John "Shrek" McPhee, The Sheriff of Baghdad, talks about his military career in the US Army

can Iraq we really started lightning warfare we could clear a hundred buildings in tonight bloody or not that could actually stop us from doing that the American warfighter today is the finest warfighter in the world so I was a welder and mechanic and I did that for a few years and I always knew I would join the army I always knew I'd served my country but I just didn't know when that was going to happen or how it was going to happen I was 20 years old I was working in these shops dirty like a coal miner every day my hands are cut you know stained black from from working on stuff every day and I just figured you know this isn't something I can do for 20 years this isn't this isn't really the life I think I want to live I decided I was going to join the army went to the or actually excuse me I decided I was going to join the airforce so I went to the Air Force recruiter I took the test and I figured I'd be a jet mechanic right because I'm a mechanic and a welder now and I work on trucks like I figured if I worked in an airport that'd be like a good job when I got older so I wanted to be a jet mechanic so I took the ASVAB I took all the tests I went back to the Air Force recruiter and he was like well son you know and I knew once he said son that this was going to be this is the the bad news was coming he's like son have you talked to the army or the Marine Corps yet I'm like no I want to be a jet mechanic he was like well your scores are only high enough to be admin in the Air Force and I'm like okay admin like what's that he's like well you'd type memos you might do some type of awards for guys I was like just thinking to myself a secretary I scored high enough to be a secretary I'm a welder right now how could I not score high enough to be a welder so he's like son have you talked to the Marine Corps the army yet so that night one of one of my buddies was a ranger in the army and he was like being a ranger was excellent you wake up and you run seven miles and he gives me the who of speech and I'm like yeah so I go to the army recruiter and I was like I want to be an Army Ranger and and again I get the Sun speech son do you know what Army Rangers do I'm like no sir and he's like have you seen the video no sir do you want to see the video no sir I want to be a ranger so it was kind of like hey Bob come here this guy wants to be a ranger ha ha ha ha and they laughed at me sign me up to be 11 X ray which was a ranger I was almost 21 at the time and went through basic training basic training you know being a little bit older and I you know I was 20 when I went through basic training it wasn't really you know that two years that's a lot of maturity I didn't know that then and you know the drill sergeants always depended on me to get stuff done and it's not like I was the butt kisser like I did more push-ups than anybody generally speaking you know I was always a squad leader in charge and I think was a maturity thing so basic training is fairly easy for me after basic training you know went to Airborne School Airborne School was a drinking fest I did it all hungover if I had to do it again I'd do it all hungover again and then you know Airborne School ended you know you get your red beret after Airborne School I'm incredibly proud I'm airborne now you know I'm second generation airborne my grandpa was a world war two paratrooper and the Ranger cadre show up all the guys going to rip come here and we kind of go over by the Ranger cadre they rip off guys red berets throw them on the ground stomp on them like still this day I don't have mine I don't know where when the guy stomped on it and then they're like throw your bags in the truck so we put all our duffle bags and you know at this point in training in the army all I had was my two duffle bags they drive off in the truck drive off with my two bags and everyone's stand-in there they don't say nothin anybody so it was like I think we're supposed to run after our stuff and they drove a cross post made us run after our bags until they got to the barracks and then rip was an incredible eye opener which the Ranger doctrine ation program was no joke you know basic training kind of a joke kind of a good time Airborne School a really good time nothing really hard a lot of drinking a lot of hangovers rip no joke like brutal every day was the Ranger standards you know I just I don't think I struggled any more than anyone else you know I just kind of hung it in there and I seen stuff I had never seen before you know five minute miles for six miles I didn't even know a person could do that let alone me trying to file you know catch this guy so rip was no joke I passed rip I asked to go to 1st Ranger Battalion I asked I got what I wanted and I got the range of a time so you know I was in Ranger Battalion guys were going to selection courses and you know I thought you know being a green beret that might be real cool and you know in my day there wasn't the stuff on the internet there was no internet actually there wasn't the stuff you hear now so it was really a leap of faith and I had a good buddy that went and I was like hey what was Special Forces selection like and the best answer best advice I ever got was from that day and he said there's nothing any day that you couldn't do and I was like huh that seems logical so every day I was in selection I just told myself there's nothing's going to happen today that I can't do and I just kept going sfas SF selection was was another eye-opener of a different sort you know you had the individual stuff it starts out individual kind of field skills which as a ranger had already mastered and then it gets to team week and this is where you know twelve guys get together you carry a log you make we got a you know move a barrel twelve miles today like who does this you know one of the days they give you a jeep and it's missing a wheel like what are we going to do with this right so really problem-solving at its best and in my selection course my team was incredibly we like there was one or two of us on my team that were good and the rest of the guys were just complete and I think most of them failed I think I'm only me and that guy out of my team past yeah so we finished out in selection they called me zero man you know you know there's a road March at the end I came in from the road March and you know found out like I was the first one in went to the q course the Q course you know I was a 18 Charlie which is a demo guy the engineer by trade man engineer course was a blast we blew stuff up we blew up we blew a 5 ton truck so high you couldn't even see it till it started to come down learned a lot you know and I got to my first SF team I was in seventh group we deployed to South America my first trip was El Salvador El Salvador at the time was just kinda over the war in El Salvador so they were kind of just getting back to normal from the war so really good experience for me to see guys that were you know combat veterans Special Forces combat veterans from another country and kind of an eye-opener to me I did my time on a team and then I thought you know like those unit guys that would be pretty cool so I decided to go to unit selection unit selection again its own unique animal Matt had no issues with it I just kind of hung in there every day and just figured you know I kept telling myself hey nothing's gonna happen today that I can't do just went through every day finally one of the last days I was on a truck they drove me back to the barracks and I was thinking well I guess this is it you know this is where my journey ends and then a guy hands me like 12 more maps like are you kidding me like we haven't used this many Maps the whole time what is going on and you know because my day no one knew anything about that you know there was no there was no books written about it there was no internet chatter of what happens and so again you know with final road march is one of the first guys in I got a helicopter ride to the barracks and you know as one of the first guys back I just got grabbed a bunk I went to sleep and I woke up and like the barracks was full and I was kind of like what is going on here you know a couple days later the barracks just starts one by one getting just every every couple hours just emptier like where these guys go and finally it was my turn there was a board you know the board was incredibly brutal and then after the board you know it's kind of so surreal I didn't really understand it but when I left the board you know they told me I made it but it was kind of it's just surreal like I really didn't understand the magnitude of what was what was being told to me at the time and then you know I went around a corner and they they fit you for all your gear so when you come to training you got you know uniforms that fit in boots and it kind of sunk in on me when I tried on the the old gsg-9 adidas assault boots I'm like yeah the army doesn't got these boots like that's kind when I tried on those boots I hadn't heard about those boots and heard rumors about those boots but I didn't know and when I tried those boots on that's when I kind of know like yeah this is this is kind of for real you know shortly after September 11th oh one I was deployed to Afghanistan at the time you know I had a little bit of war experience in Desert Storm but nothing like what was going on you know we were in the Tora Bora mountains the Battle of Tora Bora kind of kind of famous battles today's day and age but you know we get up to the to the top of the mountains on that first day and there is just rounds going off explosions dust everywhere kind of chaotic couldn't really tell who was doing what where and why and we were on the top of the mountain I was with another guy you know the other guy was with was a Panama vet I was like whoa he's seen combat before you know like and then there's there's explosions and people are running behind us and so I was just kind of curious like is this incoming fire or outgoing fire like I'm not sure what's going on here Iraq kicked off early oh three we were some of the first guys on the ground and a man you know compared to Afghanistan like you know I'm eating rice and flies for meals you know crapping in a hole in the ground lucky to get a shower you know just hoping the water I drank didn't make me sick in Afghanistan - I lived in Saddam's palace I washed my face in a gold sink I had a six showerhead shower like I don't even have this stuff in my house so you know my first day in in Iraq I was like this is how you war right here let me get more hot water in the gold sink so Iraq was just textbook war you know Afghanistan you know on a scale of one to ten if the enemy was - the mountains were a ten we're fighting at a 12 in Afghanistan Iraq the enemy you know might have been a four but the terrain was also a four so everything was just easier I think in Iraq we really started the the pressure of the kind of like Lightning warfare as we just started hitting targets because we had nothing opposing us and we could hit ten and a night 20 and a night we could clear 100 buildings in a night there was nobody or nothing in Iraq that could actually stop us from doing that and you know I believe the Iraq war set an unprecedented pace in history and it was because you know we went from the most difficult situations of just trying to figure out how we're going to pull this off - yeah a couple little birds couple armored vehicles will be there in 20 minutes you know whole thing will take an hour so you know we kind of adapted into a much faster paced warfare and you know again like I think it's just unprecedented the American warfighter today is the finest war fighter in the world and it boils down to a couple reasons first off as money no country spends as much money per soldier we do you could be great in all the basics but without the technology it's really hard to conduct that lightning warfare that America likes to do you know other foreign services other you know foreign special operations they they can compare and it boils down to how much money we spend per troop and you know the American warfighter learned a ton of really hard lessons learned has adapted and overcome in the past few years to where you know the force is stronger more experienced now than ever but you'd be foolish to fight us in in land warfare

Channel: Trigger Time TV

Views: 622,682

Rating: 4.8404684 out of 5

Keywords: john mcphee, sob tactical, sheriff of baghdad, shrek, crossbreed holsters, us army, special forces, sf, delta, the unit, iraq, afganistan, amercian badass, troy alan guillotte, tag entertainment, trigger time tv, bcm, troy industries, pws, century arms, trijicon, cag, the fishermans guide, pushing limits

Id: KRQCnJV5t9Y

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Tue May 03 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Ink775]

"Nothing is going to happen today that I can't do."

Damn that's such a valuable thing to understand, and I know it gets said a lot on this sub but the PST is the test. Once you pass you're capable of passing BUD/s, there have been people slower in the pool, slower on the sand, slower on the o-course, and weaker under a log that have gotten their trident.

[u/[deleted]]

Watched this many times. Love how the one piece of advice that extends to all branch's "versions" of SOF is always "Suck it up and don't be a pussy."

That really is all you need to ever know to get through not only selection and training programs but life in general really. Also, I know recruiters deal with a thousand kids every year wanting to be rangers but I can't help revel in the irony of his recruiters laughing at him not knowing he would eventually be a fuckin' Delta Force Operator.

[u/blazbluecore]

" The American warfighter today, is the finest warfighter in the world."

Keep that in heart boys

[u/MindOverMatter1994]

Five minute mile, six miles. Better get running.

[u/[deleted]]

cool