So it's a memorial Day, and obviously on moremorial day we take a moment, We take a day to remember the fall and to remember the heroes who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend this nation, defend our country. We honor the families who have lost loved ones in the pursuit of freedom to protect this great country. But beyond taking the time to remember, shouldn't we also reflect? And shouldn't we also reflect on mistakes that we've made as a country and things we could change moving forward, and being more judicious with the lives of our military men and women. Shouldn't the people in charge shouldn't their sole duty with our military men and women be to avoid casualties, avoid sending them to unnecessary wars, so that we have less men and women who have to pay the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of freedom. So that's why I wanted to do this Memorial Day. Not only honor the fallen and honor their bravery, and honor the people who give everything this country that they love and that we love, but also take a time to reflect. And one of those wars is Afghanistan. You know, it was the longest war in American history twenty years. We lost so many service members, so many service men and women in Afghanistan. So what are the lessons we could learn there, What should we take from that and do differently moving forward? And who better to talk to than Sean Parnell. He is a former US Army airborne ranger who served in the legendary tenth Mountain Division for six years, retiring as a captain. He received two Bronze Stars, one for valor and a Purple Heart as well. He wrote the New York Times best selling book Outline Platoon, and he also wrote Man of Ward. Outlaw Platoon details his sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan. Sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan. While he was there, his platoon repeatedly was outnumbered, repeatedly outgunned, and they displayed such tremendous bravery, to the point that over eighty five percent of his platoon received Purple Hearts for wounds that they incurred in battle. Sean was also injured in battle, day in and day out, fighting for freedom in the mountains of Afghanistan. He was twenty four at the time. Can you imagine being twenty four and leading a platoon in the mountains of Afghanistan, day in, day out, outnumbered, outgunn fighting bravely and fearlessly next to your brothers in the military and in the Army. So we're going to get Sean Parnell's take on what lessons we should learn from Afghanistan, what we could be doing different moving forward, and how we can truly honor, to the best of our abilities, the men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and the pursuit of freedom.

So it's a memorial Day, and obviously on moremorial day we take a moment, We take a day to remember the fall and to remember the heroes who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend this nation, defend our country. We honor the families who have lost loved ones in the pursuit of freedom to protect this great country. But beyond taking the time to remember, shouldn't we also reflect? And shouldn't we also reflect on mistakes that we've made as a country and things we could change moving forward, and being more judicious with the lives of our military men and women. Shouldn't the people in charge shouldn't their sole duty with our military men and women be to avoid casualties, avoid sending them to unnecessary wars, so that we have less men and women who have to pay the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of freedom. So that's why I wanted to do this Memorial Day. Not only honor the fallen and honor their bravery, and honor the people who give everything this country that they love and that we love, but also take a time to reflect. And one of those wars is Afghanistan. You know, it was the longest war in American history twenty years. We lost so many service members, so many service men and women in Afghanistan. So what are the lessons we could learn there, What should we take from that and do differently moving forward? And who better to talk to than Sean Parnell. He is a former US Army airborne ranger who served in the legendary tenth Mountain Division for six years, retiring as a captain. He received two Bronze Stars, one for valor and a Purple Heart as well. He wrote the New York Times best selling book Outline Platoon, and he also wrote Man of Ward. Outlaw Platoon details his sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan. Sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan. While he was there, his platoon repeatedly was outnumbered, repeatedly outgunned, and they displayed such tremendous bravery, to the point that over eighty five percent of his platoon received Purple Hearts for wounds that they incurred in battle. Sean was also injured in battle, day in and day out, fighting for freedom in the mountains of Afghanistan. He was twenty four at the time. Can you imagine being twenty four and leading a platoon in the mountains of Afghanistan, day in, day out, outnumbered, outgunn fighting bravely and fearlessly next to your brothers in the military and in the Army. So we're going to get Sean Parnell's take on what lessons we should learn from Afghanistan, what we could be doing different moving forward, and how we can truly honor, to the best of our abilities, the men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and the pursuit of freedom.

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

He's an absolute hero, and he's an absolute badass, Sean Parnell, Sean Hearnell, you are such a badass and such an American hero. It's an honor just to have you on the show. So I really appreciate you taking this time.

He's an absolute hero, and he's an absolute badass, Sean Parnell, Sean Hearnell, you are such a badass and such an American hero. It's an honor just to have you on the show. So I really appreciate you taking this time.

Oh well, thanks, Lisa. I don't know if i'd call myself a badass, but I was in the Army for a time and I was surrounded by badasses every day, so I guess I was pretty lucky.

Oh well, thanks, Lisa. I don't know if i'd call myself a badass, but I was in the Army for a time and I was surrounded by badasses every day, so I guess I was pretty lucky.

I'll call you bad ass. I'll be the one. I'll do it because you can be humble. I will take the humility out of it for you.

I'll call you bad ass. I'll be the one. I'll do it because you can be humble. I will take the humility out of it for you.

You know, we're recording this before but this is going to air on Memorial Day and obviously a day to honor the individuals and so many who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and the name of defending freedom, defending this great country that we love. But shouldn't we also take this time to learn lessons from, you know, wars like Afghanistan, and also use it as a time to be more judicious in sending our military men and.

You know, we're recording this before but this is going to air on Memorial Day and obviously a day to honor the individuals and so many who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and the name of defending freedom, defending this great country that we love. But shouldn't we also take this time to learn lessons from, you know, wars like Afghanistan, and also use it as a time to be more judicious in sending our military men and.

Women to war.

Women to war.

I think so, I mean, and you know, I think I think it speaks directly to the importance of you know, warriors coming back, you know, American men and women who fight our wars coming back and being involved with regards to where our country goes and the decisions that we make pertaining to the future of America and the wars that we get ourselves involved in. You know, after I spent time in Afghanistan back in two thousand and six, in two thousand and seven, we were there for what like twenty years. You know, it's a long long time that I think most most of America, America, it's difficult to wrap your mind around that length of time, you know, And so I feel like you look at what happened in Afghanistan and all the blood, the treasure that we spent there. Right after twenty years there, you look now and it's like, well, what do you have to show for it? You know? And look, I tell you this, like, I'm proud of my time in Afghanistan. I don't regret it for a second. I joined after September eleventh. One of the best experiences of my life was serving this country. So I am not a victim in any way. I'm a volunteer and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. And I'm proud of what we did in Afghanistan, you know. But I and critics, critics would say, you know, when I say, well, what'll we have to show for critics would say, well, look, I mean, you know, look at what you do, what you built for the Afghans. You wells in the villages. You know, little girls know how to read, and you know, boys are part of the economy now and they understand what what freedom, freedom is, even if it was just for a brief time. And I would just say that, yes, that is all true, but I would rather have my friends alive, you know. And you look at what's happening today and the Afghani things in Afghanistan just collapsed what like less than a year ago, Lisa, right like August twenty twenty one, And it seems like you have members of Congress on both sides of the Aisle, in the House and in the Senate that are clamoring to go right back into the fight in Ukraine, which from a geopolitical standpoint is it's far more complicated than Afghanistan. Without even taking a breath after the Afghan War and saying, wait, is this really worth it? Should we take time to hit the reset button as a country and figure out if, if this fight is worth Americans dying for, Because that's the question that American moms and dads need to ask themselves, Lisa, is like, is Ukraine so important that you are willing to sacrifice your son or daughter for that. If the answer to that question is no, then we shouldn't be doing anything for Ukraine. And look, Lisa, I feel bad for the people there. My heart aches for the civilians and children who are caught in the middle. Like this is not me saying like we should ignore it completely, Like nobody, like a few people in this country understand that the humanitarian disaster and people stuck in the middle of the flight than me. I get that, But but again I would say I would rather have American sons and daughters alive. You know, I think we need to take care of ourselves here at home a little bit. First.

I think so, I mean, and you know, I think I think it speaks directly to the importance of you know, warriors coming back, you know, American men and women who fight our wars coming back and being involved with regards to where our country goes and the decisions that we make pertaining to the future of America and the wars that we get ourselves involved in. You know, after I spent time in Afghanistan back in two thousand and six, in two thousand and seven, we were there for what like twenty years. You know, it's a long long time that I think most most of America, America, it's difficult to wrap your mind around that length of time, you know, And so I feel like you look at what happened in Afghanistan and all the blood, the treasure that we spent there. Right after twenty years there, you look now and it's like, well, what do you have to show for it? You know? And look, I tell you this, like, I'm proud of my time in Afghanistan. I don't regret it for a second. I joined after September eleventh. One of the best experiences of my life was serving this country. So I am not a victim in any way. I'm a volunteer and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. And I'm proud of what we did in Afghanistan, you know. But I and critics, critics would say, you know, when I say, well, what'll we have to show for critics would say, well, look, I mean, you know, look at what you do, what you built for the Afghans. You wells in the villages. You know, little girls know how to read, and you know, boys are part of the economy now and they understand what what freedom, freedom is, even if it was just for a brief time. And I would just say that, yes, that is all true, but I would rather have my friends alive, you know. And you look at what's happening today and the Afghani things in Afghanistan just collapsed what like less than a year ago, Lisa, right like August twenty twenty one, And it seems like you have members of Congress on both sides of the Aisle, in the House and in the Senate that are clamoring to go right back into the fight in Ukraine, which from a geopolitical standpoint is it's far more complicated than Afghanistan. Without even taking a breath after the Afghan War and saying, wait, is this really worth it? Should we take time to hit the reset button as a country and figure out if, if this fight is worth Americans dying for, Because that's the question that American moms and dads need to ask themselves, Lisa, is like, is Ukraine so important that you are willing to sacrifice your son or daughter for that. If the answer to that question is no, then we shouldn't be doing anything for Ukraine. And look, Lisa, I feel bad for the people there. My heart aches for the civilians and children who are caught in the middle. Like this is not me saying like we should ignore it completely, Like nobody, like a few people in this country understand that the humanitarian disaster and people stuck in the middle of the flight than me. I get that, But but again I would say I would rather have American sons and daughters alive. You know, I think we need to take care of ourselves here at home a little bit. First.

We just see politicians, you know, beating the drums of war with Ukraine, and Joe Biden said something today about Taiwan about you know, you should take military action. But you just hear these politicians and it almost there's a callousness to it, to be honest, because it doesn't take into account that, as you pointed out, it's would they.

We just see politicians, you know, beating the drums of war with Ukraine, and Joe Biden said something today about Taiwan about you know, you should take military action. But you just hear these politicians and it almost there's a callousness to it, to be honest, because it doesn't take into account that, as you pointed out, it's would they.

Send their son or daughter?

Send their son or daughter?

You know, it just it doesn't take intoccount Like I just lives, American people should be the most important to us. That lives, the precious lives our military men and one. It should be the most important to us, and it just doesn't. It doesn't seem to be the case. And it makes me sad.

You know, it just it doesn't take intoccount Like I just lives, American people should be the most important to us. That lives, the precious lives our military men and one. It should be the most important to us, and it just doesn't. It doesn't seem to be the case. And it makes me sad.

Look, you're right, Lisa, I mean, you're right. It's I think part of the problem is that you you only have zero point four percent of the people in this country who served this country during Iraq and Afghanistan, so twenty twenty years of war, so longest period of war in American history, only point four percent of the country actually experienced what it means to protect and defend freedom. And so I think as a result, you have, you know, most of America, ninety nine percent of America who enjoy freedom on a day to day basis in this country, and you have less than half of one percent who protect it. So there's there's a significant gap between those two groups. And I think that's part of the reason why, you know, you have politicians who really never served anything but themselves for the majority of their lives, talk so callously about sending American sons and daughters into the fight because the reality is they don't have any real understanding of what that means for American families who are actually doing the fighting. Like, for example, when I got back from Afghanistan, a sixteen month combat deployment, sixteen months, like four hundred and eighty five days, It's like if you had a kid, it's like, have a good first grade year, have a good second grade year. I'll see you on your way to third grade. That's crazy, you know. And you know, we got back, we hit the reset button. You know, most of we weren't even back for a couple of weeks, we already had to go right back down to Fort Polk, Louisiana. So we got back home, hugged our families, went back to do trading down to Fort Polk, Louisiana, and prep for another combat deployment to Afghanistan that was nine months later. I mean, it's an incredibly heavy burden that we that we place on a very very small percentage of Americans, and most of the time our politicians are unaffected by that. But I guess it sounds cool when you're up there at the podium, you know, hey, of China invade Taiwan, like We're going to get involved militarily, with no real understanding in the geopolitical consequences or the all out for the American people or how that would affect people who serve. I mean, it's it's just irresponsible, especially Lisa, when you consider just how much suffering there is here within our own borders at home that I think a lot of our attention should be focused on.

Look, you're right, Lisa, I mean, you're right. It's I think part of the problem is that you you only have zero point four percent of the people in this country who served this country during Iraq and Afghanistan, so twenty twenty years of war, so longest period of war in American history, only point four percent of the country actually experienced what it means to protect and defend freedom. And so I think as a result, you have, you know, most of America, ninety nine percent of America who enjoy freedom on a day to day basis in this country, and you have less than half of one percent who protect it. So there's there's a significant gap between those two groups. And I think that's part of the reason why, you know, you have politicians who really never served anything but themselves for the majority of their lives, talk so callously about sending American sons and daughters into the fight because the reality is they don't have any real understanding of what that means for American families who are actually doing the fighting. Like, for example, when I got back from Afghanistan, a sixteen month combat deployment, sixteen months, like four hundred and eighty five days, It's like if you had a kid, it's like, have a good first grade year, have a good second grade year. I'll see you on your way to third grade. That's crazy, you know. And you know, we got back, we hit the reset button. You know, most of we weren't even back for a couple of weeks, we already had to go right back down to Fort Polk, Louisiana. So we got back home, hugged our families, went back to do trading down to Fort Polk, Louisiana, and prep for another combat deployment to Afghanistan that was nine months later. I mean, it's an incredibly heavy burden that we that we place on a very very small percentage of Americans, and most of the time our politicians are unaffected by that. But I guess it sounds cool when you're up there at the podium, you know, hey, of China invade Taiwan, like We're going to get involved militarily, with no real understanding in the geopolitical consequences or the all out for the American people or how that would affect people who serve. I mean, it's it's just irresponsible, especially Lisa, when you consider just how much suffering there is here within our own borders at home that I think a lot of our attention should be focused on.

Well, and I think President Trump really changed at least my thinking on foreign policy because what he was able to show us is that you can be strong, you can flex muscle, you can deter the bad guys without setting troops, without invading, without beating the you know, the the drum beat for war, and you can do it like he did when he was sitting with President She, you know, having chocolate cake, telling him he's sending fifteen done Tamahook missiles. This yet it right, it's such a fall or remove or striking these peace deals on the Abraham Accords. It just changed the way, you know, I thought about things because he just showed us a different path.

Well, and I think President Trump really changed at least my thinking on foreign policy because what he was able to show us is that you can be strong, you can flex muscle, you can deter the bad guys without setting troops, without invading, without beating the you know, the the drum beat for war, and you can do it like he did when he was sitting with President She, you know, having chocolate cake, telling him he's sending fifteen done Tamahook missiles. This yet it right, it's such a fall or remove or striking these peace deals on the Abraham Accords. It just changed the way, you know, I thought about things because he just showed us a different path.

He really opened my eyes to you know, there there is a different way, you know, and when you're in Washington, I mean really, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, there there is group think right where everyone sort of thinks the same way about a lot of things. And I think that's why you hear a lot of people talk about the uniparty, you know, where you have you know, people like you know, as ideologically different as Adam Kinsinger and Ted Cruz both talking about the importance of defending Ukraine, to even certain Democrats talking about the importance of defending our ally Ukraine even though they're not an ally. You know, it's like you see, you see these certain groups of people that think alike, Lisa, And what I always admired about President Trump is it takes an unbelievable amount of mental toughness to resist that type of pressure and group think right and and Washington, President Trump was I mean, gosh, at any given moment in d C. In the White House, both Republicans and Democrats were fired up in anger at President Trump for different reasons. And that's what I admired about him the most. And that's ultimately why I think the American people sent him there, Because there is a level of dissatisfaction in this country that if people just got outside the Beltway or New York City or LA and they took a stroll through you know, Middle America, they would feel that sense of discontent about the direction of our country. And President Trump tapped into that. And you look at what he was able to accomplish in four years in the face of I mean, what that man faced in the White House was criminal. It was criminal. I mean, now we're learning of what Hillary Clinton did, it was like maybe legitimately criminal, I don't know. But the things that he was able to accomplish in four short years I never thought possible. And you know, the Abraham accorrors and peace in the Middle East. Never thought that was possible, but he did it. And yeah, like you said, it really opened my eyes to a new way of being and that you know, we don't have to deploy and get locked down and like so almost become cliche now in these in these forever wars, but that's really what they are. I mean, twenty freaking years in Afghanistan is a long time. I mean twenty years. I mean think about it like this, Like I'm forty years old. That's half of my life. We were in Afghanistan, like half of my life. The only profession, the only thing that I've known is war in Afghanistan. Lost thirty five plus friends there. I mean, that's a long time. And I think what President Trump showed us was that it doesn't have to be that way. We can still have peace as long as we're focused on the right stuff and focusing on ourselves at home. And unfortunately, a year and a half of Joe Biden, he's unraveling that pretty quickly.

He really opened my eyes to you know, there there is a different way, you know, and when you're in Washington, I mean really, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, there there is group think right where everyone sort of thinks the same way about a lot of things. And I think that's why you hear a lot of people talk about the uniparty, you know, where you have you know, people like you know, as ideologically different as Adam Kinsinger and Ted Cruz both talking about the importance of defending Ukraine, to even certain Democrats talking about the importance of defending our ally Ukraine even though they're not an ally. You know, it's like you see, you see these certain groups of people that think alike, Lisa, And what I always admired about President Trump is it takes an unbelievable amount of mental toughness to resist that type of pressure and group think right and and Washington, President Trump was I mean, gosh, at any given moment in d C. In the White House, both Republicans and Democrats were fired up in anger at President Trump for different reasons. And that's what I admired about him the most. And that's ultimately why I think the American people sent him there, Because there is a level of dissatisfaction in this country that if people just got outside the Beltway or New York City or LA and they took a stroll through you know, Middle America, they would feel that sense of discontent about the direction of our country. And President Trump tapped into that. And you look at what he was able to accomplish in four years in the face of I mean, what that man faced in the White House was criminal. It was criminal. I mean, now we're learning of what Hillary Clinton did, it was like maybe legitimately criminal, I don't know. But the things that he was able to accomplish in four short years I never thought possible. And you know, the Abraham accorrors and peace in the Middle East. Never thought that was possible, but he did it. And yeah, like you said, it really opened my eyes to a new way of being and that you know, we don't have to deploy and get locked down and like so almost become cliche now in these in these forever wars, but that's really what they are. I mean, twenty freaking years in Afghanistan is a long time. I mean twenty years. I mean think about it like this, Like I'm forty years old. That's half of my life. We were in Afghanistan, like half of my life. The only profession, the only thing that I've known is war in Afghanistan. Lost thirty five plus friends there. I mean, that's a long time. And I think what President Trump showed us was that it doesn't have to be that way. We can still have peace as long as we're focused on the right stuff and focusing on ourselves at home. And unfortunately, a year and a half of Joe Biden, he's unraveling that pretty quickly.

I mean, I never thought it could get this bad. This, I mean, it's just it's really sad.

I mean, I never thought it could get this bad. This, I mean, it's just it's really sad.

But I but I honestly think I think the turning point for him was because you know, people thought he would restore ordery, do all these things, and obviously people like us knew he wasn't going to do and he wasn't capable of it. But his ratings really started to take a nose dive after Afghanistan. And it was the disastrous exit, the abandoning like the Bagroum airfield before getting our people out, getting thirteen service members killed, leaving Americans behind, And I think that was the turning point.

But I but I honestly think I think the turning point for him was because you know, people thought he would restore ordery, do all these things, and obviously people like us knew he wasn't going to do and he wasn't capable of it. But his ratings really started to take a nose dive after Afghanistan. And it was the disastrous exit, the abandoning like the Bagroum airfield before getting our people out, getting thirteen service members killed, leaving Americans behind, And I think that was the turning point.

And when that all was going down.

And when that all was going down.

You tweeted out that the afghandabacles on the suits not the boots. Talk about that disconnect in the military between the suits and the boots and how that played out with Afghanistan so disastrously.

You tweeted out that the afghandabacles on the suits not the boots. Talk about that disconnect in the military between the suits and the boots and how that played out with Afghanistan so disastrously.

Oh, it was so frustrating to me. And part of what I do like coming back home after I got back from Afghanistan was there was realizing very quickly that a lot there are a lot of men and women here who serve this country that needed help. And you know, there's a way in which you come back from war, and war changes you and some pretty deep and fundamental ways, and you could you know, you come back and you meet and talk to your family and you feel like your family doesn't know you because you've changed, and you talk to your best friends. And there was a moment for me like where I'm from Pittsburgh and so like the first thing I do when I get back from Afghanistan is like text my buddies, you know who I went to college with and stuff. And like I open up my like little flip phone and text them and they text me back their address and like look at it. Read the address. I'm like, oh my gosh, Like these dudes are still living in the same address they've been living at for ten years, and I just got back from Afghanistan feel like a totally different person show up at their I show up at their apartment. I walk in and like they're like all sitting in the same spots on the couch, like drinking the same Iron City beer, talking about the same girl problems. And I'm like Simpson's posters on the wall and family Guy magnets on the fridge, and I'm thinking to myself, like, oh my god, like nothing has changed here at home, but I'm a different person in every way. And so if I was feeling like that, there are probably millions of Americans feeling like that who come home for more and just feel like they're different, and maybe they feel like exiles in their own country. And so I started doing everything I could to make sure that, like the war is really what I guess I'm getting to Lisa, is that the war for a lot of veterans really starts when you get home. And I wanted to just help veterans come home in the most productive way possible and not just survive on a day to day basis, but but really but thrive, you know. And when I tweeted that about Afghanistan, about it being on the suits and not the boots, was really it was in that spirit, because I knew there would be a lot of veterans thinking like, what the hell was all this for? You know, why the hell did I Why did I lose my best friend in this country? Why did I go to this country and sacrifice a piece of myself there?

Oh, it was so frustrating to me. And part of what I do like coming back home after I got back from Afghanistan was there was realizing very quickly that a lot there are a lot of men and women here who serve this country that needed help. And you know, there's a way in which you come back from war, and war changes you and some pretty deep and fundamental ways, and you could you know, you come back and you meet and talk to your family and you feel like your family doesn't know you because you've changed, and you talk to your best friends. And there was a moment for me like where I'm from Pittsburgh and so like the first thing I do when I get back from Afghanistan is like text my buddies, you know who I went to college with and stuff. And like I open up my like little flip phone and text them and they text me back their address and like look at it. Read the address. I'm like, oh my gosh, Like these dudes are still living in the same address they've been living at for ten years, and I just got back from Afghanistan feel like a totally different person show up at their I show up at their apartment. I walk in and like they're like all sitting in the same spots on the couch, like drinking the same Iron City beer, talking about the same girl problems. And I'm like Simpson's posters on the wall and family Guy magnets on the fridge, and I'm thinking to myself, like, oh my god, like nothing has changed here at home, but I'm a different person in every way. And so if I was feeling like that, there are probably millions of Americans feeling like that who come home for more and just feel like they're different, and maybe they feel like exiles in their own country. And so I started doing everything I could to make sure that, like the war is really what I guess I'm getting to Lisa, is that the war for a lot of veterans really starts when you get home. And I wanted to just help veterans come home in the most productive way possible and not just survive on a day to day basis, but but really but thrive, you know. And when I tweeted that about Afghanistan, about it being on the suits and not the boots, was really it was in that spirit, because I knew there would be a lot of veterans thinking like, what the hell was all this for? You know, why the hell did I Why did I lose my best friend in this country? Why did I go to this country and sacrifice a piece of myself there?

You know?

You know?

Why did we do all of this just to have some moron in the White House throw it all away? Because I mean, quite honestly, he's a bumbling idiot. Leadership matters, and he's a commander in chief, so that the term commander predisposes chief. His job at first and foremost an obligation to our American military, and it was a dereliction of duty of the highest order of what he did in Afghanistan. And it's not just it's not just leaving Americans behind, which is horrific, horrific enough, right, I can't even believe I had to say this, but the sacrifice that twenty years of Americans bled the ground red in Afghanistan just to seed it back to the Taliban in a few weeks. I mean, that's a that's a crime.

Why did we do all of this just to have some moron in the White House throw it all away? Because I mean, quite honestly, he's a bumbling idiot. Leadership matters, and he's a commander in chief, so that the term commander predisposes chief. His job at first and foremost an obligation to our American military, and it was a dereliction of duty of the highest order of what he did in Afghanistan. And it's not just it's not just leaving Americans behind, which is horrific, horrific enough, right, I can't even believe I had to say this, but the sacrifice that twenty years of Americans bled the ground red in Afghanistan just to seed it back to the Taliban in a few weeks. I mean, that's a that's a crime.

It's a crime, and it's it's gonna do unbelievable moral damage to people who served there, that the ramstifications of which I don't think we fully understand yet.

It's a crime, and it's it's gonna do unbelievable moral damage to people who served there, that the ramstifications of which I don't think we fully understand yet.

And so it's just like unbelievable to have to witness the fall of Afghanistan in the speed at which it fell here in America after having been there for twenty years. And again, never ever, ever, ever would have happened under President Trump, or really any American president that could speak in coherence sentences without having to read off a sheet of paper. I mean, just unbelievable. And you can't help but think, you cannot help but think like I used to joke around in the campaign trail when I was running for the House in the Senate, well mostly when I was running for the Senate, but about like just to utter incompetence. But I don't think it's incompetence. I think it's I think it's intentional. I think that this is you can't be this good. I mean, he's Joe Biden in his administration, a bunch of Obama appointees two point zero right back in the White House, some of which are sermon in the same cabinet positions. It's like they're unbelievably efficient, ruthlessly efficient at destroying almost every pillar in this country, I mean every country. Like it's unbelievable that the level of which they're failing. And I think Afghanistan was just one of those pillars.

And so it's just like unbelievable to have to witness the fall of Afghanistan in the speed at which it fell here in America after having been there for twenty years. And again, never ever, ever, ever would have happened under President Trump, or really any American president that could speak in coherence sentences without having to read off a sheet of paper. I mean, just unbelievable. And you can't help but think, you cannot help but think like I used to joke around in the campaign trail when I was running for the House in the Senate, well mostly when I was running for the Senate, but about like just to utter incompetence. But I don't think it's incompetence. I think it's I think it's intentional. I think that this is you can't be this good. I mean, he's Joe Biden in his administration, a bunch of Obama appointees two point zero right back in the White House, some of which are sermon in the same cabinet positions. It's like they're unbelievably efficient, ruthlessly efficient at destroying almost every pillar in this country, I mean every country. Like it's unbelievable that the level of which they're failing. And I think Afghanistan was just one of those pillars.

Well, I think we all just felt such amount of shame with the way that we exited, just the loss of military men and women, or those thirteen service members and just leaving Americans behind. Quick commercial break back with Sean Parnell on the other side, talked about sort of you know the challenge with coming home when you've been at war like that out I'll say one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had in my career was doing an honor ear flight for Vietnam war vets from Wisconsin for Fox and Friends. And I went on this trip with them, and I'll tell you it was just such a movie experience talking to these like big strong guys who were just brought to tears of just feeling the honor of having served because they didn't get the welcome they deserved when they came home. And so just doing the interviews with them and seeing these you know, grown men and you know cry and just it was just incredibly moving and I learned a lot from it. It was just a really you know, humbling and just incredible experience, you know, spending time with them and just being able to bless them and being part of this with the trip.

Well, I think we all just felt such amount of shame with the way that we exited, just the loss of military men and women, or those thirteen service members and just leaving Americans behind. Quick commercial break back with Sean Parnell on the other side, talked about sort of you know the challenge with coming home when you've been at war like that out I'll say one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had in my career was doing an honor ear flight for Vietnam war vets from Wisconsin for Fox and Friends. And I went on this trip with them, and I'll tell you it was just such a movie experience talking to these like big strong guys who were just brought to tears of just feeling the honor of having served because they didn't get the welcome they deserved when they came home. And so just doing the interviews with them and seeing these you know, grown men and you know cry and just it was just incredibly moving and I learned a lot from it. It was just a really you know, humbling and just incredible experience, you know, spending time with them and just being able to bless them and being part of this with the trip.

Yeah, well, Vietnam vets are I mean, we owe them so much, and obviously because as you mentioned, they didn't have the welcome home that we did. And so much of the reason why my generation was welcomed home was because after like what these Vietnam what the Vietnam era went through, they made themselves a promise and never allow another generation to veteran to experience what they did, and because of that, like we had by and large, a very positive homecoming, you know. And when I talk about feeling like an exile in your own country, I should say, like almost everybody that you talk to says thank you for your service. I am not again, Like, we're lucky to live in a country like America and come home to people that appreciate you. And that that is because of Vietnam veterans who went through hell when they came back, went through hell in combat, through hell, and they came back and then but didn't give in. And they they they made a promise to you know, subsequent generations of Americans when they came home from the fight, and that promise was to never allow what they went through to happen again. And I mean, really, my generation is standing on the shoulders of giants with them and World War two veterans and Korea veterans before them. So yeah, we're lucky. We're lucky to live in this country. But there's still a lot of work to do, that's for sure.

Yeah, well, Vietnam vets are I mean, we owe them so much, and obviously because as you mentioned, they didn't have the welcome home that we did. And so much of the reason why my generation was welcomed home was because after like what these Vietnam what the Vietnam era went through, they made themselves a promise and never allow another generation to veteran to experience what they did, and because of that, like we had by and large, a very positive homecoming, you know. And when I talk about feeling like an exile in your own country, I should say, like almost everybody that you talk to says thank you for your service. I am not again, Like, we're lucky to live in a country like America and come home to people that appreciate you. And that that is because of Vietnam veterans who went through hell when they came back, went through hell in combat, through hell, and they came back and then but didn't give in. And they they they made a promise to you know, subsequent generations of Americans when they came home from the fight, and that promise was to never allow what they went through to happen again. And I mean, really, my generation is standing on the shoulders of giants with them and World War two veterans and Korea veterans before them. So yeah, we're lucky. We're lucky to live in this country. But there's still a lot of work to do, that's for sure.

I can't imagine how it doesn't change you.

I can't imagine how it doesn't change you.

I particularly some of this stuff uf that you endured, you know, I know you very humbly. You know, didn't take me saying that you're, you know, a complete badass and a hero.

I particularly some of this stuff uf that you endured, you know, I know you very humbly. You know, didn't take me saying that you're, you know, a complete badass and a hero.

But you really are.

But you really are.

I mean, you retired a highly decorated captain. You're awarded two bronze stars, one for valor and a purple Heart. You wrote the New York Times best selling book, Outlaw Platoon. It's about your time serving as commanding the Army's tenth Mountain Division in Afghanistan. As you mentioned, you served in combat for sixteen months. You guys were repeatedly out numbered, repeatedly outgunn Yeah, your platoon killed over three hundred and fifty enemy fighters. Why do you think your platoon was able to be so effective in the face of so much That's a great question.

I mean, you retired a highly decorated captain. You're awarded two bronze stars, one for valor and a purple Heart. You wrote the New York Times best selling book, Outlaw Platoon. It's about your time serving as commanding the Army's tenth Mountain Division in Afghanistan. As you mentioned, you served in combat for sixteen months. You guys were repeatedly out numbered, repeatedly outgunn Yeah, your platoon killed over three hundred and fifty enemy fighters. Why do you think your platoon was able to be so effective in the face of so much That's a great question.

I think when you look at the things that the American military can bring to the fight, you know, like we've got lots of cool and sexy technology, Like we've got great guns and weapons, and we've got air superiority helicopter and fixed wing aircraft and all that. Believe me when I tell you all that really really helps. But I think really our secret weapon was the love and brotherhood that we shared for one another. You know, we We spent a lot of time training leading up to our deployment in Afghanistan, and I feel like I was very blessed to lead one of the most diverse platoons that you can imagine. And it's funny when you hear a lot of these politicians talking about diversity in America being a strength, and it's like, well, of course, diversity is a strength, but not in and of itself. What makes America so truly exceptional is that we unify beyond like our many differences, right, It's not just diversity for diversity's sake. And really, my platoon was a microcosm of that strength. Like we had black next to whites, Christians next to atheists, Democrats next to Republican, rich next to poor, young next to old, or we were like as wildly different as you can imagine. Yet there were no real hYP There were no hyphenated Americans out there in Afghanistan patroling those those mountains. And it was the very fact that I think we were able to put aside all of our differences and unify beyond them into one cohesive fighting force. That that that was what allowed us to go through sixteen months of absolute hell sixteen months of heavy combat and and make it. You know, you know, we made ourselves a promise. I think what drove us every day on the battlefield, Lisa, it was was the fear of of of not the enemy, but the fear of letting each other down. You know. I would have soldiers that would get that would get shot in the head. A soldier that got shot through his helmet, his helmet slowed the round down enough where it penetrated his skin but not his skull, and skirted around the side of his doll and back out the other end. And that guy went back to the base, wrapped his head up, and was back out on patrol twenty four hours later. So, when you're when you're serving with men or Americans that have that much like that, the level of toughness and tenacity and dedication to duty that someone that someone like that has, how do you fail somebody like that? Like if you twist an ank, or you you take some shrapnel, or you get maybe a shot, but it's a grazing wound, Like how do you how do you how do how do you not saddle up when you're surrounded by men like I just described? And so it was the fact that we were able really to unify beyond our many differences in fear of letting each other down. That really drove us to accomplish I think, extraordinary things and and really I mean it, like my platoon really just accomplish. It was just one unbelievable triumph of the human spirit after the next. I mean, we were not like Navy seals or anything. You know, we were light infantrymen. So we were in the tenth Mountain Division and we were light infantry. I mean we were real well trained and stuff. Don't get me wrong, but you know, we weren't special forces. You know, the most of the jobs that a lot of these kids had, like prior to carrying a machine gun and the mountains of Afghanistan, the job prior to the military is like high school shortstop. Yet these kids were It's just accomplished unbelievable things. And I think it's because we relied on one another, and that's what's what allowed us to get through it all.

I think when you look at the things that the American military can bring to the fight, you know, like we've got lots of cool and sexy technology, Like we've got great guns and weapons, and we've got air superiority helicopter and fixed wing aircraft and all that. Believe me when I tell you all that really really helps. But I think really our secret weapon was the love and brotherhood that we shared for one another. You know, we We spent a lot of time training leading up to our deployment in Afghanistan, and I feel like I was very blessed to lead one of the most diverse platoons that you can imagine. And it's funny when you hear a lot of these politicians talking about diversity in America being a strength, and it's like, well, of course, diversity is a strength, but not in and of itself. What makes America so truly exceptional is that we unify beyond like our many differences, right, It's not just diversity for diversity's sake. And really, my platoon was a microcosm of that strength. Like we had black next to whites, Christians next to atheists, Democrats next to Republican, rich next to poor, young next to old, or we were like as wildly different as you can imagine. Yet there were no real hYP There were no hyphenated Americans out there in Afghanistan patroling those those mountains. And it was the very fact that I think we were able to put aside all of our differences and unify beyond them into one cohesive fighting force. That that that was what allowed us to go through sixteen months of absolute hell sixteen months of heavy combat and and make it. You know, you know, we made ourselves a promise. I think what drove us every day on the battlefield, Lisa, it was was the fear of of of not the enemy, but the fear of letting each other down. You know. I would have soldiers that would get that would get shot in the head. A soldier that got shot through his helmet, his helmet slowed the round down enough where it penetrated his skin but not his skull, and skirted around the side of his doll and back out the other end. And that guy went back to the base, wrapped his head up, and was back out on patrol twenty four hours later. So, when you're when you're serving with men or Americans that have that much like that, the level of toughness and tenacity and dedication to duty that someone that someone like that has, how do you fail somebody like that? Like if you twist an ank, or you you take some shrapnel, or you get maybe a shot, but it's a grazing wound, Like how do you how do you how do how do you not saddle up when you're surrounded by men like I just described? And so it was the fact that we were able really to unify beyond our many differences in fear of letting each other down. That really drove us to accomplish I think, extraordinary things and and really I mean it, like my platoon really just accomplish. It was just one unbelievable triumph of the human spirit after the next. I mean, we were not like Navy seals or anything. You know, we were light infantrymen. So we were in the tenth Mountain Division and we were light infantry. I mean we were real well trained and stuff. Don't get me wrong, but you know, we weren't special forces. You know, the most of the jobs that a lot of these kids had, like prior to carrying a machine gun and the mountains of Afghanistan, the job prior to the military is like high school shortstop. Yet these kids were It's just accomplished unbelievable things. And I think it's because we relied on one another, and that's what's what allowed us to get through it all.

And you're twenty four at the beginning right of this standing.

And you're twenty four at the beginning right of this standing.

I mean, how do you do that.

I mean, how do you do that.

At twenty four and be responsible for all these brave men that you just talked about. I mean, what an incredible amount of responsibility. I was an idiot when I was so so God did you do that?

At twenty four and be responsible for all these brave men that you just talked about. I mean, what an incredible amount of responsibility. I was an idiot when I was so so God did you do that?

But how do you know?

But how do you know?

I don't know. I don't know. You just you know. I had a conversation with my mom, uh when I got back from Afghanistan and maybe a couple of years after, and my youngest brother, I'm the oldest of four, and so my youngest brother was like like helping my middle brother move down to Texas or something like that or and my mom was like, Oh, I'm nervous that your younger brother, Andy's gonna have to drive drive, you know, his brother's car all the way down to Texas. And I'm like thinking, like, ma, Andy's twenty three years old. Like I think he'll be all right. I was leading people in Afghanistan at twenty three years old, you know, So I don't I don't know, you know, yeah, yeah, it was just like it was just something that we were laughing about it, you know, I don't after So I think part of that, Lisa is like I was a sophomore in college when nine to eleven happened, and that that hit me that like like it did millions of other Americans. You know, and I think if you live through nine to eleven, you can probably tell me exactly where you were and what you were doing and what you had plans to do that day. And the only thing like I was kind of like a I was kind of a screw up as a kid, Like my grades were okay, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do as an elementary education major. But again, as a sophomore in college, I must have changed my major a few times. Like, but when nine to eleven happened, I knew that I wanted to join the army, go in the infantry, go to airborne school, go to ranger school, like be on the front lines of our collective response. And you know, I just knew. I knew it in my heart of hearts that that was that was the path that God intended me to walk at that specific moment in my life. And that's I think. I think this is my faith in God and that that was my purpose. I think that that's how I was able to do it. And you know, twenty three, twenty four years old, when you when I just feel like when you know what path you're meant to walk, and you know that like no matter how bad things get, this is where you're supposed to be. I've got no regrets. I just think it gives you a sense of clarity, you know, about what you're supposed to do. And and in my case, it was lead troops in Afghanistan at twenty three, twenty four years old, you know, and as horrible as that combat was, I mean, seriously, like we we like anythink back to two thousand and six. You don't, I don't know if you were doing stuff at Fox back then. I sure as hell wasn't that.

I don't know. I don't know. You just you know. I had a conversation with my mom, uh when I got back from Afghanistan and maybe a couple of years after, and my youngest brother, I'm the oldest of four, and so my youngest brother was like like helping my middle brother move down to Texas or something like that or and my mom was like, Oh, I'm nervous that your younger brother, Andy's gonna have to drive drive, you know, his brother's car all the way down to Texas. And I'm like thinking, like, ma, Andy's twenty three years old. Like I think he'll be all right. I was leading people in Afghanistan at twenty three years old, you know, So I don't I don't know, you know, yeah, yeah, it was just like it was just something that we were laughing about it, you know, I don't after So I think part of that, Lisa is like I was a sophomore in college when nine to eleven happened, and that that hit me that like like it did millions of other Americans. You know, and I think if you live through nine to eleven, you can probably tell me exactly where you were and what you were doing and what you had plans to do that day. And the only thing like I was kind of like a I was kind of a screw up as a kid, Like my grades were okay, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do as an elementary education major. But again, as a sophomore in college, I must have changed my major a few times. Like, but when nine to eleven happened, I knew that I wanted to join the army, go in the infantry, go to airborne school, go to ranger school, like be on the front lines of our collective response. And you know, I just knew. I knew it in my heart of hearts that that was that was the path that God intended me to walk at that specific moment in my life. And that's I think. I think this is my faith in God and that that was my purpose. I think that that's how I was able to do it. And you know, twenty three, twenty four years old, when you when I just feel like when you know what path you're meant to walk, and you know that like no matter how bad things get, this is where you're supposed to be. I've got no regrets. I just think it gives you a sense of clarity, you know, about what you're supposed to do. And and in my case, it was lead troops in Afghanistan at twenty three, twenty four years old, you know, and as horrible as that combat was, I mean, seriously, like we we like anythink back to two thousand and six. You don't, I don't know if you were doing stuff at Fox back then. I sure as hell wasn't that.

I mean, it was like a staff.

I mean, it was like a staff.

I can't.

I can't.

I'm trying to think twenty four.

I'm trying to think twenty four.

I think it was like working on Capitol Hill doing you know, like nothing of nothing like you were doing.

I think it was like working on Capitol Hill doing you know, like nothing of nothing like you were doing.

It wasn't a note. I'll tell you how much you know.

It wasn't a note. I'll tell you how much you know.

I don't know. I mean, we're probably we're probably the same age, you know, I am, so I'm a little older than you.

I don't know. I mean, we're probably we're probably the same age, you know, I am, so I'm a little older than you.

I'll take those couple of years, but you know.

I'll take those couple of years, but you know.

I don't know. I feel like it was the path I was I was meant to walk, you know, and you know, get back and you see I was able to take a company command and then did a Battalian attachment command, and so at the age of twenty eight years old, I ended up being in charge of like eighteen or nineteen hundred like people, where I was in charge of training young soldiers to go to war and taking care of the wounded when they came home, and then looking after the families who were left back at home, and then ultimately doing the casualty notification, which was ten times worse than combat. So I've seen both sides of the fight. I've seen I've seen combat up close and personal, and I've seen the fallout here at home. And what I was saying earlier is that, like no one expected michaeltoon or are, experience in Afghanistan leads to be like what it was like. If you think back to two thousand and six, and if you're a congressional staffer working on the hill or something like that back then, then you know the talk back then was the Iraq War and whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction there or should we should George W. Bush send more troops to the surge in Iraq or not, should we even be there or not? So at the time, Afghanistan was just a stability and support operation. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. And man, like we just got thrown into the meat grind. Or we were an eastern Afghanistan about five clicks five kilometers from the Pakistan border. Our mission was like about as simple as you can. You can get find Asama bin Laden, close with and destroy the enemy, that's it. And man, we just got attacked every single day. We were outnumbered every single day. I mean my base, my base probably we took four thousand rockets in four hundred and eighty five days, four thousand, you know, hundreds of direct fire engagements. We just sort of just like got thrown in there. You know, so much of the focus of this nation was on Iraq that we couldn't even get up armored hum best because all it was going to Iraq. Like we were supposed to come home after a year, we got extended for four more months, sixteen months. Why because the soldiers that were supposed to replace us in Afghanistan got sent to Iraq and supported the surge. So we were sort of like an afterthought and we went through absolute hell. And ultimately, Lisa that that's why I wrote the book, because I thought to myself, like, oh my God, like nobody knows in this country, and nobody knew how bad Afghanistan was way back in two thousand and six, nobody. And I just felt like it was my job as the leader of that platoon to make sure that the legacy of my soldiers that was kept alive. And you know, even if Outlaw Platune ended up being a word document on my computer that I emailed all of my troops that like maybe once every ten years we read through and drank beers or whatever like that would be that's worth it. At least their experiences on the page preserved forever. I didn't know that. I didn't know that it would take off and become a bestseller in its first week, and I was I feel like I was also lucky. It was also maybe it was a state when out Laul Patune came out. Do you remember that story way back in the day where soldiers at Bagram'm got in trouble for like burning a Koran or something like that, and that was like all over the news. It was like headline news for like a week. Well, outlawl Butatoon came out at that exact time, and I was like the young kid with an Afghania with a new Afghanistan book and you know how that goes on Fox News stuff like that. Like I was a duke guy with the books, so I was able to go on there and promote it and the rest is history. I was just, it was just it was just a blessing to be able to have that opportunity own tell tell the story of my troops.

I don't know. I feel like it was the path I was I was meant to walk, you know, and you know, get back and you see I was able to take a company command and then did a Battalian attachment command, and so at the age of twenty eight years old, I ended up being in charge of like eighteen or nineteen hundred like people, where I was in charge of training young soldiers to go to war and taking care of the wounded when they came home, and then looking after the families who were left back at home, and then ultimately doing the casualty notification, which was ten times worse than combat. So I've seen both sides of the fight. I've seen I've seen combat up close and personal, and I've seen the fallout here at home. And what I was saying earlier is that, like no one expected michaeltoon or are, experience in Afghanistan leads to be like what it was like. If you think back to two thousand and six, and if you're a congressional staffer working on the hill or something like that back then, then you know the talk back then was the Iraq War and whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction there or should we should George W. Bush send more troops to the surge in Iraq or not, should we even be there or not? So at the time, Afghanistan was just a stability and support operation. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. And man, like we just got thrown into the meat grind. Or we were an eastern Afghanistan about five clicks five kilometers from the Pakistan border. Our mission was like about as simple as you can. You can get find Asama bin Laden, close with and destroy the enemy, that's it. And man, we just got attacked every single day. We were outnumbered every single day. I mean my base, my base probably we took four thousand rockets in four hundred and eighty five days, four thousand, you know, hundreds of direct fire engagements. We just sort of just like got thrown in there. You know, so much of the focus of this nation was on Iraq that we couldn't even get up armored hum best because all it was going to Iraq. Like we were supposed to come home after a year, we got extended for four more months, sixteen months. Why because the soldiers that were supposed to replace us in Afghanistan got sent to Iraq and supported the surge. So we were sort of like an afterthought and we went through absolute hell. And ultimately, Lisa that that's why I wrote the book, because I thought to myself, like, oh my God, like nobody knows in this country, and nobody knew how bad Afghanistan was way back in two thousand and six, nobody. And I just felt like it was my job as the leader of that platoon to make sure that the legacy of my soldiers that was kept alive. And you know, even if Outlaw Platune ended up being a word document on my computer that I emailed all of my troops that like maybe once every ten years we read through and drank beers or whatever like that would be that's worth it. At least their experiences on the page preserved forever. I didn't know that. I didn't know that it would take off and become a bestseller in its first week, and I was I feel like I was also lucky. It was also maybe it was a state when out Laul Patune came out. Do you remember that story way back in the day where soldiers at Bagram'm got in trouble for like burning a Koran or something like that, and that was like all over the news. It was like headline news for like a week. Well, outlawl Butatoon came out at that exact time, and I was like the young kid with an Afghania with a new Afghanistan book and you know how that goes on Fox News stuff like that. Like I was a duke guy with the books, so I was able to go on there and promote it and the rest is history. I was just, it was just it was just a blessing to be able to have that opportunity own tell tell the story of my troops.

You had talked about.

You had talked about.

You know, obviously we had superior you know, equipment, being the US, but you're on their terrain and you're in the mountains. How difficult is it to try to navigate that when you know you're you're on their home base, right, you're in their mountains.

You know, obviously we had superior you know, equipment, being the US, but you're on their terrain and you're in the mountains. How difficult is it to try to navigate that when you know you're you're on their home base, right, you're in their mountains.

That is That's another great question.

That is That's another great question.

It was.

It was.

It was ridiculous. I mean, it's another thing about Afghanistan. Like if you want to go back to a time where Jesus Christ walk the earth, had the AK forty seven, like the icon walkie talkie type radio and a pickup truck, and you've got Afghanistan there. When we were there, there was like one paved road in the entire country, no running water, no electricity, no economy. All all fighting age males would do. All the men in the villages that we were around would cut down wood all summer and prep for the winter and that was it. That's all like there was nothing, nothing, and it's just all tribal. And so when we were where we were in Burmel, like Burmel District, was that we were in the valley, our base was in the valley, but fighting up in the mountains. I mean we're probably at fourteen fifteen thousand feet there, you know, in the Hindu Kush mountains. And so if you if you're like a football fan, that's like playing a football game at Mayahai Stadium times three. And the enemy that we faced over there again, like you hear the media talk about and you certainly saw this during the collapse of Afghanistan, but the media talks about the Taliban as if they're a monolithic force, and they are not. I mean, you have so many different enemy factions that you face over there on a day to day basis, whether it's the Heikkani Network or Hekmatia or al Qaeda or Taliban or just crimes that happened on a day to day basis like any other country. That like any other country in the world. And as a young leader, you've got to like navigate all that somehow be almost like you know, an ambassador, an American ambassador with a gun, you know, ready on a moment's notice to either you know, fire your weapon in defense of your troops or cradle a baby in a village where you're doing a humanitarian distribution. I mean, it was one of the most complex, rugged environments that I certainly have ever been in. And you know, you add to that the fact that all of those enemy factions that I just told you about, like most of those most of the enemy that we faced in Afghanistan cut their teeth against the Russians in the eighties and then fought in the Afghan Civil War in the nineties, and then against us in a post nine to eleven era. And you know, the average Afghan that we were fighting had ten years combat experience on an eighteen year old American private. You know, this was not a group of farmers with pitchforks or some sort of ragtag insurgency that they just mustered up at the last second. Now, the people that we fought there, the level of tactical acumen that they displayed on the battlefield on a day to day basis was just as good, if not better than us, And they weren't weighed down with one hundred pounds of gear like we were, and they knew the terrain better than we did, at least initially, because what you know, as obviously, being in Afghanistan for sixteen months sucked something fierce. It was horrible. But what was interesting is this, I don't mean to sound crass, but we killed so many of them over there that we were getting intel in May of two thousand and seven that Pakistan families were sick and tired of sending their sons into the fight. They were no longer going to commit male fighters to the war in Afghanistan. And what we saw is that a lot of the new fighters that had replaced the older ones that we had killed didn't know the terrain as good as us. So it was a real odd dynamic where at first they were better than us, they were faster than us, they knew the terrain, but slowly over time, because we never broke contact, we never surrendered, We always pressed the enemy. We would never give them that moral victory on the battlefield. We just slowly whittled away at their force and killed them one by one to the point where at the end of sixteen months we knew the terrain better than they did. And all of this culminated in an attack probably in January. It was early January of two thousand and seven. We had built my PLATOONA had built or my company had built, the first combat outpost. And I'm sure you've seen, like you know, can't remember some of the movies' names that the movie where you see in Afghanistan a combat outpost getting overrun. Probably every year after I was in Afghanistan, a combat outpost had been overrun, Lisa, and and like I was highly critical of that strategy because like all they would be manned with almost no combat power, with like a squad and all they would they would just be simply relegated to a defensive position. There and all along the border of Afghanistan, you had like a main base with what they call cops, like combat outposts, and it almost looked like a modern day version of the magine O line, thinking like, well, if we have all these bases along the border, there's no way the enemy will be able to get bias and that's complete bs. So anyway, like they tried to attack this base that we had built and we ended up kill killing I think like two hundred plus fighters just in that one engagement decisively because we caught them just prior to them kicking off the attack. And I mean, I would wager to say that from a strategic and tactical standpoint back in two thousand and six. In two thousand and seven, we had we had decisively won the fight Afghanistan. And then we shifted from a counter terror mission, which the basic premise of a counter terror mission is going after and killing the enemy, and through killing the enemy you secure the people, to a counterinsurgency mission, like after the surge in Iraq. And you know, I think there are the strategists that would say that surge in Iraq was successful. I think I would tend to agree at least that in the moment back then, it was pretty successful. Well, they tried to implement that exact same strategy in Afghanistan, which is an entirely different country, and once we shifted to counterinsurgency, we lost the initiative and Afghanistan went slowly downhill from there.

It was ridiculous. I mean, it's another thing about Afghanistan. Like if you want to go back to a time where Jesus Christ walk the earth, had the AK forty seven, like the icon walkie talkie type radio and a pickup truck, and you've got Afghanistan there. When we were there, there was like one paved road in the entire country, no running water, no electricity, no economy. All all fighting age males would do. All the men in the villages that we were around would cut down wood all summer and prep for the winter and that was it. That's all like there was nothing, nothing, and it's just all tribal. And so when we were where we were in Burmel, like Burmel District, was that we were in the valley, our base was in the valley, but fighting up in the mountains. I mean we're probably at fourteen fifteen thousand feet there, you know, in the Hindu Kush mountains. And so if you if you're like a football fan, that's like playing a football game at Mayahai Stadium times three. And the enemy that we faced over there again, like you hear the media talk about and you certainly saw this during the collapse of Afghanistan, but the media talks about the Taliban as if they're a monolithic force, and they are not. I mean, you have so many different enemy factions that you face over there on a day to day basis, whether it's the Heikkani Network or Hekmatia or al Qaeda or Taliban or just crimes that happened on a day to day basis like any other country. That like any other country in the world. And as a young leader, you've got to like navigate all that somehow be almost like you know, an ambassador, an American ambassador with a gun, you know, ready on a moment's notice to either you know, fire your weapon in defense of your troops or cradle a baby in a village where you're doing a humanitarian distribution. I mean, it was one of the most complex, rugged environments that I certainly have ever been in. And you know, you add to that the fact that all of those enemy factions that I just told you about, like most of those most of the enemy that we faced in Afghanistan cut their teeth against the Russians in the eighties and then fought in the Afghan Civil War in the nineties, and then against us in a post nine to eleven era. And you know, the average Afghan that we were fighting had ten years combat experience on an eighteen year old American private. You know, this was not a group of farmers with pitchforks or some sort of ragtag insurgency that they just mustered up at the last second. Now, the people that we fought there, the level of tactical acumen that they displayed on the battlefield on a day to day basis was just as good, if not better than us, And they weren't weighed down with one hundred pounds of gear like we were, and they knew the terrain better than we did, at least initially, because what you know, as obviously, being in Afghanistan for sixteen months sucked something fierce. It was horrible. But what was interesting is this, I don't mean to sound crass, but we killed so many of them over there that we were getting intel in May of two thousand and seven that Pakistan families were sick and tired of sending their sons into the fight. They were no longer going to commit male fighters to the war in Afghanistan. And what we saw is that a lot of the new fighters that had replaced the older ones that we had killed didn't know the terrain as good as us. So it was a real odd dynamic where at first they were better than us, they were faster than us, they knew the terrain, but slowly over time, because we never broke contact, we never surrendered, We always pressed the enemy. We would never give them that moral victory on the battlefield. We just slowly whittled away at their force and killed them one by one to the point where at the end of sixteen months we knew the terrain better than they did. And all of this culminated in an attack probably in January. It was early January of two thousand and seven. We had built my PLATOONA had built or my company had built, the first combat outpost. And I'm sure you've seen, like you know, can't remember some of the movies' names that the movie where you see in Afghanistan a combat outpost getting overrun. Probably every year after I was in Afghanistan, a combat outpost had been overrun, Lisa, and and like I was highly critical of that strategy because like all they would be manned with almost no combat power, with like a squad and all they would they would just be simply relegated to a defensive position. There and all along the border of Afghanistan, you had like a main base with what they call cops, like combat outposts, and it almost looked like a modern day version of the magine O line, thinking like, well, if we have all these bases along the border, there's no way the enemy will be able to get bias and that's complete bs. So anyway, like they tried to attack this base that we had built and we ended up kill killing I think like two hundred plus fighters just in that one engagement decisively because we caught them just prior to them kicking off the attack. And I mean, I would wager to say that from a strategic and tactical standpoint back in two thousand and six. In two thousand and seven, we had we had decisively won the fight Afghanistan. And then we shifted from a counter terror mission, which the basic premise of a counter terror mission is going after and killing the enemy, and through killing the enemy you secure the people, to a counterinsurgency mission, like after the surge in Iraq. And you know, I think there are the strategists that would say that surge in Iraq was successful. I think I would tend to agree at least that in the moment back then, it was pretty successful. Well, they tried to implement that exact same strategy in Afghanistan, which is an entirely different country, and once we shifted to counterinsurgency, we lost the initiative and Afghanistan went slowly downhill from there.

We've got more of a Memorial Day episode, But first.

We've got more of a Memorial Day episode, But first.

Take us back to you know, June tenth, two thousand and six your platoon was outnumbered by almost ten to one, ended up leaving you with injuries.

Take us back to you know, June tenth, two thousand and six your platoon was outnumbered by almost ten to one, ended up leaving you with injuries.

You know, talk about that day and what happened.

You know, talk about that day and what happened.

So June tenth, we had been tasked, we were tasked with finding a high value target, and we had been out for a week up until that point. And we sat up and what we call an observation post, and we were just watching infiltration routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan. And we knew that this al Qaeda leader was using a cave complex to navigate from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which is how he was avoiding like our intelligence and reconnaissance and surveillance drones. So we perched up on this hill, we laid our sites in on this cave site which which he thought he was using, and set in for the night. Woke up the next morning and all throughout the night I applotted target reference points and confirmed them with our base. That got target reference point is like when you've got artillery at your base, you want to be able to Artillery is basically like big guns, and you want to be able to get those guns into the fight as fast as humany possible. Should you make contact with the enemy. And the best way to do that is not like trying to plot it in the middle of a fight, right, I think is the best military commanders would look at a map and pick key terrain and say, okay, this hilltop here is key terrain. If the enemy takes this hilltop, they'll be able to attack.

So June tenth, we had been tasked, we were tasked with finding a high value target, and we had been out for a week up until that point. And we sat up and what we call an observation post, and we were just watching infiltration routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan. And we knew that this al Qaeda leader was using a cave complex to navigate from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which is how he was avoiding like our intelligence and reconnaissance and surveillance drones. So we perched up on this hill, we laid our sites in on this cave site which which he thought he was using, and set in for the night. Woke up the next morning and all throughout the night I applotted target reference points and confirmed them with our base. That got target reference point is like when you've got artillery at your base, you want to be able to Artillery is basically like big guns, and you want to be able to get those guns into the fight as fast as humany possible. Should you make contact with the enemy. And the best way to do that is not like trying to plot it in the middle of a fight, right, I think is the best military commanders would look at a map and pick key terrain and say, okay, this hilltop here is key terrain. If the enemy takes this hilltop, they'll be able to attack.

Us here easily.

Us here easily.

So I'm gonna plot this hill it's target reference point one. And then you can coordinate with the with the guns and say, look, this is my target reference point one. When I say fire TRP one, this is what I mean, and you just you set in target reference point one through ten prior to even leaving. And so I had been I'd studied those throughout the night. The sun crested the hill the next morning, and I remember walking out and looking at some mountaintops to directly to our east that were a lot higher than the one that we were on, and I just thought to myself, that's not a good tactical position to be in. And so I don't have the man power to occupy those hills with troops. In a perfect world, you would just occupy terrain that was higher than yours would boots, but I didn't have that. I just had one platoon, so I figured I'd occupy those hilltops by fire and if enemy was watching us, they would think twice about setting in there, because I know that I have those positions diled in, and so I fired those target reference points with my forward observer, watched those watch the rounds land on point and on target. I remember walking back to my truck and it's just like somebody threw a veil over my entire world, and I remember I don't remember much, but I do remember waking up in a smoldering hole about twenty feet from where I had been standing, laying flat on my back, and I couldn't see, I couldn't really hear, but I could feel this stinging on my face and it just felt like like like someone was slapping me. And as I blinked my eyes open, I see one of my team leaders, Tim Stalter, slap me and trying to get me to wake up, and I finally I wake up, opened my eyes. I look at him. He's got this big smile on his face. I'm like, what do you smile at? What's going on? And he goes, sir, He's like, you got blown the f up, and he started laughing like what the hell is he laughing at? And I remember just like looking beyond him at these trees, because we had these big, huge trees up on the hilltop with us that a lot of my men were taking cover behind, and the tops of these trees that looked like they hadn't been touched since the prehistoric era, they were just getting blown to smithereens like this crazy. And I remember looking to my left hand, which was shaking, and it just like kind of laying in the Afghan dust, and I could see rounds landing between my fingers, like like the level of fire that we were being hit with was like nothing I've ever seen before or felt before like it like I felt like there on the ground with one of my soldiers on top, like if I moved even one centimeter to the left of the right, I'd get shot. And that's how heavy the fire was. And I remember looking to my left and I see my platoon sergeant Greg Greeson, and his back is like covered in blood and he's pointing to himself like saying that he's hit. And all around my perimeter, I had five gun trucks on the hilltop that day, and I had twenty four soldiers on the ground, along with one interpreter, but all along the perimeter. At every one of my trucks, almost everybody was hit. Like my platoon sergeant was hit. He's my number two and chain of command. Squadlier Phil Baldwin was shot in the leg. He wasn't really trying to deal with that injury, but he was trying to furiously stop the bleeding of his team leader, Bennett Garvin, who was shot in the arm. I watched Mike Emrick up on the up on his fifty caliber machine gun up on a truck. He got shot in the head, fell in the truck, popped back up without a salmon on. I mean, it was all hell was breaking. Within sixty seconds of getting attacked that day, almost every key meter in my patune had been hit, including myself. And as I sat up, like the stalter of the kid that had brought me back sat me up straight, and I remember feeling this like clear liquid leaking out of my nose and my ears. And I didn't know it at the time, but it ended up being like serebral spinal fluid. I had fractured my skull very slightly after getting blown up, and I just remember thinking, well, okay, I'm not bleeding, it must be something else, and got up and got back into the fight. And I'm trying to figure out at this point, like how many people were injured, how many of my trucks can drive, what weapons systems are up versus down? How many rounds of ammunition that we have left, Like I've got to get the artillery at the base firing back on these guys. I should be calling for air support. I got to get back to my truck to do it all. Looking at those hilltops that I had called for fire on, Lisa, the enemy had emplaced three machine gun nests on each hilltop that I called for fire on, So they had six machine guns dialed in on our position, and they were firing in what was like an X, like if you had to draw an X over my hilltop. My hilltop was right where that where the X intersected, So they had us in a wicked crossfire. They were at an elevated position, so they were hitting us with what's called plunging fire, so they were arcing the rounds down on top of us. The reason why people do that is because if you're like taking cover behind a rock, or something. You want to be able to like drop the round in on top of them. So it just minimizes minimizes your an enemy's ability to take cover. And I'm watching them hit us with plunging fire and thinking like, holy hell, like how the hell do they know how to do that, you know? And I'm watching the guns, the support by fire positions that they had, the two separate ones. They weren't just firing all of the same time. One gun would fire and stop, the next gun would fire and stop, the next one, you know, and so on and so forth. And the reason why they did that is because if they fired those guns on like a cyclic rate, their barrels would melt. So they were firing and letting their barrels cool like all the way up and down the line. Again, never fought like that's what we do, Lisa, that that's how we fight. And so the enemy had hit my position with airburst mortars to keep the head keep our heads down, while they simultaneously in placed two separate support by fire positions. And the next step is I'm trying to like unpack everything that's happening and really, like when you're in a moment like that, it's like you remember, like you ever look through like a kaleidoscope when you're a kid, and you turn the kaleidoscope and you see all those colors move around like that. It's all sort of happening at once. That's like that. It's like being like that. It's like combat is like that, a million different things happening all around you all at once. And I'm trying to figure out what they're going to do, and I'm thinking, oh my god, like I vower them, I'd attack, and no sooner did I did. I think that they did from both of those hilltops, two platoon size elements, like forty men plus so rushing down those hilltops and up to our position. But it wasn't just like a human wave attack. Again. They were one fire team moving, the other one shooting, and they were bounding and with squad leader like giving fire team commands. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. So I ended up getting to my truck and calling for fire. I called for fire danger close on our position, which essentially means like right on top of us ourselves. The whole intent of that is to just try to keep them off of us and give give my men some time to react, reload, consolidate, reorganize, and fight back. And I'm watching these rounds land with ruthless efficiency and like vaporize, like these guys as they as they they out towards us. And it didn't matter how many rounds landed, they had people to replace them. It's just it was just an unrelenting assault in our position. And they got so close to us that that we had to blow clay More minds. Like we put Claymore minds in around our positions just in case, like we're about to be overrun. So we're like blowing clay More minds. Like people all my squad leaders are saying they're going black on ammunition. Every member of my platoon is hurt. I've got all these casualties out there stranded, you know. I'm watching my medic try to carry one of my one of my squad leaders back to the casualty collection point. He lifts up this guy. I watch him get shot in the face. He falls down. I think my medic is dead. He's just Jose Pantoha. He's this kid from Mexico. He came to America because he loved he loved the country and wanted to serve the country. And I remember he got shot in the face. Was even a citizen of the country who's supposed to get his citizenship July fourth, a month later. I'm like, oh my god, he just got shot before he can become a US citizen. But he got back up. The entire left side of his face was completely destroyed, but he got one of my squad leaders to the casualty collection point. That was the kind of day it was, Lisa, and we That fight took probably eight at least eight hours. We dropped probably eleven two thousand pound bombs and at the end had to bring in a B one Strategic Lancer, a B one bomber to drop like probably ten more. And what it ended up happening, Lisa, was that I called for fire on those target reference points earlier, but it looked what we had come to learn is that the enemy at night had planned to attack us, and I had hit him just before they were going to attack, and so it was like hitting a hornet's nest with a baseball bat or something. They were already in position ready to attack us. I just hit him before they hit us, which I guess hindsight being twenty twenty, I'm glad that I did, because it would have probably not gone as good for us as it did. As even though it wasn't I mean, all things considered, it wasn't good, but I would have I was glad that we attacked first, you know, and every one of my trucks was was destroyed. They had to be towed off the hill top and got back to the base that day after like that long, long firefight, and I think like every member of my platoons got treated. We took another platoons trucks and went right back out after the enemy after we got back, went right back out after them to hunt them down. And we said in that night, and we did. We hunted them all down, and we got them. We killed probably, oh man, we probably killed probably killed like one hundred people that day, like bad guys tried to attack us. And so but that's the kind of deployment that we the kind of employment that we had. It was absolutely hell. I look back on it, You're like, you asked me, how did you do it? And the answer is, I have no freaking clue. I can't believe I lived through it. I can't believe I made it through all that, you.