007 Long Gray Lessons with Former Navy SEAL/160th SOAR Pilot Michael Rutledge

hey thanks for tuning into a long great lesson show it's podcast that motivates and inspires leaders pursue their passions and to leave a positive impact in their communities welcome to episode 4 of the long gray lesson show it's such a privilege to have you here today Mike how are you doing good thanks for having me sure absolutely so please tell me what you're doing here so we're at second aviation detachment here at Stewart International Airport about three weeks out from my change of command after being assigned here for three years as a commander and in conjunction with that change of command will also be my retirement after 29 years and seven months that's incredible 29 years and just a couple weeks how are you feeling from making that transition I'd be lying to you if I told you there wasn't quite a bit of anxiousness and apprehension involved not because I don't have anything and solid footing in the civilian world but just because I I enjoy the service it's been the only institution I've known for my entire adult life since I was 18 so it's a little bit of sad and leaving it I guess because I know there's neat stuff out there but I just know it'll never be the same and I guess just kind of talking about service and talking about majority of your time being spent in the military how did how did that all start how did that Commission it really started when I was a kid I grew up in an aviation family and my dad actually had a World War Two airplane on 1942 Boeing Stearman so it really started through learning starting with the history of World War two that was associated with the airplane when I was young I flew in it for the first time when I was five and so just from the aviation part of it just kind of spun off into World War two history which then kind of forces you to learn about American history which then sort of segues into you know what what type of Americans served in World War two and then Korea in Vietnam and so on so I was kind of inundated with that just by virtue of the catalyst of the airplane and through that I don't ever remember a time that I thought about being anything other than in the mill Terry from age seven or eight on I didn't know exactly what I was gonna do I mean no great scholar has that kind of wherewithal but all I ever wanted to do was wear a uniform and be in the military and then as I got older that just kind of got shaped by what my interests were did you have anyone in your family that was in the military so my dad who is considerably older than your average dad that time he was actually enlisted in the Navy in World War two but I had several uncles that had also been in World War two Korea and so with that all of his friends and their friends were all you know veterans because that was the era everyone served and during that era so I was surrounded with it quite a bit and of course being from a small farm town very patriotic it was something that was you know thought of as a noble profession and something that every man should probably go do some point in their life so it wasn't a stretch wasn't anything that I had to pursue all by myself and did you do anything prior to actually I'm listening did you still air patrol they did I was actually complete Civil Air Patrol sellout I loved solar Patrol because that was the only taste of the military I could get in this little town and kind of fast-forwarding but my dad passed away when I was 12 so I sort of lost you know the airplane was sold so I lost any connection with aviation so you know we we really didn't have a lot of money so there wasn't like I was taking flying lessons or like that it wasn't a disposable income so Civil Air Patrol was my only outlet to one have some sort of insight into whether or not I like the military and to you know I could for a 12 or 14 year old kid I got to fly on some pretty neat airplanes I mean I just think I remember sitting on a kc-135 you know watch them tank a sevens somewhere in Illinois or Iowa you know flying on a Huey and a couple other different airplanes so I mean it was pretty neat experience so how did you continue to to develop that passion for aviation and the military after some air patrol so interesting Lee enough there was a several year block there or I almost completely screwed myself like everyone else I as I got older into high school yeah I didn't have a fatherly influence it was into aviation so I tried to pursue it a little bit on my own but you know with no money no influence no guidance so I got deeply vested in girls and sports and completely forgot about you know aviation and I did have aspirations of going to the Naval Academy probably mainly inspired by the fact that I was a product of the top-down era but I never flew you know I kind of got out of Civil Air Patrol was a pretty decent football player you know ended up going to to college to play football so that I thought well perhaps you know maybe this is where my high passion and talent lays one semester in a Division one program told me quite clearly that I was not that was not where my talent was once you hit a roadblock and you fail at something you instinctively go back to what you're good at or what you enjoy just kind of a safe haven and for me it was the military in aviation so so I left that prestigious university after Christmas at one semester when they asked me to leave and wet and finish that that year out of the Community College that my mom taught at because it was convenient and as before that last class was finished I just went out of the Navy recruiter and enlisted in the Navy fast-forward through everything else a year later I was not on the deck of a nuclear aircraft carrier launching off the catapult I was a crew chief on a ch-46 helicopter stationed in Guam which is pretty traumatic for a kid from a farm Townsend Island denial it's like 14 by 32 mile home island a beautiful beautiful place but it's not what I had had envisioned and turned out to be one of the more broadening experiences in my life but I was a crew chief on a ch-46 helicopter in the Persian Gulf and Desert Storm you know delivering very unceremoniously delivering mail and pallets of cheese balls and sodas back and forth from the supply ship to the carrier so somewhere in there about a year and a half into that tour in Guam I mean I knew about navy seals and all that but I was still not a super athlete I mean I'd gotten to the point where I was actually pretty good athlete taught myself how to swim obviously to be a helicopter rescue swimmer you have some aptitude for it right so I spent a decent amount of time in the water and I had kind of mastered that I was sort of the what I considered the the pinnacle of my craft in that it's just not that complex and then one day this 46 lands on our ramp and these guys big muscles and you know ironically shaggy blonde hair you know they come off wearing tank tops and UD T's and and I'm like who are those guys you know and somebody saw us guys are Navy SEALs and contrary to kind of what people hear today you know there's movies and books there was nothing about them out that there was very very little except for some of their service in Vietnam there wasn't anything there there wasn't any internet you know there was there's no available material you could read on it and it wasn't inundated by the press so nobody really knew what they did except nobody knew what they did and that was the mystique right there that's all I needed that and they had long hair and they weren't wearing uniforms shorts and short big muscles you know all that I'm like so I just ink to tell somebody I don't know what they do but I want that job and the next morning you know because it was a long duty day that next morning I walked up to the career counselor and said hey I want to be a Navy SEAL you know I did another deployment after that on a ship with the helicopters but I got orders to Budds and then summer well that spring reported the basic underwater devolution school in San Diego when you got to that point then here at Budds it's like you're anything go big or go home like you yeah so funny part is I had nowhere else to go and to my detriment I thought I was pretty good I thought I was in great shape you know everybody who shows up at Budds thinks they're gonna be seal at the end of that six months so I thought I was I thought I was pretty badass you know I'm like this I'm gonna smoke this well it took about two days into that one oh my god I don't think I got what it takes you know I'm pretty sure that I am not the guy I thought I was and that's kind of by design and training but we started out with 170 180 guys in the class and we graduated 19 or 20 to something like that after six months so quite an attrition rate but I was pretty sure that I was not gonna make it to the end so very humbling there are guys that you know never ever have quit in their mind but every single day for me you know it was a gut check I was pretty sure I wasn't gonna make it to the end of the day one of my techniques that I always tell people that's like well how did you make it I'm like well I don't know how other people made it but I knew that I was a slow runner I was a decent swimmer I probably wasn't as you know mentally strong as other guys in climene there's a limp swimmers and you know Naval Academy Division one athletes I mean there's a whole scope of people that are truly athletically prepared for that kind of training I was not I just swam in the pool at Guam and you know ran up and down coral roads disent push-ups so I tell him like I just did meal to meal because my brain could not conceptualize completing six months of that I couldn't even go a month I couldn't even go to the end of the week so I would get up a you know whatever it was 4:30 5:00 in the morning and I well breakfast is at 6:30 so whatever they got for me between now and then I'm just gonna get to breakfast and I know when I get to breakfast I'll get a half an hour to kind of reset and get my mind right get warm and I know lunch is around 11:30 I don't even watch its training so I know they have to feed me and so I would just go to lunch and then from lunchtime I'd make it to dinner because I knew dinner was at 5:30 and then you know pretty much after that they left me alone and you got to go back to barracks and I kind of made a ritual of it every single day that I walked back to the barracks I stood there in front of this barracks there on the beach of buds hearing the waves crash and shivering because you're freezing and all that and I'd stand there I'd say to myself you know day number 18 and I'm still here and I did that every single day you know whatever was day 215 and I'm still here and I did that all the way for for the entire length of training and that just happened to be my personal personal method of taking it so that's my technique meal the meal I mean your target yep I called meal to meal because I like to eat you know but it is it is a 25 meter target so the complete buds and you receive orders what's your first assignment so my first assignment was a SEAL team one there in Coronado which was about 40 yards away from buds and I had no I had no reason to ask specific because I didn't really anything about the teams I didn't know the difference between SEAL team 135 all I knew was the girl who I was trying to marry was in college in San Diego you know so I'm like I want to want to go to Norfolk because you know that'll that'll end this in short order so that was one reason and the second reason I picked SEAL team one was because one of the very few bits of literature available was a historical fictional novel by a gentleman named dick couch and was called SEAL team 1 and it was based on real people the events were real people but it you know fictitious characters and so I read that during my deployments read it a couple times and it you know I had it was very graphic into the guys going through buds and what their life was like in the teams through Vietnam and all that so Mike Wolfe it's good enough for a book you know then I'm gonna I'm gonna go to SEAL team one I got I got have to see what this is like and so during that nine year time frame what were what were some of the challenges that you faced going through there the biggest challenges are once you get there you go through another six months called SEAL qualification training at the time it's called SEAL tactical training now but so you still don't have your Trident so there's nothing worse than being at a SEAL team and not not worrying at ride it because you're not really see you're really a probationary status so it's kind of a miserable existence because they put you into a platoon that's getting ready to deploy that's a year from deploying and you do a year-long workup so you spend a good six months of your year-long workup not worrying and try to so it's just kind of a demeaning kind of a demeaning existence but you're spending that whole time you know proving yourself anyway so at the end of that six months you know you get an evaluation from all the senior the senior SEALs and you also take a you know practical exams on shooting and rigging a parachute can you tune up this HF radio you know all those you know medical trauma so at the end of that you know all the the Chiefs East sevens and above get together and say hey is he gonna make it or not sort of animal house style and then very ceremoniously you know you get presented your Trident and that's actually a pretty emotional experience it's not it's not a big thing like your family doesn't show up it's not you know it's not a big deal you just stand on the carpet and the co pounds it in your chest but you know that's a long road to earn a piece of metal Wow but getting back to challenges so you're putting this platoon with guys that have deployed three four or five times and your rank in a SEAL team it's not based on what you're wearing on your collar it's referred you know it's based on your time on the rock as they say our time of the team so you know I was an e5 at the time and I had a fours I had two or three platoons underneath him that had come straight to the teams it never did any time out in the fleet they're far more tactically proficient you know mature like I stuff so you're you know you're basically taking orders out of rank and the same thing officers get the same thing I mean they get a beating level of respect because they're an officer but you'll still have you four or three fives you know telling you where to go when to be there and what to do so it's a very high-powered tenuous atmosphere because every single thing you do you're being evaluated because you're brand new right and it's a tough crowd I mean talk about some a type personalities in a very intolerant atmosphere for failure or mediocrity mm-hmm so just very stressful particularly as a new guy you know once you get more mature and your skills are kind of honed it's not quite as nerve-racking as you're going through deployment workups what is a new guy you know big challenge because again it looked just like buds you think you're gonna fail all the time you're not set up to fail but the standards that which you have to perform are graduated significantly so that's that's your barrier then it's not somebody screwing with you you know trying to test your resolve at that point it's just the training evolutions are so complex and the standards so high that you're always fighting to make sure you meet the minimum standard or the expected standard anyway were you flying all during this timeframe at all I was so I never what's kind of funny and you'll probably sense a trend throughout the podcast so as soon as I got the SEAL Teams on I started to get my feet on the ground a little bit were like once I got my Trident and I wasn't so new and I had a little bit of breathing room then one day I just kind of wandered out to the airport you know I'm like because as I said before when things get hard or you know I think at that time I have been a newlywed and you know deployments were tough and I had had no hobbies I had nothing but the team that's all I had because that's all I ever wanted so at that point so I was kind of one-dimensional and so when I needed a mental break I just went out to the airport and I distinctly remember telling my wife I'm like you know I missed that I really missed I missed the airport that kind of was my happy place and you know when my dad passed away and I sort of walked away from it it wasn't you know when he passed away it wasn't my happy place anymore so I sort of found it again and and after that you know don't pursue anything passively so well this is it I like to fly I'm gonna so actually started taking flying lessons again and and during the middle of that you know I actually finished my private pilot license in between deployments and workups and I was gone anywhere from seven to nine months out of the year in increments you know we did six-month deployment at the end of it but you'd be gone to three weeks at time home for a couple weeks so when I was always out at the airport you know much to the detriment of what my wife deserved at the time to have me home but she understood that I needed you know something other than the team so I started flying and I mean I spent Oh spent a lot of money and a lot of time doing this yeah it's not cheap and I was ended up being you know pretty proficient at it I enjoyed it went through a couple different ratings and multi-engine all kind of stuff and started tone gliders and so I mean I had a decent amount of experience in a pretty short amount of time and then I realized at that point that you know I thought maybe I'll still retire is a seal and I'll do my 20 and get out but I realized that my my future you know my passion was still flying so then September 11th happened and I was deployed to Sri Lanka at the time so all these plans you know of course the airline industry completely disintegrated almost every industry and aviation was emaciated for a good chunk of time so I came back from that deployment made the quick decision after flying with a lot of 160th Special Operations aviation guys overseas and in training I'm like well that's pretty easy I can't get in the Navy because I don't have a degree yet I won't get a Navy flight school but I can go be an Army Warrant Officer so just like I wouldn't signed on the dotted line for buds you know I went on this six-month process of that was the only focus I had you know the internet was around but it was still pretty new at that point so I found out everything I could possibly find out about the Warrant Officer program you know I mean I had it all done lined up my own physicals but I basically just went through recruiting the army recruiting office in San Diego said hey my entire warn Oscar packet here is complete all you need to do is sign it and forward it to HRC and so from there Warrant Officer packet accepted how was that transition for you so I was so excited because I finally get to be a military pilot I mean I had spent thousands and thousands of dollars of flying on my own and you know so this is in realizing it at that point like this is actually my lifelong dream like I said earning the Trident was very emotional because it was the most sacrifice but talked about finally getting to do something that you know since I was a little kid all I ever wanted to do was be a military aviator you know I didn't know Army Navy Air Force whatever but I mean I just wanted to be a military aviator and so I finally got it so when I saw that in the antiquated email you know that made all the sounds and popped up and when I saw my name on that list you know I don't get very animated but I remember skipping around the kitchen and you know yelling and and I just don't get that excited about things so we packed up you know my son was maybe one year one year old at that time packed up left beautiful we had a house on the beach in Coronado California and packed up for enterprise Alabama in the middle of June oh that's the complete opposite spectrum complete opposite spectrum ironically though you know I talked to my wife she will always reflect I think both of us do that that was the most enjoyable to that date you know of our marriage that was the most enjoyable year of our time together because I was doing what I wanted to do much like boot camp right you know you couldn't make Fort Rucker suck people complain about it and and you know I would I would come home to her because at that time I was flying a Hughie which is a completely iconic aircraft um you know I said you know what I got to fly for four hours today and it didn't cost me a penny on the Army's dime yeah I said I I'm getting paid to fly whereas before I was paying $100 an hour or whatever it was you know to rent an airplane to go fly I said I think I'm stealing from the army and that's the way I felt you know I wasn't in charge of anybody I didn't have any responsibilities all I had to do was show up in either classroom or the flight line with whatever knowledge I had to have for that night and fly and that's all I had to do I wasn't in charge of anybody it's just the right place at the right time with the right equipment so that year and it was right out of year you know cuz they had kind of accelerated the process cuz the war going on that was a pretty blissful year I didn't mind it at all I liked Fort Rucker you know people complain about it but just like boot camp you know he can't complain about something you told somebody you'd do anything to go go do so from there first in your class flying Huey's how did you end up with the 160th so I knew I knew before I went to flight school I mean and again very pompous very cocky I guess presumptuous that I even had any idea I'm like want to see how I go I'm gonna go fly for the 160th not knowing that that wasn't the way it went you know I thought mom gonna go fly for the sixties cuz I had flown the 160th guys a lot I was kind of a group even I was the SEAL Teams when I knew I wanted to fly like man well if I'm gonna go fly I want to go fly black unmarked helicopters and do what they do and of course then the movie Black Hawk Down came out on all a so that kind of came into the limelight so before I signed up for walk school or before I send in my Warren Oscar packet I actually talked to a guy overseas who was flying us who ended up being the recruiter for the 160th his name was see there before riki star and he's since retired and I said well I wanna go the 160c was you gotta be a Warren officer first he goes just give me a call you know when you've been selected to the wharfs program so I did call him and I think he was kind of shocked I said well hey I just I just completely trashed a 12-year promising career in the SEAL Teams I'm going to walk school and he just said who are you you know in my mind I'm like please please remember me please remember me because you know and he goes yeah he just called me when you're done with instruments so no encouragement but I'm like I get to go fly anyway so I was number one of my class graduated from instruments I said hey I'm number one the class I just finished instruments because that's traditionally where a lot of attrition takes place in flight school and he said okay I'm gonna send you an application packet the mail again nobody emailed anything it was snail mail everything so showed up my house and I just started we were getting ready we had a bubble like a two or three week bubble getting ready to start where they referred to as flight school 21 and we were the very first class for that and he told me over the phone he said hey if we select you you know you're gonna come here and you're gonna fly forty-sevens and I'm like oh I don't care I'll fly anything I mean like everyone else I'm like I want to fly little bird gunship sir I want to fly a Blackhawks or you know cuz that's what was in the movie anyway he said so just so you know you're gonna fly forty-sevens you don't have to worry about picking that's what you're gonna fly yeah like okay Roger that so end of instruments we were gonna pick our or go to war aircraft or advanced airframe to do this flight school 21 thing which means you did all your basic combat skills in the aircraft that you were gonna go on in the army so they weren't doing it in oh he's 58 anymore so I was number one in the class everyone knew that I was applying the 160th and so they expected me to pick Chinooks because they knew that's where I would end up having a go so again kind of be a punk I'm like no you know what I'm gonna take Blackhawks of course everybody's you can't do that I'm like yeah I can because when you're number one you can pick whatever you want again that didn't make me pompous or it didn't make me popular so I picked Blackhawks start a Blackhawks the next week or something like that and finished the course as a Blackhawk pilot nice and like whatever it was 60 or 70 hours on a Black Hawk Black Hawk qualified send my records never touched one again since 2003 and so there's a somewhere in the middle of the Black Hawk course I finished my application for the 160th you know the assessment got approved they sent me down to orders to assess and there was a little story about that too I didn't really ask anybody a trucker if I could do that I sort of did it on my own much like submitting my Warrant Officer packet at SEAL Teams and so much of the fact that one of the box is on there you know you got to remember that at that time the 160th application format was for experienced aviator so it was not set up for someone in flight school with no wings no experience no anything I just I just got to filled out what I do on there how much goggle times zero you know how many deployments zero how many you know I think I put in a corner you know I used to be a Navy SEAL or something like that and so I finally called the yeah I finally called the guy up on my K this applications coming it's not I said I don't have a standardization pilot to sign it he goes don't worry about it because but you do need to have your battalion commander sign it and of course you know for workers at w1 the Batang commanders like in this castle that you're not allowed to tread in I never nobody even saw the guy he's like The Wizard of Oz and I suck but I had to have him sign this and my company commander at B company of the 45th or whatever it was a trucker he wouldn't sign it you know he wouldn't sign the company commander part of it and grudgingly he did I said because I'm gonna go talk to the tank man you can't do that I said I think I can I'm pretty sure I can I mean fortunately I wasn't a young w1 I had some time behind me you know I was fairly mature and so he grudgingly signed it and I hand walked it up with my kid at the time my one and a half year old or whatever was two-year old time in civilian clothes because I was out getting read out processed for something I came over was but I was in civilian clothes and I walked through his office he was what are you doing sit sir I've got an application for the 160th they said I have to have my battalion commander sign it because I'm not a sign of that he was your aw1 said I know sir but right under here I called and I told him if you probably wouldn't sign it and Colonel Torrey who was the regimental commander at the time Colonel Tory said if you wouldn't sign it to call him so so he took it looked at it looked at me I think having my my small child with me is the only thing that kept me from getting a shotgun blast to the face that may have been on purpose I don't remember at the time but so he signed it and threw it back at me and so I was very remorseful at the time until I got out his door and then I skipped down the hallway you know put in the mail sent it back to the regiment and then I had orders within a week to go up and assess so that was in the middle of the Black Hawk course and we had about a three week or a month long bubble waiting to graduate so they brought me up and I assessed during that that bubble the assessment was a very enlightening process again they'd never had a w1 with no wings I mean they didn't know what to do with me because I wasn't a rated aviator I won't divulge all the the fun stuff that goes on in a 160th assessment process it's pretty straightforward but it's very demanding like the standards are very high and I didn't get any they didn't cut me any slack you know for being a flight school w1 I mean I was judged on the merits and basis of my experience level all the way up to you know they even said hey we can't you against another mm our SP or flight leave that's been flying 101st for five or six years but you better know every single thing that you've ever learned in fly school and you better be the best flight school student you know we're gonna test you all the way up to that that level of course you know the only thing that really saved me was I smoked you know all the physical stuff so that was helpful the swim was pretty comical they actually that was pretty pretty humorous at my review at the end by the RCO because I think I took that opportunity to sort of be in my element and toy toy with him in the pool a little bit anyway so at the end that week you know whatever was ten or twelve of us and did the assessment we're all standing this room and they bring in one by one and I walked in and it goes around the room every single person that assess you you know the guy who did the PT test the psych that did your psychological evaluate X you know the doctor who interviewed you all the way to the flight lead who the flight lead who gave me my assessment check ride was a gentleman named Carl Meyer and if anybody were students of army aviation history Carl Myers in the aviation Hall of Fame that poor trucker at that time CD b5 Carl Meyer but in 1993 Mogadishu was cw3 Carl Meyer flying at mh-6 little bird he and another copilot landed in the streets of Mogadishu you know with mp5 and went and pulled the Delta operators out of the wreckage and pulled him back and you know he got a Silver Star for that anyway so Carl Meyer since retired obviously but very understated quiet humble guy so I did my assessment checkride so if you don't think I mean talk about the nervousness of writing with a you know flying with a national legend and again a pivotal point where the balance of my career is hanging on this hour and a half long flight but I did very well with it or did very well on it you know at least to my skill level I've got the flowers Carl Meyer actually made him sign my logbook just so I had his name in my logbook so I walked in and you know everybody went around the room and you know he did this and this and this and they're like all right leave so I go out and then probably three minutes later and I get back in here and I go into San attention and and Colonel Tori's like you know mr. Ilic we usually spend a lot of time deliberating on whether or not we're gonna take Candice in the regiment and this didn't take us very long at all and of course in my mind because I've always got that I've screwed this up thing I'm like this is it like how did I screw this I had one chance you know to be a hero and I screwed it up because this didn't take long at all and we just want to tell you welcome to the regiment and it was like I mean that's pretty that was as emotional as as getting a Trident you know and then it was just you know rainbows and unicorns at that point I mean that was that was a big deal first w1 you know of that era to be brought on 60th but that was pretty big emotional I mean I was pretty stressed out about that obviously being around all these people that they'd all just gotten back from Afghanistan and you know there's a lot of heroism in that room and it was also a pivotal point that was that was my career that was in the balance of that so so they gave me orders you know report back to the 160s blah blah blah as an mh-47 pilot packed up the family moved everybody up to Fort Campbell Kentucky in process the regiment and it's getting worse so as soon as I am processed they knew I was going back down a rocker go through the ocean of course so you know you at that time we had different flight uniforms with leather patches instead of that just had your name and no positive or whatever right you know there was no we had like these little cool assault boots and I had my maroon beret so I think it was like a week and a half or two weeks after I left Rucker I came back down wearing you know looking like the Nightstalker supply mill van threw up on me oh you know it's so and that just created mass you know that's there and the same folks are still there yeah same folks and they you know in fact I was even in class you know in this unit class with people that I was in my flight school class with and so it just keeps getting it's getting better you know but again keep in mind that I haven't paid any bills at the regiment yet so this is all all the fun stuff like nothing hard has started yet but everybody's very cool to me at the regiment you know there was no kind of sending anything just you know you you made it this far for a reason with all your other peers so there was there was a none of that w1 stuff you know they're like you gotta remember to there's a war on so right now breeze like you know what we would love to beat you and be condescending and all I kind of stuff but we need to train you up because you need a deploy and that was kind of mentality so so I went through this unit course graduated as a Chinook pilot now so I went back up how many Air France at this point so at this point it was a Huey Blackhawk and a Chinook Wow yeah and it gets a little bit better than that so I went back up and I was belong to HACC I think and they said hey at that time I was six he was flying in mh6 charli's which were old v-tail non-deployable and they just use them for local area proficiency but they were fun to fly and they also use them for assessment check rides and they don't have them anymore but anyway they said hey it's gonna be six months before your green platoon class starts for them age 47 you know do you want to go to mh6 aqc which is only three weeks long and of course I'm like heck yeah I do so whatever was three or four weeks later I graduated an mh-60 islet you know and all we do is a fly around Fort Campbell or fly to places for lunch or whatever and so at that point I can't remember who I told Mike you have to be kidding me so I'm still a w1 six months out of flight school and I told some somebody well I hadn't even gone to the Chinook course yet was W on with a Huey a Blackhawk ch-47 Delta and an mh6 in my records yeah I think it has to be somewhere in there you know and again it wasn't it wasn't anything I strove for right he was just one of those if somebody says hey do you want to I'm like yeah absolutely not even knowing why I would do it or if I'd ever fly to god I've never flew well that'd actually be was pivotal as well because I ended up flying a little bird for the museum as well because I had a little bird time so all these things I didn't see coming so I didn't really get spend any time flying they made six because they're like hey we got a shortfall in this next I made 47 aqc so jumped in it six months later graduated in mh-47 EE pilot still is w1 got assigned to B Company 2nd battalion of the 160th Airport Camel I had two Chinook companies at that time a Company B Company and they had all just gotten back from Afghanistan you know so and they'd lost several several guys and it was rough for a MB company so they're very focused and yeah so then I was a w1 checking into B company you know with a Huey Blackhawks huge 47 m h6 and mh-47 Wow in my records and usually is it just one airframe you just get one aircraft the entire career flying when I look at oh my goodness you know and then fast-forward down the line several years later I went to the fixed-wing course I got c12 and then here at West Point I got the Cessna 182 and and the uh-72 Lakota so I've got to fly I gotta fly just about everything except for the Apache you got to write a book on this on how you were able to get all these different airframes through the army it's tell people you just you just have to say yes it's all you have to do is you know say yes so I went across the street to B Company 2nd battalion and at this point you know everybody's doing 60 on 60 off because we're fully engaged in the war both in Iraq and Afghanistan so there really wasn't a whole lot of monkeying around somewhere in there very shortly after I made it to B Company I pinned on CW 2 so at least I didn't have the they didn't know if I was a 6-year w2 or a six-week w2 so at least that got a little bit of a stink off me but I mean it wasn't 12 or 16 days so it was after I graduated group of 2 and I was on a c-17 headed over to Bagram Afghanistan doing my first deployment as a co-pilot well when you do green Platoon in the 160th unlike progression and a conventional army unit the day you graduate you are ready to sleve 'l won in that aircraft you were a qualified co-pilot and all the environments so you know in that six months i was qualified the aircraft we had done air-to-air refueling urban desert we'd done deck training i mean so you were it's not like you went to your unit and got progressed you were progressed so once you graduate from green platoon you know you you are a deployable copilot did any of your personal flying experience assist with that at all it did a little bit I think the mh-47 is such a complex aircraft the only reason I survived was I had enough civilian flying experience and I knew how to talk on the radio you know a new airspace all those things that a brand new flight school student has to figure out when they get to the unit I mean I kind of had that so all I had to do is focus on the intricacies and complexities of flying at mh-47 and the avionics and 47 or ridiculously complex and multifaceted so that was I was a steep learning curve I was always behind the helicopter it took me about probably three or four years before I stopped being behind the helicopter and being able to kind of look bigger picture than what was right in front of me so from Green platoon deployments back to that what you said it was 60 on at that time we were doing about 60 on 60 off Wow and so when you were home for those 60 days you weren't home you were you know you were at Fort Benning Georgia training with the Rangers or your damn neck training with the seals or you were you know it somewhere in Georgia with the special tactics guys so you're always on the road training you weren't just home how many deployments did you go on while units or so as a 168th pilot is 16 combat deployments and 13 years 13 years 16 and 13 minutes so high off tempo gone frequently and constantly what kept you going how did you have that stamina to just keep well one after a number of years it just becomes your life it becomes your life becomes your routine and you forget that there's anything else out there huge toll on the families you know the regiment does their best to mitigate that and kind of help people be resilient but you know gone 7 or 8 months out of every year is gone 7 or 8 months doesn't matter if you're in a hotel in Virginia Beach or you know in a bee hut in Afghanistan or Iraq so you find the missions when you're overseas and I always tell people about the 160th is the payoff is not at home training because that's that's kind of that that's not very much fun because you drive for your home you'd rather be in your own bed so the payoff is when you go overseas that's like the big reward because generally every single night that you fly you know you're facilitating you know the nation's most skilled assaulters to make someone bad go away and so every single nights you go out it means something you're not just going out you know picking up you know some bottom-feeder you know I Eadie maker or something like that I mean you're going after the top tier criminals that were there for that are having an effect on global security so the deployments are very meaningful they're hard because it's an arduous arduous op tempo when we're deployed we fly almost every single night seven days a week you know there's no days off there's no the only days off we have is when the weather is too bad to fly so contrary to the way that Regular Army they may do a year-long deployment but they are getting you know they'll get weekends off or they get two out of every ten days off or something like that they actually get some program days off and we don't that's why our deployments are limited to anywhere from thirty to sixty to ninety days based on the need it's because that's about as long as you can that's about as long as as you can handle without hitting chronic fatigue and you know all those other bad things to go with going out and doing assault every single night did you get to run into any good friends people you worked with constantly you know constantly so you got a member from the time I left the SEAL Teams to the time I was back in Afghanistan deploying was maybe two years total so the very first assault I did a guy who was one of my groomsmen and my wedding popped his head up you know he was with one of the squadrons the SEAL squadrons off the East Coast and he popped his head up and I mean that was commonplace so I was always running the guys that I was in the SEAL Teams with which is very rewarding yeah then actually added an extra element of a purpose you know for the flying that we did any words that meant that they that you switched over at all on their end you know I always thought there would be I thought I'd be ostracized from the community but I always got from them I mean it sounds funny but some guys who were senior to me they were nicer to me when I was a sore pilot than I was when I was in the teams and I was asked you know cuz we'd always we were doing the assaults I'd usually go hang out with him and talk to him you know off-duty and stuff just to catch up and they're like dude we're so glad you went over like nothing makes us feel better like even if you suck even if you're not any better than the guy sitting next to you which it wasn't I mean I've I copilot and flew with some legendary pilots guys that you know I'm probably not even qualified to carry their helmet bag but we made great crews but just their perception that you know one of one of the Brotherhood was was in the cockpit you know you got imagine when these you're doing their assaults what they're doing every single night you know high-risk assaults any little bit of confidence that they get that it's gonna be okay you know it's pretty valuable that's really how they saw it was well if one of our guys is up front it's gonna be okay so it was also a lot of pressure to make sure that you know I didn't fail them how did West Point come up from there so I actually remember the first time that I ever heard of West Point when I was at second Battalion you know a little w2 and I was going through the community managers page on assignments and I don't know why I was on there maybe because I think I thought I'm why I got this licked you know we'll see what else I could put on my five-year radar out there something to that effect I'm sure I was I'm sure I was dreaming big because I always dream way beyond what I'm capable of and I just saw in there you know uh-1 West Point and I think in my head I came across that my Kohana uh-1 pilot you know and my gosh how cool would it be to fly at West Point knowing nothing at West Point never been here hardly ever spent any time on the East Coast let alone the Northeast and so I thought well how cool would it be you know go to West Point and then reality set in I'm like ah there's no way I'd go to West mine I'm not anywhere near qualified you know there's I could never gain enough aviation qualifications to to get to you know to get to second aviation at West Point so out of my head never paid attention to it again so again fast-forward to around 2015 spring of 2015 or summer 2015 al Mac is the commander second aviation detachment and for a very short period of time like six months hrc had changed it I had just pinned on w-4 and hrc had changed it from a w5 position to a w-4 position Wow and he said hey it's no longer nominative do you want to come be the commander second aviation I was actually thinking about retiring at that time because I was just strung out and tired you know we owned a farm in Washington State you know that was almost paid for and why would we and so I just distinctly said something flashed in my head of you know 10 years earlier looking at the saying and I'll never make it to West Point blah blah so I called my wife said hey do you want to go to West Point non-deployable let's just go see and she's like okay let's do it I mean it's about a 15-minute span I call al Mack back said hey make it happen let me know what you need from me we'll do it not having any idea the complexities of selling our farm ain't kind of kids up moving it across the entire country you know all that stuff so that was it that's how I got to be the commander second ace attachment and general castle at the time who was a superintendent he just went up and told general Kazon hey this is the guy you want him he's gonna make second innovation great you're gonna love him here's his background general Casson signed the by name request you know and very shortly thereafter you know there was some turmoil within hrc because that's not exactly the way it's supposed to go but when a three-star general you know who outranks the hrc commanding general signs piece paper just happens that way Wow so I had orders this is a commander of second aviation attachment and left 160th and summer of 2016 or May of 2016 or reported here and to command July 1st 2016 so how does it how has it changed since being here and actually retiring from her well it just changed me significantly because I was an army aviator and that was my focus 1 being the you know basically a company commander gives you a much different perspective on leadership and we're in charge up so no longer could I just focus on on being a good pilot in fact some of those skills have probably eroded a little bit because I've got other things that I have to focus on but also the first thing I did when I was in charge of other people like this is I called up all my previous company commanders they laughed because you know now I was in charge of a company full of Warrant officers and I didn't realize how needy and how painful it was to be in charge of warrant officers until you are in charge of them so right so I actually called a couple of my company commanders that I'm still friends with this day on my case sir just so you know I'm sorry he's like what are you sorry for him well I'm just sorry whatever I did to you all those years I get it now and I apologize so they always got a good laugh you know about that yeah so it's hard I mean even in a small detachment you know leadership is it's hard because it's always towing that line between getting the job done correctly and then taking care of people and it's always an international of that and it's easy to sway it one way or the other and anytime you have that out of balance you know it's not very long before the the wheels come off the wagon absolutely that's all what sort of involvement do you have here at West Point what is your job entail and you're doing some things with the cadets as well yeah so second Aviation I'm actually one of the primary pilots here and make sure the most experienced pilot here and that's by design but second Ovation is busy you know we fly the parachute team all the time our primary mission is to fly the superintendent executive travel wherever he needs to go to meet his schedule any other dignitaries or distinguished visitors that come to West Point will routinely fly them in and out of West Point just for easy transportation and that's that's the flying mission of it we also have like a public outreach mission for second aviation so lots of civic events are held in the hangar you know general palm pressing kind of the mayor of mayor of aviation because we're a much more visible outreach on this side of the mountain and Newburgh than the Academy is itself most people don't actually make it over to see West Point but they see the helicopters you know with the use of a crest on the side so so it's pretty good pretty good marketing ploy part of that is we're allowed to be involved in you know as you know anything that we want at West Point kind of whatever your you're suited for so I got heavily involved in the cadet flying team and since I played football I was you know it kind of had the understanding of how to deal with with young men and motivational I kind of stuff I got pulled in to be one of the bars for the football team and then also kind of in different times of that my period here also worked with a the swim team and then the baseball team which is kind of funny they're graduating this year but my baseball players aviation branchline like sir we need some mentorship we need you so I don't know anything about baseball I'm like I can't even play baseball I suck at baseball it doesn't matter so so I kind of just get I kind of just get pulled and part of that is I just really enjoy hanging out with the cadets and not as a peer per se but I think it's very mutually I enjoy their their energy and their enthusiasm and I mean it's a healthy environment to be around at the same time you know I'm able to impart some pretty common sense 30 years of of what I did why right and what I did wrong before they had the doors lieutenants from West Point you're retiring soon okay how many weeks left two and a half weeks of two and a half weeks left is that in line with graduation as well it's actually just a couple days after graduation four days after graduation Wow so what is next from here so I think everyone expected me to go do something grand one everybody expected me to take the promotion to see to be five and go on and continue on you know be a command Chief Warrant Officer somewhere and and I was gonna do that and somewhere along that line we just decided you know 30 years is enough because in my mind it doesn't get any better than being commander of the aviation department at West Point it is most definitely a pinnacle assignment for an Army Warrant Officer it doesn't get any better than this so for me to go back to an operational unit you know I would certainly be contributing to the defense of America and all that other stuff but at the same time I'm not sure anything could match this experience and I was always afraid when I made that decision I was just afraid of regretting it because you're going out on top of the world here and it's the way a career should end rather than being another four years of deploying and being angry and cynical and wore out and you know having not seen the family again for half the year so at that point it seemed seemed like the right decision and like I said the beginning the interview there's just some anxiousness just because it's it's a change in the transition but other than that we're kind of excited so for about the last seven years everything I've told you early on I kind of thought I wanted to be a crop duster and so I've continued flying as a civilian every chance I've gotten since that point kind of actually became fairly qualified as a civilian pilot I've flown several air shows lots of different kinds of airplanes lots of specialize in world war ii airplanes I own a couple of them now and so I decided I think I actually want to try and be a crop duster which sounds like a really you know blue collar kind of a dirty job and it kind of is but it's also very very demanding profession and rewarding lying and I know a lot of guys who will spend a career in aviation in the Army or the Air Force or whatever and they'll walk away and they'll never fly again or they just do it for a paycheck but amazingly it's still my passion so very few people get to do a job in the military that they can just take off the uniform one day and continue to do that job because they're passionate you know most people in the military rely on what they call soft skills you know leadership responsibilities organizational management that kind of stuff but very few you know doctors lawyers dentists I kind of stopped very very few of us get to transition excuse me transition directly out and do what we love so that's for me and I knew that I'd not have the temperament to be an airline pilot or a corporate pilot you know I couldn't wear a plaits and and being a sterile cockpit all day long so crop dusting and aerial firefighting is much more my speed I prefer to be you know we're in car hearts and boots and a t-shirt and be sweaty and work on my own airplane and be outside I don't do well in cubicles or offices so and the flying is I said flying is very demanding it's engaging you know no two days are the same and you're flying in a single-seat airplane which suits my personality you know very well it's very rewarding and the community you know you're an agricultural community which always has kind of America's best people you know there they are the salt of the earth in those communities that's where my family and I are most comfortable that's where I'm from so ironically I tell people I spent my whole youth trying to get out of rural farm communities I want to go see the world and then 20 years into my 30 years I realized what I really want to do is I really want to get back to you know the simplicity of rural life so kind of an odd full circle but that's what that's what it's come to but then again you know you just think you go through different phases your life that's kind of how you realize you have to have perspective to realize who you really are and where you want to go and what makes you happy thanks again for the opportunity it's been such a humbling humbling privilege to just sit across from you and just kind of go through this journey with you all over again thanks a lot appreciate the head

Channel: Long Gray Lessons

Views: 614,063

Rating: 4.91502 out of 5

Keywords: west point, usma, united states military academy, long gray lessons, how to get into west point, long gray lessons podcast, special forces, navy seal, soar, special operations aviation regiment, seal team, michael rutledge, aviation pilot, black hawk down, 160th soar, navy seals, 160th soar documentary, 160 soar, 160th, army pilot, night stalkers, navy seal interview, navy seal officer, Jonny kim navy seal, us navy seals, navy seal documentary, night stalker, jonny kim

Id: 2TOmDADh6U0

Length: 51min 7sec (3067 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 18 2019