rumors that, yeah, we're going to split and have a detachment too. There was, you know, rumors that we were going to work for the Marine Corps and go back to Afghanistan and they're just so. We just trained. You know, all we can do is keep training and get ready.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, while this year was going on, there were some of the guys, especially some of the other team leaders, who were like hey, dude, I'm retiring or hey, dude, I got to. So we were slowly starting to kind of dwindle down in numbers and then, after about a year, the decision was made that hey, we're going to form February of 2006. They were like, hey, we're going to form a February of 2006. They're like, hey, you're starting a Marsock component. And we were not sucked up into it. You know, some of us went to it, some of us didn't. But uh, so I you know the day we kind of folded the debt. One flag, I jumped in my car and drove out to North Carolina and to help start the school. So that's the job I got, that's where you went.
Speaker 1:Did you feel like it was a bittersweet, or did you feel like it was transitioning into what it should have transitioned into?
Speaker 2:It was absolutely bittersweet, you know, um, we were a little bit pissed about it that we weren't more involved in the in the process, and not not me, you know, but you know our leadership the guys actually did the work, yeah, and there was.
Speaker 2:there's some and I talk a little bit about it in the book and I've learned a little bit more, you know, since then and some decisions made that probably weren't the best. There was some cases or Colonel Coates, the guy who was our boss, burned a lot of bridges to make us successful. He was basically like, hey, give me what I need to run this unit to deploy and everything Um and uh. So it there there was wasn't um, you know, we probably weren't or, as the debt one, guys weren't involved as much as possible in the formation of our sock. There was also, you know, that wasn't totally on them either. There were some times that, I think, when we pushed back and we're like, yeah, we don't want to talk with you guys, you're going to do what you want anyway.
Speaker 2:But you know, once the decision was made, I definitely knew that I wanted to be a part of it and so I called, you know, I got on the phone with I think you all call them detailers, like we call it the monitor, right, the guy who's, you know, responsible for all the recon Marines in the Marine Corps and responsible for all the recon Marines in the Marine Corps, and it's like hey, man, you know what, can you get me out at Marsau and you know, preferably?
Speaker 2:You know, I knew at that point that, you know, at this I was getting pretty senior and and especially at the time, like I was probably not going to deploy again in a in a team setting. That's changed since then. At this point I was an E8, and I was very close to E9. And now we have E8s go out as company ops chiefs and company SEAs and things like that. But yeah, it was looking kind of like my fighting days were over, so you know being able to go to the school and pass on everything that that I'd learned seemed like a good idea.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and it was, you know it was. It was a blast getting that. You know, taking that from a four or five guys that we had to. Now we've got you know, 250 instructors, you know, and we're still, you know, like a. I mean Marsock is is about the size of Swick, you know. But. But so our ranger training center now is you know the rough. You know 250 instructors. We, you know, teach in you know 30 different courses. You know the range from, you know, blowing stuff up, shooting people, to language to Intel and and Tom and things like that. So it's been a huge learning experience for me and and really awesome to still be able to be a part of it now, all these years later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's part of the warrior. You know path. You have to go back and teach. You have to go back and impart knowledge, knowledge like the organizations that we're blessed to have been a part of. They think you don't just materialize this knowledge like it's hard earned and it's given back to the individuals that are coming in to replenish the force like we age, we break and we phase out. But if you're in a capacity where you can give back by teaching and mentoring and coaching the next generation of warriors, do it. You have to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And that's just the other day, when I was in California, I got to go out with a couple of Vietnam recon Marines, nice, and they're guys that used to come when I was a young guy and talk to us and we would all just be sitting there so eager to hear all the lessons. And you realize that you know, a lot of things change, but the fundamentals never do. You know the fundamentals of patrolling, the fundamentals of mission planning, the fundamentals of what it takes to be a, you know, a hard guy doing hard things Right, those, those things aren't subject to change. Guy doing hard things right, those, those things aren't subject to change.
Speaker 2:And it, uh, you know, just like I was talking about in joff, thinking back to the world war ii book, things that I read, tactics, um, you know, I happens all the time. When I was, you know, think back to. You know, hey, I know this guy was in vietnam that told me this. So these guys with mac b sogg who, uh, you know, told me this and you know, maybe that would work in this situation. Yeah, so you know, and now it's, you know, told me this and you know, maybe that would work in this situation. Yeah, so you know, and now it's you know guys from GWAT, you know telling new guys hey, you know, start putting this stuff away.
Speaker 2:You know, because it'll. You know, read books, learn, because you know one of these days you don't, you know, that day on September 11th 2001,. You know, I mean, we went on that deployment thinking it was going to be like any other deployment. You know, you go, you stay on ship, you jack a bunch of steel, you have some good training. You know different places throughout South Pacific, through the Gulf. You have a lot of time off. You know to go out and see things and, and you know, you come back.
Speaker 2:Generally speaking, you know, hopefully we saved some money here in the best shape of your life you can. You know max, your bench max, has gone up and you uh, read a lot or whatever, and that you know that changed in a heartbeat and you really the uh, you know you get it. I had been told this but it didn't really sink in until then that you, you go to war when the balloon goes up with the people, that you have the stuff that you have and the training most specifically, you know, importantly, that you have. So there's not time to to say, oh well, let's, you know, let's set up some training now. Right, you're like man. You got it. You got to bring your own bottle. Go with what you got.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so damn true. And the other great thing is you know you've come full circle in this journey. I would imagine that you're just like me. Growing up as a kid. You picked up those books that were written by those warriors that came before us World War II era veterans from vietnam, all those great stories. And now you've got your own chapter in history, in marine corps history. This is amazing. How does that feel like knowing that? Like holy shit, like I have this impact now, like some kids gonna pick up your book, read it and say you know what?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be a raider wow, yeah, that's, uh, I don't know. I honestly don't think I've I thought of that. Um, you know, I've been so focused on all and everything else but yeah, that, uh, you know I, like I said, I look back to the, the guys. You know my helmet for a pillow, or the you know for world war ii, all the, the books, and then you know especially the all the vietnam books. You know there were so many of, uh, you know about the lerps, yeah, about force recon, force recon diary. Um, just, you know so many great books and and I reading as a high schooler so, yeah, I hadn't really sunk in. Somebody might read that and say this is what I want to do. That's pretty fucking cool.
Speaker 1:That's fucking amazing. That's why I tell guys you never know what your impact's going to be into the next generation of warfighters If you keep all your stories, if you keep all the greatness you've done. I mean 20 years, 20 years. There's so many other individuals out there that have these stories and this experience and that's why I say write them, get them out there. It's not about bravado, it's not about glory and awesome and, yeah, it could be profitable, it could be, it could be great.
Speaker 1:But think about the impact. Think about what you experienced in those years in Iraq or Afghanistan and how it could help some young kid in some environment realize that I want to be adventurous. I want to go into the unknown. Write your stories, be like John, be willing to go out there and explore. Look, I get it. Not everybody's going to be part of that one, but there are other moments in our GWAT history that you may have been a part of. It's needed. I want to read those stories. I know John does as well. Like I said, some young kid out there is going to pick up a book and read it and be enticed to go in the Marine Corps, go in the army or God forbid become a Green Beret, go out there and live your life and then share it with the world. And John, before I let you go, one last thing if you could give some encouraging words to those veteran authors out there. Anything, any advice when it comes to putting your story out there.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, like you said, denny, I think there's absolute value in writing it down, right, whether you ever want anyone else to see it or not, you know this act of writing it down can take it out of your head and put it on paper, right, it doesn't have to like take up the space in your head if you don't want it to, but right, um, it doesn't have to like take up the space in your head if you don't want it to, but, uh, you know, I mean that's a reason to to write things down. You know, just having it because you get old, you will start forgetting things, right, I'm, I I had to call a lot of friends to be like, hey, do you remember that time and and what happened? Um, and I had the benefit of of a marine corps historical book that was written that documented a lot of what we did. But, yeah, just so you can remember the next, you know, for your kids or you know loved ones, somebody, to have some idea of what you did and then absolutely to think about publishing it. So I think I mentioned it last time.
Speaker 2:But I work with a group called the lethal minds journal and uh, they, I mean there we want to probably put out a magazine, uh like electronically, every month, and every month, you know it's it's only veterans writing poetry, photography we do have like arts and things like that, but fiction, non-fiction, you know. Whatever we work with you so you send in something and and we might say to ourselves, man, this could use some work, but we won't tell you that. Well, you know, one of the editors will sit there and go through it and, like you know, not only hopefully make edits but tell you why, like hey, man, you know, if you word the sentence this way, it's, it's better, or here's why it.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, maybe you know sometimes we're, you know, moving paragraphs around and sending it back and we go back and forth with you as many times as you're willing to go back and forth again uh, the lethal minds journal, and there's, I mean it runs the gamut from kind of intel reports to you know, know, uh, things that are current, you know to read, but but short stories, poetry, like I said, um, almost anything, and we, we won't.
Speaker 2:you'll give up on yourself before we give up on you with something you know it may take some doing, but, uh, the lethal minds journal, I thinkcom, it's on sub stack. Um, I'll plug down the description along with the book. Yeah, please do. You can follow them on on, uh, on Instagram. You know they uh are pretty active on there and that's a great place to to submit things, um, but yeah, I think, uh, you know, all of us have stories and they're all unique stories. It doesn't matter that it's not, you know, pulling Saddam Hussein out of a hole there's only so many people that have that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's only so many that have that story. There's so many people that shot bin Laden. Although it seems like a lot right, it seems like there's about only there's only about 500 seals that were the first guy to shoot bin Laden, but there's only about 500 SEALs that were the first guy to shoot bin.
Speaker 1:Laden.
Speaker 2:I have a confession to make.
Speaker 1:I haven't said it before, but I'll say it on air.
Speaker 2:I too killed Osama bin.
Speaker 1:Laden.
Speaker 2:But I mean, like you said, your stories are yours right, they're kind of what make you you. Like you said, your stories are yours right, they're kind of what make you you. And there are other people that, even if they're the story of being an admin clerk and sitting on a fob, there are other people that are going to do that or wanted to do that or whatever that could benefit from those, and it's just. You know, there are people like me and you that like to read those stories and see how war experience impacts different people differently.
Speaker 2:One of the most interesting books I read recently was written by a Navy RP, a religious, basically like a chaplain bodyguard, like a chaplain bodyguard, um, and you know, it's kind of a fascinating another look at uh, at, uh, combat, all right, from a perspective I've never, ever seen or really imagined. So there's, there's, you know, an unlimited I mean plus amazon has like 35 million bucks on it, right, they, there's always room for for more and it's, you know, it's. You're probably not, and and I'm almost certainly not, yeah, going to get the opportunity to to read it and maybe, you know, think it sucks, maybe they'll maybe it'll cause them to join the marine corps, who knows?
Speaker 1:yeah, hey, at the end of the day, even if they think it sucks, they paid for it.
Speaker 2:So hey, judge away please, yeah, please do, yeah. Well, if you pay for it, you can do whatever you want wipe your ass.
Speaker 1:John, thank you so much for being here. Brother, thank you for writing this book and putting this story out there. All of us that grew up and were part of the GWAT, we got to see that one, not just from you know, as a kid, hearing about this thing, then getting in the military, seeing it being brought in and then now being out and having great friends that are marsoc raiders and being able to celebrate all the awesome stuff that you guys do. Because we're part of the same cloth. We're we're like stepbrothers, because when it comes to operations and it comes to like the way you guys meld, like green berets and marsoc are like just almost identical and everything. And we're just the knuckleheaded stepbrothers in the special operations world. So proud to have you on the show.
Speaker 1:I can't wait for the book to release. It comes out Monday, august 19th, so please go get it. Go to the episode description right now so you can get your advanced copy. And to all you tuning in, thank you for being here with us and we'll see you all again next time. Till then, take care, Take care. Thank you, if you like what we're doing and you enjoying the show, don't forget to share us. Like us, subscribe and remember we get through this together. Take care.
