Speaker 1: I'm Brandon Webb, former Navy seal and founder of Craig Club,
Speaker 1: the number one tactical and survival gear subscription box in America.
Speaker 1: Being prepared matters, so choose military grade handpick gear by
Speaker 1: special ops professionals. Gift create club today at craig club
Speaker 1: dot com. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to soft web Radio, Special Operations, Military names
Speaker 1: and straight talk with the guys in the community. H
Speaker 1: Granting software fans and welcome to another episode of Software Radio.
Speaker 1: My name is Starwards at Lamazoo and i'm Software Managing Editor.
Speaker 1: Will be hosting this week's episode alongside the very own
Speaker 1: George Hunts, Delta Force pipe hitter and software Brighter. Our
Speaker 1: guest today is Gregg Cocker, Better on of the one
Speaker 1: and sixty Special Operations and Bastion Surragement also known as
Speaker 1: the Night Stalkers and all around bad us. Welcome, correct,
Speaker 1: thank you, it's a beer with you guys. Could you
Speaker 1: please keep us a brief background of your sandys. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right. I enlisted in the Army and I was
Speaker 1: an infant treatment assigned to the hundred First. I always
Speaker 1: learned to fly helicopter. Since I was a little kid,
Speaker 1: my dad was in the Air Force, so I was
Speaker 1: always hanging around flight operations in air fields. And at
Speaker 1: the time I didn't have a degree, and the only
Speaker 1: vehicle for me was to go to the Army in
Speaker 1: their warrant officer program. I just put in my paperwork.
Speaker 1: After about three years I got selected, went to Fort Rucker.
Speaker 1: My first assignment out of Rutger was flying age Horn
Speaker 1: Cobra's in South Korea. That was for a year, and
Speaker 1: then I came back to the States transition to Apachees
Speaker 1: Age sixty fours. And I've been a gun guy in
Speaker 1: my whole life, so I just like shooting stuff and
Speaker 1: blowing ship up. And uh. I remember when I was
Speaker 1: a young, young soldier there at Campbell, sitting in back
Speaker 1: one day and we just come out of the field.
Speaker 1: We're cleaning weapons and getting our gear already, and these
Speaker 1: four little black helicopters flew over and I was looking
Speaker 1: at him and and my tune started. You know. He
Speaker 1: kind of screamed at me and told me to get
Speaker 1: back to work and stop stop looking at those helicopters.
Speaker 1: They didn't exist well good stuff. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: really okay, I don't know. Several months later it was
Speaker 1: pretty funny. I told him I was gonna go fly
Speaker 1: those little black helicopters, and he told me I was stupid.
Speaker 1: So I wish I could find that guy today. It's
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Yeah, that would be great if you could
Speaker 1: do that, you know, you know, yeah, he's probably retired
Speaker 1: start majors somewhere. I knew about the unit, of course,
Speaker 1: being at Fort Campbell, and and actually I had some
Speaker 1: very close friends that were in B company first one
Speaker 1: six so later the gun they flew the gun ships,
Speaker 1: so I, you know, I aspired. I just worked part
Speaker 1: as a navigator and as a gun guy, and I
Speaker 1: wanted you don't want to be with the best, and
Speaker 1: everybody said they were the best, So so I assessed
Speaker 1: and I put in my packet as a young W two.
Speaker 1: I was told later that I didn't meet the standards
Speaker 1: for the regiment at the time. This was a ninety three,
Speaker 1: but you had to have a thousand hours of flight
Speaker 1: time and a hundred hours of night vision goggles. Well,
Speaker 1: I had flown a lot of m v G in
Speaker 1: Korea and then of course at Campbell and the Apache
Speaker 1: unit under Commander Cody later to be General Cody. So
Speaker 1: I had over I think like two hundred sixty hours
Speaker 1: and night vision goggles and I had about almost just
Speaker 1: over six hundred hours of flight time. But they weighed
Speaker 1: that out and I said, yeah, let's let's assess this
Speaker 1: guy and see how it does. So that's what I did,
Speaker 1: did my assessment and came back to B Company first
Speaker 1: one sixty and fine Age six is for almost fifteen years.
Speaker 1: N It's very interesting, Jim. So since we're on the
Speaker 1: topic of the gun ships, you know, I know you
Speaker 1: flew Age six J model. I imagine I'm aware of
Speaker 1: all the different gun configurations that that you can put
Speaker 1: on a on an Age six or on a gunbird.
Speaker 1: Do you have a particular configuration that that you like
Speaker 1: to fly and are you in control of what configuration
Speaker 1: you get before you fly emission or is that like
Speaker 1: a kind of a top down decision. Well, it's that's
Speaker 1: a good question, George. The mason depends on the threat,
Speaker 1: So we can configure the aircraft. So if we have,
Speaker 1: you know, a light armor threat or a heavy defense,
Speaker 1: then I can hang a GAL nineteen that's a three
Speaker 1: barrel fifty cow on it. We call it trips. So
Speaker 1: we go with a gal mini gun and a rocket pod,
Speaker 1: or we can hang it with heavy hell fire. But
Speaker 1: my favorite to dual minis and dual rocket pod. So
Speaker 1: it's that's probably the most violent thing on earth. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. Um I I almost asked that
Speaker 1: question when we were talking on the phone the other day,
Speaker 1: but I deemed it too stupid to ask at the time.
Speaker 1: And now I just heard of the answer. So it's
Speaker 1: it is true that uh an Age six can take
Speaker 1: a hell fire configuration. Yes, so you get one on
Speaker 1: each side or how many? How many rockets can you get?
Speaker 1: We carry four missiles too. On the four missiles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I generally will go with a missile side and then
Speaker 1: a mini gun pools hell man, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: you mentioned that. And this is another thing I had
Speaker 1: no idea, but you mentioned an a H six can
Speaker 1: really engage in no appreciable amount of time hovering anywhere
Speaker 1: just because of the sheer weight of the gun package. Right.
Speaker 1: That's all my days I was I was thinking that, Wow,
Speaker 1: you know, if I get in a real fix during
Speaker 1: this mission, an Age six can sweep down and pick
Speaker 1: me up and that's probably nothing case. Ever, No, well
Speaker 1: I've actually done that. Yeah, I mean, we can land,
Speaker 1: but we can't you know, we can't hang around and
Speaker 1: at a hover because of the weight. Now we can,
Speaker 1: you know, I can come in and land just about anywhere.
Speaker 1: The hover. We get into the limits of the engine
Speaker 1: and you know, it depends on the environmentals and thinks
Speaker 1: like that. I know for a fact there was a
Speaker 1: case there the Delta guys who got shot one night
Speaker 1: in Baghdad and and the a's landed on the on
Speaker 1: the roof. They calculated that it would be faster to
Speaker 1: fly him to the cash. The plan was to get
Speaker 1: him off the building and into a pander and get
Speaker 1: him one of armored vehicles, and it was gonna take
Speaker 1: up twenty minutes. And I mean I said, no, let's
Speaker 1: just fly him there. So Gun Garden landed. They kicked
Speaker 1: out the ammun hands and threw billions the dock on
Speaker 1: and got him there in about six minutes. That's great.
Speaker 1: That pretty much wraps up my questions on on the
Speaker 1: h on the gun configuration. I'm glad I asked. Honestly,
Speaker 1: There's been all kinds of other stories and other combat
Speaker 1: operations and training more, we'll actually practice it, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll land and we'll pull the cans out or
Speaker 1: to reduce way rockets or whatever. So we could get
Speaker 1: a couple of guys. We can get one guy on
Speaker 1: each side, so they just John Wayne and the mini gun.
Speaker 1: You know, they'll set on the plank and then straddle
Speaker 1: the mini guns. That's funny because they always ask us,
Speaker 1: please don't fire that gun. Will so I would I
Speaker 1: would ask you to fire it, and fire gun and
Speaker 1: get a picture as well. You know, it would be
Speaker 1: a bad day if we had to fire to gun
Speaker 1: dude sitting on the plank. So, Craig, did you pick
Speaker 1: the Little Birds as the as your platform or or
Speaker 1: does the regiment and signed new pilots according to his needs.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. And I had requested the gun company,
Speaker 1: so B Company and one again I had I had
Speaker 1: several good friends there and and just you know, it
Speaker 1: was my natural progression as a gun guy, because if
Speaker 1: you bring a fella in that flew black Hawks or
Speaker 1: you know, any other aircraft, you gotta teach him to shoot.
Speaker 1: And at least, you know, at that point in in
Speaker 1: a gun guy's career, he understands ballistics and weapons systems
Speaker 1: and you know, putting the sight on the target and
Speaker 1: accurately engaging it. So there are some gun guys that
Speaker 1: went or fifty eight guys that went to a COO,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's still it's an MH six, it's
Speaker 1: that smaller aircraft and but a lot most of the
Speaker 1: time it's the needs of the regiment. In my case,
Speaker 1: I told him I'd go fly hot air balloons if
Speaker 1: that's what they wanted. Anything but your yes, sir, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm, you know, not that smart. So they
Speaker 1: sent me to be company. They have a chief. What
Speaker 1: about the Depth? Did you ever have an experience flying
Speaker 1: the Depth? Yeah? I got to go up with those guys,
Speaker 1: and it's man, it's just it's a great platform and
Speaker 1: that thing can carry some armament and you know, good guys.
Speaker 1: We we lovingly refer to them as skirts. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: still a black Hawk, and there's just a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, just like any unit, we all pick on
Speaker 1: each other and hack on each other. But like the
Speaker 1: MH six little bird guys. We'd always tell them they
Speaker 1: all wear throne panties. And then the black Hawk guys
Speaker 1: where they wear skirts. That's just trude, man. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: chief we got to talk, We got to ribbon with
Speaker 1: some with some age pilots from the stalkers, and when
Speaker 1: we wanted to irritate it, we would refer to the
Speaker 1: bird as a tiny bird, and that got into their
Speaker 1: skin really quick. Yeah it's the little man, Yes it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I had no idea. My first experience with
Speaker 1: a DAP was in Somalia. It was outside the city,
Speaker 1: just you know, gunning some targets. One night. A h
Speaker 1: s were making runs and it was the typical you know,
Speaker 1: two pots to six guns. It's the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over, you know. And I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm fifteen or some sorties over over knocked out z
Speaker 1: s U four Soviet and aircraft chassis. Then suddenly the
Speaker 1: sixteen run was a freaking DAP and I had never
Speaker 1: heard of or seen a DAP before. It came over, man,
Speaker 1: and it started cranking out a thirty millimeter chain gun.
Speaker 1: Then then it set a salad bowl of rockets and
Speaker 1: I was filming it with a cam quarter at the time,
Speaker 1: and the site is amazing, but the background noise is
Speaker 1: right after he launches the rocket you could hear me go,
Speaker 1: what the funk was that come from? It's great, man scared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, it's another tool in the toolbox
Speaker 1: that respects and that we can provide for them. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's pretty dynamic team broader and we could
Speaker 1: range two on the tap right. Oh yeah, man, it's
Speaker 1: it's got long, long legs. So of course, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody knows that an aerial refuel and of course they
Speaker 1: were part of the package that on the invasion in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and no one they they escorted those chinooks in
Speaker 1: for over a thousand miles. Wow, thousand miles yesterdays, longest
Speaker 1: are assault in history. Yeah, I would say so a
Speaker 1: thousand Is that a thousand miles without a refuel or
Speaker 1: is that they aerial refueled? Speaking of the invasion of Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: would you mind tending us? And I bought your halo
Speaker 1: almost halo with the Rangers. Well, yeah, that was I mean,
Speaker 1: we were just dog gone. It was so exciting and
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun. And of course there's
Speaker 1: a lot of chaos in the early days because you know,
Speaker 1: we were all trying to figure out what to do
Speaker 1: and I never will forget. I think it was it
Speaker 1: was either General Daily or it was Lieutenant Colonel Blaber.
Speaker 1: They put out one of our russ Yeah, awesome, Pete
Speaker 1: and Scotty Miller was theres man. Scotta used to sit
Speaker 1: outside the tent every night when I'd get back, and
Speaker 1: we just you know, we just Parker. I chat with
Speaker 1: Colonel Schwitter, and Colonel Switter was really interesting. Fella. Oh flatliner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's the guy's called flatliner. Flatliner. Yes, I never call
Speaker 1: him that, but it had a real dead pan expression
Speaker 1: and yeah, twitters superior. And I was told I don't know,
Speaker 1: g O, you may confirm this, but I was told
Speaker 1: that he was on Desert One as an six and
Speaker 1: Iran and after the crash and all that chaos that
Speaker 1: that Colonel back With had made him he was the last,
Speaker 1: the last soldier to get a battlefield commission. Back With
Speaker 1: made him my lieutenant right there on the spot because
Speaker 1: he didn't have any other I'll tell you what, man,
Speaker 1: I do know for a fact that Jim Twitter's was
Speaker 1: a battlefield commission, Yes, sir, okay, and that's that's a
Speaker 1: true deal. Then Wow, that's pretty cool. M Back to
Speaker 1: my original thought was that I think it was General Bailey,
Speaker 1: he was a key f sword commander, and where it
Speaker 1: was Colonel Blabor because he was, well, you know Pete,
Speaker 1: he's he's a wild man. Anyway, they put a box
Speaker 1: out in front of our briefing area and it said, uh,
Speaker 1: battle suggestions. So they put out what they put out,
Speaker 1: and this American Army goes to war and we practiced
Speaker 1: chaos daily. But they're like, any idea you can think of,
Speaker 1: you put it in this box. And I mean some
Speaker 1: of the stuff it was, it was pretty cool, and
Speaker 1: some of it we actually used. And well then b yeah,
Speaker 1: it worked, it worked, But we got we're getting ready,
Speaker 1: we're in the planning process, and it was again it
Speaker 1: was you know, my my good good friend matter certain
Speaker 1: Leon Hanson. He was a fire Suport n c O
Speaker 1: for Beast Waters, so he was back and forth from
Speaker 1: the ship and I was back and forth from the ship.
Speaker 1: I stayed. I was on the Sara Island. I was
Speaker 1: TF fire Support officer. So we're, you know, we were
Speaker 1: getting a plan together and one day we were looking
Speaker 1: at some photo those of Jackie Rhino. Rhino was like
Speaker 1: a hunting camp or I don't remember exactly what they called.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what in the lord are they hunting out
Speaker 1: here in the desert of Afghanistan. The chief objective, Rhino
Speaker 1: is that that was a ranger mission. And actually there's
Speaker 1: food jumping. Yeah, there's video and photos and yeah it
Speaker 1: was it was. Yeah, it was quite a historic event.
Speaker 1: But so we're talking about landing See one thirties there
Speaker 1: for far and because the scheme maneuver I just put
Speaker 1: it in a snapshot, was that we were going into
Speaker 1: Get Go. Objective Get Go was Omar's place of residents,
Speaker 1: west west of Kandahar, and then our part was it
Speaker 1: was a it was an airfield. It was a runway
Speaker 1: landing strip out the middle of nowhere, of course, out
Speaker 1: buildings and housing and things like that, and that's where
Speaker 1: we were gonna lay in to see one thirties for
Speaker 1: part when they came off of objective Get Go for
Speaker 1: the helicopters Roger. So we were looking at it and
Speaker 1: actually I think it was myself, Colonel Switter Leon and
Speaker 1: Scotty Miller and we were talking about landing on this runway.
Speaker 1: On one of the pictures there was a Boeing seven
Speaker 1: oh seven parked on the RAND four engines. Yeah, big
Speaker 1: big airplane. So evidently some cheek or somebody flew in
Speaker 1: there to you know, hunt. And then they got to
Speaker 1: talking about they wanted to put a recon arrange of
Speaker 1: reconnaissance team in there. Was made sense, I think Colonel Blabor,
Speaker 1: he was the biggest proponent. Well, they had asked for
Speaker 1: a fire supporter to go with them, So Pete was like, well,
Speaker 1: take Gravy. You know, he's he's the t F guy
Speaker 1: leons on the ship. You know, we can't put him
Speaker 1: in there and then get him back then that back
Speaker 1: out to the ship. But so the commander approached me
Speaker 1: from the rangers and says, hey, Greg, you're gonna We're like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're requesting that you go on this jump
Speaker 1: with us. I was pretty excited, man. And one thing
Speaker 1: led to another, and we were in there brief and
Speaker 1: the plan, and this Air Force colonel jumps up and
Speaker 1: he says, no, we we gotta put a a CCT
Speaker 1: guy in there, you know, comeback control. They know how
Speaker 1: to perk the air fields and dot and I'm like, picture,
Speaker 1: there's a Boeing seven oh seven that landed and he's
Speaker 1: parked and in this picture it's gone. So I know,
Speaker 1: I see one thirty kidding waiting in there, check it out. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I was trying to keep my
Speaker 1: place on the team instead of the comeback control guy.
Speaker 1: And my good buddy Jim Hosy, he was we were
Speaker 1: in b company together. He was an age you may remember,
Speaker 1: Jim Bo. But he told me it was like, dude,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find yourself in the middle of all this
Speaker 1: stuff because I wasn't one. I wasn't real happy about
Speaker 1: being the fire support officer because I'm an age guy man,
Speaker 1: and I've been training for fifteen years and you know,
Speaker 1: and everybody was piste off anyway at these dudes. So
Speaker 1: we wanted to go out there and get some and
Speaker 1: kill some of these dudes. But it all worked out.
Speaker 1: You know, I still flew a h missions, and but
Speaker 1: I got the you know, I got to be on
Speaker 1: the point the end of the spirit, so to speak,
Speaker 1: and and wrecky in the route for the helicopters. And
Speaker 1: I mean we started going in there late September early October.
Speaker 1: I had a gun ship assigned to me, and they
Speaker 1: see one thirty U model and we just we were
Speaker 1: setting the conditions prepped in the battlefield game intelligence. We'd
Speaker 1: go out full every night and come back empty every
Speaker 1: every morning. I mean we were we were killing some stuff.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. Uh. Anyway, so I
Speaker 1: got spots off the jump because I guess this colonel was,
Speaker 1: you know, he was pretty upset that Air Force Special
Speaker 1: Operations weren't gonna get in a fight. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, no big deal. But it was funny because
Speaker 1: Pete Labor took me into one of the buildings there
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, I'm not Halo qualified. You know.
Speaker 1: He goes, don't worry, man, I gotta shoot for you.
Speaker 1: So we went in there and he sa training, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just I was very surprised. General Daily was
Speaker 1: like and I've known General Daily for many years, and
Speaker 1: he was like, ah, you know, Greg can do it,
Speaker 1: no worries. So they took off the range of Recon
Speaker 1: team and the CCT guy and they were about a
Speaker 1: minute from jump. Well, the Air Force guy indeed shoot
Speaker 1: inside the aircraft. So hey, George, I'm sure you've seen
Speaker 1: a discharge of a shooting an Erica, but you ain't
Speaker 1: going anywhere. And everybody scrambling to get the huge in
Speaker 1: so it doesn't suck you out the back end of
Speaker 1: the of the airplane. Twice. I didn't experienced that. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, man, it's scary ship. Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: But but the guy's got of course, we got word
Speaker 1: of it, and I saw the plane when it came back,
Speaker 1: and that that Air Force dude was walking off with
Speaker 1: a shoot, all bundled up in his arms. You know.
Speaker 1: Oh man, he was all poopy faced. But karma bro
Speaker 1: has no shelf life. Well, I don't know, man, because
Speaker 1: I met those guys when they came back, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: you sons of guns, what happened? They're like, we don't
Speaker 1: know what happened. All he knows he didn't jo up
Speaker 1: wink wink, you know, like somebody might have reached over
Speaker 1: and grabbed that red ball. I'm just, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you in all seriously. And it's it's
Speaker 1: important because I just wrote an essay and it star
Speaker 1: Ros has got it right now and in editing, and
Speaker 1: I made remarks regarding static line and Halo you know, operations.
Speaker 1: But are you serious that? I mean, I know Pete
Speaker 1: Blaver is serious, but were you seriously gonna do a
Speaker 1: Halo jump. Yeah, you're gonna go with them. That's one
Speaker 1: badass they do. Man, Like I had again, you know
Speaker 1: everything at that point it was an urgency, man. I mean,
Speaker 1: we had on the ground and we had no end
Speaker 1: tell whatsoever because the prior administration had pulled everyone out
Speaker 1: that part of the world. They'd cut all the money.
Speaker 1: We had to start from scratch all over again. It
Speaker 1: just made sense after we kind of briefed it more
Speaker 1: game that that and the Rangers were of a fire
Speaker 1: support guy there because we you know, we'd have assets
Speaker 1: overhead and they got in troubled and they need I
Speaker 1: need somebody to you know, help him out with that.
Speaker 1: So that was successful mission that got in, did the
Speaker 1: mission and got them out and uh and they came
Speaker 1: back and went on the hit the Rhino, Get go Chief.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, honestly, my respect for you really spiked
Speaker 1: hearing this story. Um. I mean I essentially lay out
Speaker 1: in my essay that if you can grab some person
Speaker 1: off the street, you can and you can put a
Speaker 1: static line shoot on him and you can stuff him
Speaker 1: out the door and they'll probably be okay. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like maybe nine times out of the ten. I don't know,
Speaker 1: they'll probably be okay, you did that same thing and
Speaker 1: dumped him out, Halo. They probably would not be okay
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of stuff you have to be
Speaker 1: able to master. It is to live. Anyway, enough said
Speaker 1: for me. I asked one of them, I said, now,
Speaker 1: let me understand this. I said, we're gonna tandem. They
Speaker 1: just like, oh, no, Chief, We're not gonna tandem. That's
Speaker 1: what I was thinking. But no, I don't know if
Speaker 1: they were messing with me or but I was going
Speaker 1: with that Reckie team. I was gonna do a combat. Hello, Joe,
Speaker 1: I'm speechless. Man to mistake and sent them seeks did
Speaker 1: that damn tantum with a non qualtified support guy in
Speaker 1: the Cuptain Phillips operation? Okay, totally plausible. Man, I'm sure
Speaker 1: they did. Here's what I thought about it. They jumped
Speaker 1: dogs all the time. They're not even, but it still
Speaker 1: goes on the dog's record as a jump. That's right.
Speaker 1: Just the dog get paid for it. Nah. It was
Speaker 1: an exciting time, and man, I mean we were just
Speaker 1: coming up with all kinds of stuff and there's or
Speaker 1: some things that we did that I wish I could
Speaker 1: talk about, but I can't. And I mean it was
Speaker 1: just it was it was cool. I mean it was
Speaker 1: some World War two stuff. It we would come up with,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, it's pretty interesting, but it worked. And
Speaker 1: you know, we have the greatest minds and most intelligent
Speaker 1: human beings on the planet figuring all this stuff out
Speaker 1: and uh plus the nuts chief, I mean, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all we're all crazy. All of these great traits
Speaker 1: of people, you know, intelligence of this and that. When
Speaker 1: it comes right down to it, man, it's the nuts
Speaker 1: of people that are willing to risk their lives to
Speaker 1: do these kind of things. That's what it does. Jeo.
Speaker 1: You know, man, you've been there, done that. I just
Speaker 1: I'm thankful that, you know, I was with those men
Speaker 1: and that team, and I mean I was just like
Speaker 1: so many times it was right place, wrong time, wrong place,
Speaker 1: right time, however you want to look at it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Solemn ninety one looked sober Us and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just it was I mean, we did a
Speaker 1: lot more crazy stuff than that over the next few months.
Speaker 1: If you're done talking about Gecko and rhino Um, when
Speaker 1: you are done, if you could transition over to Hadeth a. Damn.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a really sacred subject to me because
Speaker 1: just because I knew the man on the ground who
Speaker 1: had a and I, you know, I I know a bit,
Speaker 1: I know a lot about what happened. I know very
Speaker 1: little from his perspective, but I like a man, so
Speaker 1: he didn't he didn't say much anyway. He's a grumpy guy,
Speaker 1: you know. Him and I are in touch almost daily
Speaker 1: with like a you know, a three word text like caveman.
Speaker 1: But but we are in touch, and he'll he'll talk
Speaker 1: to me eventually. But I want to already know what
Speaker 1: the air perspective was like from from you guys, and
Speaker 1: then I can I can add that to content from
Speaker 1: him and maybe I can put together into a decent
Speaker 1: story for the software breads. Yeah, and that's that's ironic
Speaker 1: because I'm I don't know if I told you or Stravos,
Speaker 1: but I'm in I'm in the middle of writing that
Speaker 1: story right now. I just some other stuff. But I
Speaker 1: tell you, man, I and I think about it every day.
Speaker 1: It was just it was just by the grace of
Speaker 1: God that we that we made it through that thing.
Speaker 1: And just yeah, it's another DA's office, another day for
Speaker 1: a six gun. Our team we're Team four. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna explain all that in another story. But and we
Speaker 1: had four teams of two ages operating. We were lovingly
Speaker 1: referred to as Team Jackass. We were and it was
Speaker 1: and again it was like every major gun fight with
Speaker 1: you know, the Rangers Delta. We were just we just
Speaker 1: happened to be there, or you know, it was our
Speaker 1: turn to get into the pipe and we were there.
Speaker 1: So actually we were planning the Jessica Lynch rescue with
Speaker 1: two seven five. Two seven five had been given the
Speaker 1: original mission, and man, we were you know in four
Speaker 1: two seven five. They've been kind of the bastard kids
Speaker 1: for several years and we of course they had several
Speaker 1: friends at two seven five, and I was like, all right, man,
Speaker 1: they're gonna get in a fight and this is gonna
Speaker 1: be a big one for them. Long story short, we
Speaker 1: got pulled off and we got sent up to Hadifa.
Speaker 1: They says, hey, Greg, you and you and Mike and
Speaker 1: the guys, we want you to go up there support
Speaker 1: three seven five. And we're like, well okay, So we
Speaker 1: loaded up in the C seventeen. They flew us up
Speaker 1: there and actually somebody told us. It was the first
Speaker 1: combat offload on the C sevent team up. Each one
Speaker 1: is where it was and that's about, I don't know,
Speaker 1: twenty miles west of Hadifa Dam. So the the operation
Speaker 1: was three seven five conduction airfield seizure, airborne jump combat
Speaker 1: jump into Hotel. One's an old airfield out there's an
Speaker 1: old on and gas pump site. So they conducted the
Speaker 1: airborne salt security Airfield. We landed with our two ages.
Speaker 1: We got there to the brief Colonel Bailey was a
Speaker 1: time commander at the time. He had broken his back
Speaker 1: on the jump, so he they briefed us up and says, hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to deef the damn. It's it's the highest
Speaker 1: regarded structure in the country because one size and I
Speaker 1: had never sized it up until now, but I guarantee
Speaker 1: that that thing was at least a mile wide, this
Speaker 1: dam and it was big hydro electric, you know, big,
Speaker 1: big giant lake to the north of it. But anyway,
Speaker 1: our mission was to seize season hold the damn and
Speaker 1: we would get relieved the next day by this armory
Speaker 1: unit coming through because they wanted to keep that damn safe.
Speaker 1: They didn't want anybody to you know, blow it or
Speaker 1: disrupt anything that was that was there to blow that
Speaker 1: damn with that floodbag Dad. The town of Haditha was
Speaker 1: just a few clicks to the south of it. I
Speaker 1: think that's where the Tigris River starts. At that damn,
Speaker 1: you got the Euphrates and the Tigris. I can't remember anyway.
Speaker 1: So a huge strategic strategic target for this war for Iraq,
Speaker 1: and the weather was just ship man it was overcast,
Speaker 1: low ceilings, so they couldn't get any fixed wing closer
Speaker 1: support in there. It was our two ages. So the
Speaker 1: Rangers they they had some Delta guys with us, some
Speaker 1: heavy breachers and then they're they're snipers, the wrecky guys
Speaker 1: to go and you know, go through the dam and
Speaker 1: gain any intel or whatever. I never will forget asked
Speaker 1: two our intel guy briefers, you know, we asked about
Speaker 1: enemy force. An enemy said, oh, it's minimum, you know,
Speaker 1: a few guys at best. We're like, okay, we're under that.
Speaker 1: The Rangers took a far pen for us with rockets
Speaker 1: and gas and bullets, so col we needed it close
Speaker 1: and it was it was relatively close. This human turnaround. God,
Speaker 1: I never will forget oh oh, Mo. He was the
Speaker 1: fire support n c O for a third back. We
Speaker 1: got ready to take off there there on the damn
Speaker 1: and light resistance, and then all of a sudden, every
Speaker 1: time Mo would key the mic, I could hear gunfire,
Speaker 1: and every time he would kill it would get more intense.
Speaker 1: And you know, incoming gunfire, out going gun fire. I mean,
Speaker 1: we could hear RPGs, we could hear having machine guns.
Speaker 1: And at this point Moe was screaming over the radio
Speaker 1: trying to get in touch with his fire support. The
Speaker 1: A ages well crap, man, I couldn't talk to him,
Speaker 1: and I finally, I finally, just I went up on
Speaker 1: the SAT freak and I cleared all the nets because
Speaker 1: I you know, we worked with each other for years
Speaker 1: and years and years. You know a guy by his
Speaker 1: voice and kind of know his you know, his current temperament.
Speaker 1: And man, Mo was just I mean the hair stood
Speaker 1: up on both of our necks, and we're like, gosh,
Speaker 1: we got to get there, so I can remember. We turned.
Speaker 1: We went north of the lake to come in north
Speaker 1: to south because moves BP they're blocking position was on
Speaker 1: the west end of the dam and they had another
Speaker 1: BP on the east of the side of the dam
Speaker 1: and they're about I don't know, hundred and eight or
Speaker 1: Hunterton Rangers there and then a Delta guys. I finally
Speaker 1: got a hold of Mo and I looked at Mike.
Speaker 1: I was just very angry at the time, and I says,
Speaker 1: you know, I said, a man on the moon can
Speaker 1: talk to fucking Houston, Texas, and I can't talk, you know,
Speaker 1: four miles from my fire support guy. But anyway, we
Speaker 1: knew where they were, and we came over this leg.
Speaker 1: I mean, we were hauling the mail. We were We
Speaker 1: pulled the guts out of those helicopters get there because
Speaker 1: our buddies were about to get over run. We come
Speaker 1: up old damn and bumped. I'm gonna tell you something,
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like this before in my life,
Speaker 1: and I hope I never do. But it was literally
Speaker 1: Tracer's filled the skies on the south side of that damn.
Speaker 1: I looked at Mike and he looked at me. We're like,
Speaker 1: oh man, we're fucked. I saw mos strobes, you know,
Speaker 1: all the there was like I think seven or eight
Speaker 1: of them in that VP, and everyone on we're firing
Speaker 1: just as fast as they could and I looked just
Speaker 1: beyond them, and there was probably a company sized element
Speaker 1: maneuvering on their blocking position, and there were dudes running everywhere.
Speaker 1: Then we find out later it was it was Iraqi
Speaker 1: Regimental of Republican Guards Fettyan guns. Yeah. They they said
Speaker 1: there was between three and four thousand enemy forces there,
Speaker 1: but they had been told that the Americans were coming
Speaker 1: to blow the damn up, so they were, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to lose their They had a big
Speaker 1: base there and HADIFU, and so they didn't want to
Speaker 1: lose the town, that you know. And they didn't know
Speaker 1: we were coming there to save the damn, so they
Speaker 1: were they were attacking to save the damn. Saved their
Speaker 1: people down the stream. So we bumped up. I saw
Speaker 1: Mo and and we shot MO. Told us this. We
Speaker 1: shot twelve meters in front of those guys. That's how
Speaker 1: close the enemy was. Just we mowed them down like
Speaker 1: bowling pins man and broke right. Came back around and
Speaker 1: young ranger on the east BP he was he was
Speaker 1: making a call for fire. He was in distress or
Speaker 1: like hold on, brother wore. I said, I got your location, man,
Speaker 1: Just just mark the target, Just mark the target. Because
Speaker 1: under stress. You know, we're all taught that standard call
Speaker 1: for fire and he was like, hey you this is
Speaker 1: me fire missions. I was like, just mark the target.
Speaker 1: Bless his heart, you know, I know you're praying. And again,
Speaker 1: you know, we engaged at least a company size element,
Speaker 1: probably in front of his position, and then the fight
Speaker 1: was on. Man. We we made I think it was
Speaker 1: we shot eleven loads that night, both ages, and we
Speaker 1: got four thousand rounds of many and then fourteen rockets.
Speaker 1: Well you can do the math. I mean it was
Speaker 1: it was a plus. Whoever is not flying in the
Speaker 1: a h you've got your M four up and engaged
Speaker 1: in targets of opportunity with their M four and I swear,
Speaker 1: George the both tim bubbles were full of five five
Speaker 1: six brass and and we would drop hagarnaides on guys.
Speaker 1: We started doing that. That's another story, but yeah, I've
Speaker 1: bet that a lot of thrown hanggarnaids off a little
Speaker 1: bird man. Yeah, we started doing that in Afghanistan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we burned up the We burned up our little fark
Speaker 1: that the rangers had set out. It was I think
Speaker 1: three or four loads. We had a gal also, but
Speaker 1: we used it up. I don't know how fast man,
Speaker 1: but it was just gun run after gun run, plus
Speaker 1: their wires. Just pull that damn up on Google or
Speaker 1: just there's pictures of it. I got it, Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: got it up. And also chief for you. Um that's
Speaker 1: the Euphrates river there and then rounds. Yeah yeah, just
Speaker 1: lunch plus all the plus all the five five six
Speaker 1: and and hang Garnaides that we threw out shot. That's
Speaker 1: my kin bubble. When we landed that night, my chin
Speaker 1: bubble was full of five five six brass bubble. The
Speaker 1: chin bubble, that's where the it's down low inside the
Speaker 1: aircraft where the puddles are, and it's okay, okay, yeah, yea.
Speaker 1: So the brass just you know, it just deflects inside
Speaker 1: the aircraft. And actually I shot. I was in the
Speaker 1: left seat and I shot one one time. And I
Speaker 1: couldn't have done this about it. Tried it a million times.
Speaker 1: But the piece of brass, the piece of brass hit
Speaker 1: the center console and it ricky shade and it hit
Speaker 1: Mike in the throat and it went down his inside
Speaker 1: his body armor and his he starts streaming and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, are you hit are you hitting He
Speaker 1: goes no, no, he says, a piece of brass, And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I can see that
Speaker 1: in my mind's eye. Man, oh lord. It was wasn't
Speaker 1: too funny at the time, but way and it I
Speaker 1: know it burned the heck out of him. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna interrupt. I'm gonna make sure I get this visual
Speaker 1: correct because I know what I know about a pilots.
Speaker 1: So you guys are flying gun runs and one of
Speaker 1: one or the other of you, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: both of you, let me know, are hanging outside the
Speaker 1: hilo shooting and in before carving at at at toads
Speaker 1: running around on the ground. Is that correct, that's correct,
Speaker 1: that's not Yeah, you've got your own four up ready
Speaker 1: to engage. Plus you're you're doing your cockpit duties, you know,
Speaker 1: helping the guy flying with wires or finding the target.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we found it very very effective Afghanistan. You know,
Speaker 1: use it, use our rifles to engage targets that are
Speaker 1: off set where the guy flying he's focused on, you know,
Speaker 1: shooting the target that he's supposed to and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's just very effective. And I personally have known
Speaker 1: that you guys are not just uh, pencil whipping carrying
Speaker 1: weapon inside your cockpit. You know. It was like like
Speaker 1: a weapon to check, you know, helmet check. Now I've
Speaker 1: been on the pods. It was again. It was in
Speaker 1: Africa in n you know, gunning off the pods and
Speaker 1: running dry on my primary and I had the pilot stop,
Speaker 1: hand your magazine. Well that's what he did. He stuck
Speaker 1: in a magazine out out the door. And I looked
Speaker 1: up at him. This guy's got a he's got an inflot,
Speaker 1: doesn't have an MP five, he's got a badass in four.
Speaker 1: So I took his magazine and that guy proceeded to
Speaker 1: hand me seven more magazines, and I said, this guy's
Speaker 1: got an arsenal up front. You know, he means business.
Speaker 1: So again, yeah, I would always carry ten magazines. I
Speaker 1: would have probably were in a basic load man, yeah
Speaker 1: height on my yeah, my basic, but won a gun
Speaker 1: and one in a pocket somewhere. That was the biggest
Speaker 1: battle of the Iraqi War, was the deeper damn and
Speaker 1: at lasted. We wound up being there for seven days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were like, where's that armored unit that's SUPs have
Speaker 1: been here three days ago classic did the covering of
Speaker 1: magazines became a national p after the bad Black cockdown incident.
Speaker 1: So pilots covering that high amount of person I love doubt.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that's a real good points strabo. So it
Speaker 1: was back then in ninety three they most of the
Speaker 1: crews carried MP fives. After the battle MUGDISHU and the
Speaker 1: a RS and the debriefs, they went back to Cairn
Speaker 1: M four's one. The MP five didn't offer the range
Speaker 1: that you know, we needed to have, and it was
Speaker 1: just it was a better weapons system for our for
Speaker 1: our operations. That that's a submachine gun, it's not an
Speaker 1: assault rifle. No. Well, nerd thinking was that, you know,
Speaker 1: if an aircraft went down, it would be in an
Speaker 1: urban area in close quarters. So I think they thought
Speaker 1: the MP five would be a better weapon since them.
Speaker 1: But after MODISHU they found different. So yeah, and those pilots,
Speaker 1: I mean they did their share of hanging out the
Speaker 1: doors and shooting their MP five's. Man, absolutely, they sure
Speaker 1: did de laid it down. Bro. Yeah, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a lotty dotty everybody man when when they're a
Speaker 1: gun fight. So yeah, pilots are guilty. Of no pretense
Speaker 1: in combat the night startners that, no, no, they're they're
Speaker 1: fighters man them. Well, most of us in B company.
Speaker 1: It was kind of interesting. We all came from combat
Speaker 1: arms is and listened. I mean we had rangers, we
Speaker 1: had adult guys, s F guys, and fftry guys. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was just kind of a natural draw
Speaker 1: for those for us knuckle dragon killers to go fly
Speaker 1: A eight. And you were also so done in Iraq?
Speaker 1: Correct yesterday? Yeah, nineteen March two thousand four. Would you
Speaker 1: mind telling us about the incident? Yes? Lord, that was
Speaker 1: again that it was another day at the office, so
Speaker 1: to Steve. But yeah, we had we'd been extremely busy,
Speaker 1: oh three oh four, and there was Feluja Ramadi and
Speaker 1: then Amarria, which is south of Felusia, and it was
Speaker 1: we call it kind of the Devil's Triangle simply because
Speaker 1: there have been I believe it has been seven helicopters
Speaker 1: shot down in that triangle, so I mean Schnooks and
Speaker 1: fifty eight and black Hawks, and it was just a bad,
Speaker 1: bad place. We've been in Flujia hitting targets and of
Speaker 1: course we got intown offa one that led to another
Speaker 1: that led to another and then on the night of
Speaker 1: eight we were with beast Water, they got intel that
Speaker 1: a high value target we were looking forward was going
Speaker 1: to be there at ten o'clock that next morning, and
Speaker 1: we were just well, just kind of sunk. We're like,
Speaker 1: oh God, daytime. No, you know, bad things happened to
Speaker 1: night stalkers during the day. Quite frankly up to this point,
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole task force, we've been extremely successful
Speaker 1: from oh one up until now. You know, I think
Speaker 1: some of I thought, you know, we were the immortals,
Speaker 1: you know, after Adita Damn and some the other large
Speaker 1: battles that we've been in and crap, we'd come out
Speaker 1: unscathed and most of the guys. We lost a few guys,
Speaker 1: but not many. So we came back, came off that
Speaker 1: target curtain. Major says, hey, we had a little what
Speaker 1: are east of Felusia just says, hey, you guys go
Speaker 1: hang out there, crank up, get up on the radio,
Speaker 1: and if we need you, we'll call you. We're like, okay,
Speaker 1: because Marchau four man, Felusia was wild wild West. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we crank set there, those guys hit the target.
Speaker 1: They got the guy off brought him back. Well, there's
Speaker 1: another high value target. We're looking forward down by a Maria.
Speaker 1: So they said, all right, we're just we're gonna drive
Speaker 1: down there and go kill that guy and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna go back back. Day said I want you guys
Speaker 1: to go back to Baghdad there, buy off, you know,
Speaker 1: get some rest recock. We're like, yet ruger that. So
Speaker 1: they went they headed south. They drove down and they
Speaker 1: had five vehicles. They had three gun trucks and two panders.
Speaker 1: So we got back and I think I was in
Speaker 1: the talk at or just walked in or something, and
Speaker 1: they said, hey, those guys were in trouble. They called
Speaker 1: a tech troops in contact. So we hauled ass, jumped
Speaker 1: in the aircraft, flew back. There was only I don't
Speaker 1: know about an eight or ten minute flight, and got
Speaker 1: on station and I can remember seeing the vehicles were
Speaker 1: all lined up. We're getting ready to Xville. And commander
Speaker 1: came up on the net and says, hey, fill in
Speaker 1: one minute. And then I had had flown down real
Speaker 1: low to the guys, probably I don't know, eight or
Speaker 1: ten ft like we always do, and just you know,
Speaker 1: kind of give the international waves signed to him and
Speaker 1: looking at it looks like a middle finger. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: comfortable to the guys on the ground. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: I mean from like the whole flight. Hair just it
Speaker 1: was just standing up on the back of my neck.
Speaker 1: And and he guy was he was my co pilot.
Speaker 1: He was a brand new guy. And I told him
Speaker 1: my thing, bro, I said, you get that rifle up
Speaker 1: and you see anything, you smack it. He's like, Roger,
Speaker 1: I've done a swoop down on the guys. And I
Speaker 1: was climbing right hand, turned about I don't know about
Speaker 1: a hundred sixty sixty five. I was headed kind of southwest. Man.
Speaker 1: I heard this giant explosion and this fireball right by
Speaker 1: my face. The aircraft kind of shuddered, and then it
Speaker 1: got real quiet. I was like, yeah, so I never
Speaker 1: will forget talking to again. My old buddy, Jim Hosey,
Speaker 1: he was there in country at the time. When I
Speaker 1: got back. He says, yeah, he said, I think the
Speaker 1: best saying of any deployment ever ever said was by
Speaker 1: you when you said, you know you're fucked when you
Speaker 1: get past by your own fireball. Oh man. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I entered out on rotation and then I'm an instructor pilot.
Speaker 1: So thank god, I've done many, many and I can
Speaker 1: remember in the physiological part of the body and then
Speaker 1: your brain, and but every nano second was like frame
Speaker 1: by frame is the best way I can explain it.
Speaker 1: That that's it's like looking at a negative. George, you're
Speaker 1: a photographer, you know you see picture by picture, and
Speaker 1: that's that's what my brain was doing at that point
Speaker 1: in time, as like thought back and look back, and
Speaker 1: I understand, you know what happens physiologically to our bodies
Speaker 1: under stress and different heart race. And man, I guarantee
Speaker 1: I was. I was way up there. But my I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I just I gotta get this helicopter, please
Speaker 1: stay together because I didn't know what it hit us.
Speaker 1: Something wound up being in Essay sixteen. That's a shoulder fire.
Speaker 1: It's very technologically advanced weapons system for that part of
Speaker 1: the country. And they didn't even know they had Essay
Speaker 1: sixteens in country. But anyway, it worked as advertising that
Speaker 1: you know that big sky a little bullet theory, Well
Speaker 1: it's bullshit. I can again. It was daytime is about
Speaker 1: thirts local. But I remember check and the rotor to
Speaker 1: the rotors very critical and not a rotation. You don't
Speaker 1: want it to get too high because it could spin
Speaker 1: off the aircraft. And I'm thinking about keeping aircraft and trim,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's flat dirt, you know, desert out there,
Speaker 1: so it's very difficult to judge distance above the ground,
Speaker 1: you know, or long range distance. So I was relying
Speaker 1: solely on my radar altimeter, and I kept scanning it
Speaker 1: and the rotor and just all kinds of things, and
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, I wish the engine out audio would
Speaker 1: stop blaring at me, because I know the engines out
Speaker 1: and this extra input. I was kind of busy. I
Speaker 1: continue mouto rotation. I d sailed at about sixty and
Speaker 1: it was a very aggressive deceleration because I wanted to
Speaker 1: minimize my ground run. I wanted to bleed that air
Speaker 1: speed off. And then that at about twenty feet, I
Speaker 1: leveled the aircraft and I just pulled the collective. I
Speaker 1: pulled it's called cushion. I just pulled everything I had left.
Speaker 1: I remember checking the rotor. It was good, I was
Speaker 1: my trim was good. I was heading in a straight line.
Speaker 1: And there's just a lot of things that you got
Speaker 1: to do correctly. To land that aircraft safely. I touched
Speaker 1: down and it was funny. Later P Guy and I
Speaker 1: were talking about it, and in our heads we were
Speaker 1: high fiving each other because he was like, dude, I
Speaker 1: didn't even feel the touchdown. Really yeah, my wing man says, man,
Speaker 1: it was the prettiest auto he had ever seen. I said, well,
Speaker 1: I like Neil Armstrong, I only had to do it once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had one shot landed limb on the moon, you know.
Speaker 1: So we touched down and I was like, holy cow man, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is not too bad. Well, oh, Mr Murphy, everybody's
Speaker 1: familiar with him, so he's slid. Just the cockpit just
Speaker 1: filled with that dirt and dust and stuff, and you
Speaker 1: couldn't see and and I The last thing I remember was,
Speaker 1: of course, something old cowboy and used to ride. You know,
Speaker 1: you used to buck out horses and train them and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they go, you know when they bucked, they go
Speaker 1: to their front feet. Well you gotta set way, you
Speaker 1: know how you set way back? Yeah, going forward? Well
Speaker 1: I remember doing that. But the helicopter had slid, the
Speaker 1: skids stuck in some soft dirt and that started us
Speaker 1: our end over in tumble and I remember hearing the
Speaker 1: rotor blades hit the ground. It was again, it's just
Speaker 1: this is all slow motion, man. It was just it's
Speaker 1: incredible what your brain will do. Yeah, and that's the
Speaker 1: last thing I remember, is hearing those rotor blades just popping,
Speaker 1: you know, popping the ground, lapping the ground, hunt chiefs, yep,
Speaker 1: and then you know, leaning back into stirrups. That's funny. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I came to and again it was cockpits filled
Speaker 1: with dirt and dust, and and I just owed my
Speaker 1: eyes and I think I've been knocked out. I can
Speaker 1: either confirm or deny that, because if a navigator loses consciousness,
Speaker 1: you're grounded for two years. And story. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: kept thinking about I kept hearing this popping, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was like, the first thing I thought I
Speaker 1: was crazy, but it was popcorn because it was just
Speaker 1: pop pop pop. And then I'm like, holy crap, that's
Speaker 1: the Ammo cooking off. You know. I had a bunch
Speaker 1: of mini on Ammo on of course, seventeen pound rockets
Speaker 1: and we were on fire. I mean I could smell
Speaker 1: it and I could hear it. You know, you do
Speaker 1: the old check, you know, wiggle your toes. Move your feet. Okay,
Speaker 1: I can move my left leg, move my right leg.
Speaker 1: And then I realized I'm inverted. I'm upside down. My eyes, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, And I remember I moved. I tried to
Speaker 1: move my right on my left arm. They my shoulders
Speaker 1: have been dislocated. Yeah, but I guess i'd rolled on
Speaker 1: the right. You know, I was in the right seat
Speaker 1: when I was laying on the ground when it came
Speaker 1: to rest, so I guess it popped it out. So
Speaker 1: I I just kind of bleaked my eyes a few times,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was like, crap the bed fred
Speaker 1: I said a quick little prayer. I just said, God,
Speaker 1: just you know, give me speeding accuracy and watch over
Speaker 1: my girls. Man, because I don't make it out of this.
Speaker 1: It's all good. I know where I'm going. So I
Speaker 1: I my right. I looked at it because that's the
Speaker 1: first thing, you know, again, as a soldier and a warrior,
Speaker 1: you know, where's my weapons? Because because my aircraft kind
Speaker 1: of on fire right now, Well then I heard gunfire,
Speaker 1: you know, as my brain kind of re caged as
Speaker 1: to what was going on around my in my environment,
Speaker 1: I could hear the fifty I can hear two forties.
Speaker 1: I can hear my wingman shooting many guns, and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay. So I look over a p guy.
Speaker 1: Of course, we're hanging there, and he's he's kind of
Speaker 1: up in the air because we're right side low in
Speaker 1: birded put my hand on his shoulder and I said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I said you okay, and he just he kept looking
Speaker 1: straight ahead and he kind of nodded his head. But
Speaker 1: I could see blood all over his face, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, crap, man. You know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: if he'd been head or then. The next thing I
Speaker 1: thought was the old little bird cyclic kiss they're famous for.
Speaker 1: The shoulder harness was not locking in a crash sequence.
Speaker 1: I can name several guys right now that don't have
Speaker 1: any front teeth because they smacked the cyclic in that
Speaker 1: forward momentum. And how can that be acceptable? Man? Luckily
Speaker 1: ours worked, and so I told him, I said, look,
Speaker 1: I said, get your rifle. I crawled out of the front.
Speaker 1: I took my helmet off, and I in the crash sequence,
Speaker 1: I'd hit the doorframe in my head and yeah, it
Speaker 1: had cracked my helmet. I didn't know that. You went out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but later on. I remember telling the crew chiefs to
Speaker 1: lose that helmet. They'd send it to Fort Rutger and
Speaker 1: Fort Rucker to analyze it and say, well, guy, this
Speaker 1: guy took a tn G shot to the head, you know,
Speaker 1: and whatever, and so, yeah, the helmet disappeared, and that's
Speaker 1: that's unfortunate, man. Yeah. Yeah, back, I'd kind of like
Speaker 1: I had it right now. But didn't you crack vertebrae
Speaker 1: in that crash as well? Yeah? I cracked one and
Speaker 1: C three and then two in my else spine and
Speaker 1: uh but so I crawled out again. My brain shifted
Speaker 1: to you know, security of the aircraft, security of my crew,
Speaker 1: just figure out what the heck is going on. And
Speaker 1: there was a gunfight was raging, you know. Down there
Speaker 1: were about we're about three d west of the bill
Speaker 1: old man of guys were just northeast of us. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, okay, So but I tried to stand
Speaker 1: up and take a step and I'd fall down. I'd
Speaker 1: stand up, take a step and I'd fall down. I
Speaker 1: did that like three or four times, and I was like, crap, man, mane,
Speaker 1: my legs broke. No, So I just sat down and
Speaker 1: my my wing man later says, yeah, we were watching you,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, I was fixing the land. He says,
Speaker 1: greg that that helicopter was fully engulfed in fire. We
Speaker 1: didn't see any movement, and I had to go do
Speaker 1: a call for fire. So I went and gazed some
Speaker 1: targets and I came back around. We were gonna land
Speaker 1: and get you guys out, so we he said, I
Speaker 1: honestly thought y'all were dead, but he was watching me,
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, it was kind of funny
Speaker 1: at the time. He says, he kind of looked like
Speaker 1: a surface clown. You know, he's up, he's down, and
Speaker 1: he's up, he's up, he's down. Go ahead. Question, isn't
Speaker 1: it true that, uh, despite the car it on the
Speaker 1: ground that your wingman flew over and flipped to a bird. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's nice. That's nice. Sorry, right, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: came in and they swooped this and Jay, you know,
Speaker 1: he gave us the American signal and I gave him
Speaker 1: one back. That way they knew we were okay. Just
Speaker 1: to calms check, right, Yeah, yeah, that's it, man, No
Speaker 1: no colms, there's no combs. And so he went back
Speaker 1: around got back in the fight. So I did three
Speaker 1: hundred security three hundred six degree security check around the
Speaker 1: aircraft and I was like, holy crap, man, this thing
Speaker 1: is burning. So I thought about my rock. We all
Speaker 1: carry our little rocks right behind the seats, and then
Speaker 1: the rock we have our night vision goggles, water MMO
Speaker 1: grenades cut them. Limped over to the cargo bay. There
Speaker 1: it was just fully engulfed in fire, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not reaching my hand in there, so, you know,
Speaker 1: screw that. And then I'm like, worst pa guy. So
Speaker 1: I crawled to the front of aircraft and I he's
Speaker 1: just looking straight ahead again, you know. And I asked
Speaker 1: him later, I said, what what in the world were
Speaker 1: you doing? He goes man, I was listening to the radio.
Speaker 1: They were talking about us, you know, ahs down, you know,
Speaker 1: launched launch the force, grav gravies down, graves down. So
Speaker 1: and I was like, go you knucklehead. So I said,
Speaker 1: all right, I said, get out, get out. I'm not
Speaker 1: kidding the aircraft on fire man. Again, my focus went
Speaker 1: to the east because all I can think of was
Speaker 1: black Hawk down. You know, a little black helicopter shot
Speaker 1: down right here by the bad guys and they're coming.
Speaker 1: I spent a few seconds, you know, just kind of
Speaker 1: watching again, and then I went I looked back and
Speaker 1: I didn't see p I and by now the flames
Speaker 1: were in the cockpit. So I crawled ran over there
Speaker 1: the best as I could, and I crawled in and
Speaker 1: I just reached up and I pulled his lax you know,
Speaker 1: little latches on those seat belts. It was it was
Speaker 1: kind of funny because he just he went down, you know,
Speaker 1: and fell down on his head, and then he kind
Speaker 1: of looked at me, and I was like, come on,
Speaker 1: I just grabbed him, and I mean the fire I
Speaker 1: never will get the fire was just rolling around his arm.
Speaker 1: It was just weird. Man. I grabbed him and I
Speaker 1: just jerked him out of the the helicopter man out on
Speaker 1: top of him. So we got out. We went probably
Speaker 1: about fifty meters at the three o'clock position. Because then
Speaker 1: I got to worry on about those seventeen panel rockets.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I don't know what. I don't
Speaker 1: know what those things are gonna do because everything was burning,
Speaker 1: and you know, they never did anything. They just burned up.
Speaker 1: They didn't explode or huh no. But they didn't ignite.
Speaker 1: Surprisingly yah. I put p guy in a prone position
Speaker 1: night and I said, hey, man, I said, I got
Speaker 1: his helmet off, kind of checked him, you know, like
Speaker 1: we always do. And he had blood all over his
Speaker 1: face and I said, hey, I said, let me let
Speaker 1: me see your Grinner's opened his mouth like, looked at
Speaker 1: his teeth and I said, okay, good. He didn't smack
Speaker 1: the cyclic because that's what I thought. I said, stick
Speaker 1: your tongue out, and he stuck his tongue out and
Speaker 1: he had bit halfway through his tongue, and oh dude,
Speaker 1: I said, okay. So I told him, I said, look,
Speaker 1: you watch north and we were both shaking up. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch to the east. I said, if you
Speaker 1: see something sing out, let's put kind of messed up
Speaker 1: right now. So let's put two sets of eyes on it.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it before we engaged. And he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I got it. So it wasn't, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long. But I heard a vehicle
Speaker 1: and I says, hey, I got contact my twelve. He
Speaker 1: got kind of screwed around. So we had both guns
Speaker 1: up and at the low ready and then I heard
Speaker 1: I heard stop, and I looked and see ahead bobbing.
Speaker 1: We were in a little bit of a declaid there.
Speaker 1: Now I can see. I saw his eyes and sunglass
Speaker 1: and I saw a beard, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know him. I said, okay, we're good lawyer weapon
Speaker 1: and uh yeah. So Chad just he kind of stopped
Speaker 1: and then he just took off running forwards us and
Speaker 1: got up there to us and uh put his arms
Speaker 1: around us, and he's like, man, I sure him happy
Speaker 1: to see you. Guys. Said we thought you guys are dead,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, we ain't dead. And the rest
Speaker 1: is history. We had we had about a six hour
Speaker 1: gunfight after that, and got truck stuck and got him out,
Speaker 1: and oh lord it was. We had to drive out
Speaker 1: of there because Combat Search and Rescues Air Force Special
Speaker 1: House guys refused to come get us, said it was
Speaker 1: too risky. Commander wasn't too happy about that. But he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: well we'll take him out with us, but they're over
Speaker 1: him with my body. So we we fought our way
Speaker 1: out of well. We went went in the town into
Speaker 1: the bill there because I wanted to see if we
Speaker 1: could find any any evidence two of the guys saw
Speaker 1: saw their shot, saw the rock in the missile shot,
Speaker 1: and it was on the top of the two story building.
Speaker 1: We assaulted into there, and oh, I remember this. It
Speaker 1: was kind of cool. We were here. We are these
Speaker 1: five vehicles online. We're just racing across the desert. I'm
Speaker 1: in the back right seat behind some major and I
Speaker 1: looked out in the window and I looked right, and
Speaker 1: then I looked left, and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: could think I was Rap Patrol, remember that old TV ship,
Speaker 1: those pretty studes, the rat Patrol. Because we were, you know,
Speaker 1: hopping over a little bunk, just hauling ass. You know,
Speaker 1: all guns were going off and the gunners were engaged
Speaker 1: in targets and anyway, that was a short combat pause,
Speaker 1: I guess. And then then we got stucked. Then we
Speaker 1: got out under fire, and then we made it into
Speaker 1: the ville, and I went with the certain major. He
Speaker 1: went and had some shall we say, conversations with a
Speaker 1: few of the people. You know who I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: G O absolutely too, yeah, and uh he was like,
Speaker 1: come on, Greg, like. So they cleared up building where
Speaker 1: the missile shot came from. Got up there and I
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything when we got back, and then some
Speaker 1: more dudes started engages and Jeremy Smith, he was a
Speaker 1: young ranger, he was shock gutter. He started shooting up
Speaker 1: some camps, some buildings, and I saw some This dude
Speaker 1: ran out on the roof in a black man dress
Speaker 1: with cell phone and I was like, okay, he's calling
Speaker 1: his buddies. So I gaged him, and then Jeremy gaged
Speaker 1: the building. And then some of dudes came running out
Speaker 1: of a building with one carrying RPG in a a K.
Speaker 1: So we engage them and fought our way out of
Speaker 1: their fighter way through Felusia Plans to Ramadi, through Ramadi,
Speaker 1: and then finally through the MSS about nine o'clock that
Speaker 1: night when we got there going after the guys that
Speaker 1: shot you down described you as like the master counterpuncht er.
Speaker 1: We'd like to ask one last question that we feel
Speaker 1: to be important. We know you're a philanthropist and uh,
Speaker 1: we know you're giving back to the community, and we'd
Speaker 1: really like the listeners to hear about what you're doing,
Speaker 1: because we know you're not ever gonna teach your own horn,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna toot it for you. I'm just a man.
Speaker 1: Guys got a purpose for me and and I got
Speaker 1: real involved with working with other veterans and helping guys out,
Speaker 1: especially the younger guys from from the community. A lot
Speaker 1: of rangers, a few of the Delta guys, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, minister to them and mentor them
Speaker 1: and help them through their their problems and their issues.
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty involved in a couple of the better
Speaker 1: known nonprofits. One we got here in Young County, Texas.
Speaker 1: It's Young County Warrior Ranch and we have a real
Speaker 1: nice facility here. We we got a building that sleeps
Speaker 1: about twenty guys and we do a helo hog hunt
Speaker 1: every here in March. Yeah, you guys can ever get
Speaker 1: down here, we'd love to have you. But uh, good
Speaker 1: good friend of mine a icon in the Range Regiment
Speaker 1: and Special Operations Communities Servant, Major James Pippen, and he
Speaker 1: lives here in Graham And but yeah, we put that
Speaker 1: thing on and it's just, man, it's just medicine for
Speaker 1: these guys we have. Generally we'll have some active duty
Speaker 1: rangers come in then guys from all over the country
Speaker 1: and we do another big helicopter hog hunt. And in
Speaker 1: this Texas and February and you know again it's it's
Speaker 1: these you know, these these younger guys come in man
Speaker 1: and they're just they're angry and they're rumping man. After
Speaker 1: they leave, they're they're happy, and you know, they get
Speaker 1: to be with with guys of their own breed, and
Speaker 1: you know they know that there's guys have been aren't
Speaker 1: done that it was them. I'm gonna throw this in
Speaker 1: there because, uh, because I think it's pretty important as
Speaker 1: uh stars Stavros. The way I met Chief. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't meet Chief in the service, not at all.
Speaker 1: I had no idea who it was. But I had
Speaker 1: a pretty dark dark year in Las Vegas, and my
Speaker 1: old daughter came and she brought me to Albuquerque and
Speaker 1: I was just not recovering, you know, I was I
Speaker 1: wasn't getting better and it was just getting worse. And
Speaker 1: I got a phone call one day and it was
Speaker 1: the man said, my name is Greg Cooker and I'm
Speaker 1: a former nights stalker and I heard you're not doing well.
Speaker 1: It me and some of the guys, we're gonna make
Speaker 1: a road trip out there and come get you to
Speaker 1: take care of you. That's how that's how I met chief,
Speaker 1: So that's that's really nice. Yeah, that's what we do, man.
Speaker 1: The board done. Then you know, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: saund in the range of creeze and never shall I
Speaker 1: leave a falling comrade. And that's that's forever, man, It's
Speaker 1: just like the oath that we all took. That's forever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When brothers are in trouble or in need, we rally
Speaker 1: the troops and we go get them, and they're just
Speaker 1: they don't just say that. No, Yeah, I mean George
Speaker 1: and I both we've we've lost some very very good
Speaker 1: friends to suicide and you know, they lose hope and
Speaker 1: they don't have a loving God. Yeah, they just they
Speaker 1: go to another place. So I'm very very I'm on
Speaker 1: a crusade, so to speak. I mean, I've been crusading
Speaker 1: my whole life, did it in the Mid East for
Speaker 1: eight years. Regardless of what people think or say, you know,
Speaker 1: the crusades will continue for a long long time. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I love each and every one of them,
Speaker 1: and you don't want them to know that. It's tough
Speaker 1: to yes, sir, that's the point. That's a wrong. Having
Speaker 1: yours back to take care of your own. That's God's
Speaker 1: purpose for me and many of us out there. So Jeff,
Speaker 1: stay in the fight. We gotta stay in the fight.
Speaker 1: And guys preach that A lot. A lot of guys
Speaker 1: preach that, you know, I got your back, I'm there
Speaker 1: for you. Everybody wants to help till it's time to help.
Speaker 1: But Chief Chief is a doer. Man, it's not She's
Speaker 1: not a sayer, He's a doer. So thanks, oh man,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, did it to you for my life?
Speaker 1: That's for sure. Well, we'll depend on each other. Greg,
Speaker 1: thanks to Ken him join us. Oh thank you. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Thanks. I was very reluctant to right
Speaker 1: and to start. And yeah, George, George has been a
Speaker 1: huge proponent Kyle Lamb. Of course, my wife. I think
Speaker 1: it's important for the next generation of warriors that come
Speaker 1: up to hear these stories. And you know, and it's
Speaker 1: not about me, it's about the team. It's about all
Speaker 1: of us. We we all are successes to each other.
Speaker 1: We couldn't have done what we've done without each other.
Speaker 1: Because that's the message. I guess my in State and
Speaker 1: you can tech OUs a podcast and Grex at our
Speaker 1: new site with just real nance software where you can
Speaker 1: find a thriving community of active duty and veterans and
Speaker 1: people affiliated with the military. Yeah, that's it, on time,
Speaker 1: on target, every times, dirty seconds thanks to Wars. Don't
Speaker 1: even mention it. Thank you like ge cheers great all
Speaker 1: right out here use them. Listening to self red Radio.
Speaker 1: New episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. Follow the show
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at self red Radio.