Little Bird pilot Greg Coker on being shot down in Iraq, Ep. 74

hey everyone welcome to episode 74 of the team house i'm jack murphy here with co-host dave park uh this is a little bit of a different episode we normally live stream this one is pre-recorded since it falls on christmas eve and all three of us have other things to be doing on that particular evening um but i we wanted to be committed to getting out an episode um this friday for you nonetheless so we're pre-recording this one with our gra with our our guest here uh and greg coker dave you actually read greg's book yes uh it was a phenomenal book um it uh so the book is uh death weights in the darkness uh right six guns don't miss correct and and when you say six guns don't miss what is a six gun right well this there's a bit of a story about the six guns and that's i was in b company first the one sixtieth there's a b charlie delta in first battalion well back when they had reconfigured after the desert mishap in 1980 and the 160th was formed and they were training to go back with all army helicopter pilots and gun pilots gun guys were flying ahs they were in the desert army and a couple of ahs landed and colonel beckwith was standing there well they carried two we carried two miniguns one on each side of the aircraft and colonel beckwith the pilots got out and they were all dusty and dirty and he says man you guys look like old gunfighters from the old west so i'm from now on you're going to be known as the six guns just like the two pistols that they carry back in the gunfire days right there's six chambers and the uh the little birds have their gun their uh got six barrels six yeah all right six barrels yeah six barrels so great uh well i i to to put it very mildly you were a pilot with the 160th special operations aviation regiment um and and that's the small of it but greg before we get into all that uh something you may not know about jack and i is we are big comic book geeks and to us you are the real life heroes like you are the superheroes and so every hero has an origin story and we would love to hear your origin story who were you growing up uh what drew you to the military uh you know just anything that you want to share with us sure yeah we i think we all we all have a story and it's it's pretty interesting in in our organizations and specifically army special operations that i always said that you know somebody should study this because you have all these men from all over the country that come to one very small very specialized units and it interested me as to okay why why are we all you know this is where god put us that's why and you know i i tell everybody and i talk to guys later i just hit me like a rock one day that you know this is god's path for every man here and when we are being knitted in our mother's womb says in the bible that our path is laid out and that is one of a warrior's path and that's how these warriors come together i grew up you know just like pretty much everybody else chasing critters in the woods and i worked on my uncle's farm and ranch and cowboyed and broke horses and you know of course hunted and fished and i was a child of the 60s brothers speak and the vietnam war was going on at that time my father was in the military he retired after 30 years but you know that was the television war and i can remember as also the helicopter war so i always had this inspiration or calling to fly helicopters i mean they just i wanted to be in the military and be in the army and again that was you know that was my calling to go do go forth and do so and so that was that was your path now did you did you go into the uh army as a pilot was there a pilot program at the time did you go in and listed how did that work yeah a good question that at the time well for a very long time the army has had from high school to flight school for the war officer program for the united states army to fly helicopters and i went in i enlisted first and i just my father you know told me hey this is probably the best path for you this is what i recommend so i enlisted and i was in the 101st and the 327th infantry at fort campbell kentucky for almost three years when i applied for flight school and i had an old our brigade commander was colonel ralph hagler you may may remember that name and so he was very he he was a very integral part in you know helping my path i looked at going to 275 rangers because colonel hagler had been the 275 commander when they jumped into grenada so he was pulling me kind of that way yeah and and uh but he knew i i really really wanted to fly so that was yeah that's what i did i got accepted to flight school okay and and how long was flight school uh for a warrant i mean i'm sure it's probably the same for an officer but when you go into flight school and it's helicopters like how long is it and what's the basic course there yes sirs there are three tracks that back then in 1989 1990 there was a scout track so those guys flew 58 and there was a lift track so they were huge blackhawk was coming on it was online and then chinooks and then there was a gun track well i wanted to be a gun guy i like shooting stuff and blowing up so that was just a natural fit for me and i i tracked in the cobras during flight school for the gun guys we had the longest period it was one exactly one year from the day i started to the day i graduated live that's a little bit shorter for the list guys because they don't have to learn ballistics and shooting and range operations and things like that and so you went through flight school uh for for the gun ships and then where where would did you go from there what was your first duty station my first duty station was in south korea in the 517 cab and we were at the time we were the furthest deployed aviation unit and mech unit we were right up by the border and that was our mission was to fly to 37 parallel i believe the north south korean border and yeah it was it was a really good tour for a brand new junior aviator and we you know we flew mountains of course it snowed so we got cold weather ops we got over water ops and a lot of night vision goggles and we we had a real world mission then so yeah it was it was pretty serious it was a good tour for a young gun pilot yeah now were you aware of the 160th at that point in time uh when did that come yes sir yeah i actually i can recall and i'd see the little loaches while i was at campbell and we had just come out of the field the 327th we just come out field one time and we were sitting back i was cleaning weapons or doing whatever and these four little birds fly by their route was right there by our you know where our headquarters was and uh i was like check out those little black helicopters and oh two stars looked over at he's like shut up those don't exist you know well i said i think i'm gonna fly one one day he's like shut up coker go back to work you're too stupid or something like that i always like to remember his name and find him now so for our viewers most of our viewers are aware of the different types of platforms but for our viewers who are not can you describe what a little bird is because it's very it's very unique yeah yeah i'd i'd be very interested to hear from an actual little bird pilot like the here's your little bird familiarization class yes sir yeah good i and people get confused because i say well i flew little birds they're like oh the oh 858 i'm like no it's i don't know what that is but it's a civilian helicopter and it it grew out of the old hughes mcdonald douglas loach the 086 from vietnam era and great great helicopters and of course they have their history flying in in vietnam and that's what the unit when they first formed in 81 that's what they selected some of the guys were they're still vietnam guys around you know flying army helicopter and a lot of the you know everybody came out 101st and very aviation heavy at the time just great great pilots and leaders and commanders but what it is today it is a civilian md 530 helicopter and we buy them from i think it's boeing hughes mcdonald whoever owns owns them now but that's the old this mr hughes engineer developed put that helicopter together and he he wanted a a survivable airframe and that's where it got its egg shape from is what we call it the egg nothing knocked the tail boom off it looks like an egg and then the way it's engineered the different areas of airframe in it and it just it forms a protective capsule around the pilots if it rolls and i'm here today to tell you that it works yeah so we'll talk about it later we definitely will um yeah and i mean so when they say a little bird it really is little like people who haven't seen them before uh there's room for the pilots and room for your ammo and pretty much that's it that's it right and there's another version in a company 160th the mh6s the mh their mission helicopters they have the planks on the side our customers you know get on the sides of them they can take three on each side and then a dog or you know something that they need for the mission and that's that's how those are configured so there's two little bird companies in the 160th night that 14. yeah and you were uh on one of the the gun platforms uh could you talk about the armaments that can be loaded up on one of these aircraft sure and kind of back to where the aircraft comes from they purchase them commercially then they go up to bluegrass kentucky they get reconfigured with mil standard radios our armament systems and now the it's i flew the j model now we have the m model and the difference is the j had a five bladed rotor system the m has a six bladed rotor system and a four bladed tail rotor system which gives us more lift so we can carry more ammo and gas or people so it it it was a and we have a glass cockpit so they've aircraft really been upgraded a bunch since i've left but i did fly the m on a couple of tours before i retired armament-wise they get an ornament system put in them and then our standard configuration are dual dillon m134 miniguns they fire 4 000 rounds per minute each and then two seven shot rocket pods we generally carry 10 or 17 pound mark 66 rockets um that's our standard configuration so that's about 132 bullets a second when you pull the trigger 762. and we'll get into all the advanced technology that you guys use for uh for yeah as we get into it um so so tell us about applying to the one did you just do the one duty station or did you do another uh sort of conventional side and then go to 160th or how did that work for you yeah when i got back from flying cobras i tracked into apaches and went right just as the other storm was starting as when i got home so i all tailed a fort rucker and started to go through the apache transition because i thought you know there was going to be a need for apache pilots and i was assigned to the 101st and then you know the thing was over in like i don't know six seven days so they kind of throttled back regrouped and had a short course for us that was there then they just we went back to the standard and i flew 864 as a first 101st at the time lieutenant colonel cody was commander later to become gerald cody and yeah i was there for about two and a half years and then i assessed for the 160th and 93. what's what's the difference or the primary difference for whether it's the mission or the setup between a cobra and an well apache cobras it's an older airplane frame it's you know 60s technology a single engine has a 20 millimeter cannon on the nose and it carried tow missiles and then two 19 shot record the apache of course was advanced technologies two engines 30 millimeter chain gun still two 19 shot rocket paws hellfire missiles so those those are the big changes both are great great helicopters and i mean folks that fly yeah they're just they're awesome gun pilots talk to some ground forces that have worked with them yeah so what was the process then for uh applying to the 160th and how did that go for you it's pretty much your resume for what you've done up until that point and i was i was somewhat of a junior aviator i was a pretty young w-2 and at the time the standards to apply to the unit was a thousand hours of flight time and 100 hours of goggle i only had like i think 600 and maybe 50 hours of flight time but i had over 200 hours of night vision goggles and we flew mvts a bunch in korea and then we flew them a bunch in 101st so you know i think they weighed it and i had a couple good friends of mine there unit and b company and you know so yeah i sit on my packet my my resume so to speak and they look at your flight time what you've done up to that point in your career and i you know i think hey they they said let's take a chance on this guys got double the you know the night vision goggle time as most guys do they come here so so i got picked up for an assessment was the assessment flying was it physical was it mental what can you if you can tell us anything about that yeah let me let me think without giving too much away it was extremely physical and it it tested you it tested you physically emotionally and mentally and it lasts a week um yeah you come in and do pt and a bunch of other things and and then your final for the pilots our final day is our check ride we get we're given a target depending on what company you're going to they're little birds hawks chinooks and then you're given a target you have 24 hours i think to plan it and uh yeah then you go out and fly with your ip that doesn't say a word to you the whole flight almost two and a half hours and you know you're like well then the next morning you have a formal board and they you know they watch you the whole week you know all the different things that you do during that week and [Music] yeah the regimental commanders there the unit sites there your ip other ips more officers senior warrants from the unit and i think randy jones was there at mine if i remember correctly but it's it's very intimidating yeah so to speak and to walk in of course you're in your class a's and you know you knock on the door and they yell at you enter and walk in present and then let the meetings begin yeah so you must have done a little while though you got in and so you've flown cobras you've flown apaches so you're fully mission qualified they just give you an airframe and go okay you're good no oh no you know you start all over again in the unit i mean you're it's a process and you have to work with you know all the different customers and you have to learn their ground ski maneuver and we had several guys that were you know former infantry guys rangers so you know we have a good background on what's going on on the ground well that's something that you have to teach everybody you have to work with the different colors at a time and it's for the ah guys it's about two years to get up to fmq to fully mission qualified pilot so you're in you know you're you you're a bmq when you get there basic mission qualified pilot and then you spend the next 18 to 24 months training to attain that fmq status and then you're a combat ready attack helicopter pilot so so what's teaching the guys to shoot to the standard which we shoot right which so so when you went in you went straight to little birds can you you can go that route uh straight to straight to the 86s yes sir well i was uh i was a gr or a gun guy so that's the natural progression you know the lift guys the scout guys they might go to aco or they may have a guy you know they'll ask you you know what what you'd like to go fly and i told them i'll go fly hot air balloons if you want me to so you know just give me some hand grenades i can drop all the bad guys and i'll just float over them so yeah that that back then that was a natural progression for cobra you know most of the guys will cover apache guys in b company because you already had that background and ballistics and you know shooting and it's it's it just takes a lot a lot of training and practice to you know to shoot to the high standards which we shoot and so what's the difference in terms of your function between uh basic mission qualified and fully mission qualified are you riding number two are you not if there were a war are you still are you the co-pilot how does that work yes sir you're usually in dash two what would call it or the wing man in the left seat or it will fly both seats because you got to train in both seats and fly and shoot from both seats so you get you get about equal time both and you'll you know they say that the hardest job in the army is flying dash 2 and b company because your whole mission in life is to protect lead lead will always have two season senior fnqs in the front aircraft because their their job is to positively identify that target and engage that target so dash two you're sitting back and of course every pilot has their technique and how they want to skin it but your whole mission in life is to protect the lead so they can get in there and shoot that target plus or minus 30 seconds now you said that when you went to the apache that it was you know modern technology and i imagine there are all kinds of gizmos and gadgets then you go to the world's you know prestige uh aviation unit top you know top of the top and into a little bird and and tell us what that technological leap was like then going into the little one well it's going back about 50 years [Applause] there's not a whole lot of technology in that in that helicopter and that's you know the more technology you get the more they break i it is what it is with helicopters electronics things like that we still know the aircraft still had the old we call them steam gauges and we had gauges to look at not leds and screens and glass and and and it you know those aircraft just work they work all the time we have the best crew chiefs on the planet and the best armament personnel on the planet and i mean i i would never i wouldn't have to pre-flight an aircraft i'd go out jump in it strap it in crank it up fly away not ever worry about it because they're they're just they're professionals dedicated to their jobs and you know they they care about us so now you talk about uh being able to shoot to standard and and i think that anybody in the special operations community who's ever worked with age sixes knows how precise you guys are on target uh what defeat that is but isn't that just a matter of letting the little uh moving markers line up you know the lasers and and the the digital things line up like you got a so we use a grease pencil i'm not kidding and every gun pilot has their spot on the windscreen we take a grease pencil army issue one each and you put a little dot up there and some of them have pretty intricate you know they'll have stadia on it and actually there's it's on it's ghosted in the cover on my book and if you guys have picked it up they're like hey man that's a pepper we call it a pepper so that's another thing and learning to shoot is placing that pepper at the same exact place every time so you know when you pull the trigger you send a rocket it's going to go where that pepper is and that that takes you know again is compounded in shooting this helicopter you know what the at the standards in which we shoot and we shoot pretty close to friendlies and and they have great trust in our abilities that you know they know that if they get in trouble that we'll come in and get pretty close to them if we have to very close yeah it's a grease pencil mark that's it we i mean we've tried all kind of gizmos and huds and fights and red dots and braces but you know fred horsley i think said he was a former beat company gun guy that you know the mine's the fastest computer on the planet and you know it's we're good using the grease pencil mark that's amazing that's amazing i mean are there guys who go to 160 especially especially in the assault side where you know you have to have that kind of precision um that just they don't have the hands of a surgeon they just can't quite line it all up and get it sure sure right in my tenure in bco probably saw i don't know eight seven eight nine guys you know caught make it to the company but they just they just couldn't shoot i mean some of them you know were sent on to flash nooks or aco or you know good good officers soldiers aviators but when we when we get on in the terminal area on the objective it looks like a fur ball if you've ever seen a shoot i mean we're breaking and shooting and yanking and banking and and it you know high potential to get a person sick if they're you know they're just not used to it well that was one of the things that is unique about your book i think is that it reads many parts of it read like like a literal action movie firefight the two guys that that opposing forces would have on the ground you know but you are every bit as active and in the mix as as the ground forces are yes sir and you know the the ah guys we have to know every element of the ground floor so if it's the rangers maneuvering or the smu maneuvering or whatever but we have to know because we have to know where every soldier is on the battlefield before we can pull the trigger right you have to so that's another thing that you know takes time for for guys to learn is you know hey you know we're going to maneuver this side or that side and this team's going here and that team's going there and that company or that fire team and so man it's yeah it's it gets a little bit busy up there on the objective greg we're watching out for them i got a question real quick i'm just curious how do you see that grease pencil mark at night under night vision goggles it's pretty easy we'll make it a little bit bigger you know at night i mean it's probably mine was about the size of a quarter and you know you put it up there and it was mine was 21 rivets up and then over the inside of the left pedal and i knew that every time i mean you check it and check it and check it and check it so when all the aircraft were pretty close to the same and yeah so that some guys use a tape measure or a string to get that paper right there same place every time that's amazing yeah the guys the guys really it's incredible to watch them so you uh so you're at the 160th um about what year is this when you get there 93 93 okay yeah sure yeah the guys were in somalia okay and that all went down and i was in green platoon it was that the training continue yes sir okay yeah then you spend another the gun guys about eight to ten months again because you're teaching you're teaching us how to the new guys how to shoot to their standard which takes time so well and is it just a shooting are they teaching you how to fly in ways that maybe the the the conventional army frowned upon absolutely in the airframe is completely different there's you know there's no hydraulics in the helicopter whereas every helicopter you come from the controls are hydraulically assisted so you know yeah it's a hard airframe to fly it really is it's all fly by no it's just levers and bells housings and yeah well you say here's my hydraulics so yeah but it's an extremely difficult aircraft to fly and learn it's just very very responsive and you know i always try to explain it to folks this is the lamborghini of you know the ferrari of helicopters i mean it's it's very very maneuverable and that's small the rotor diameter is 27 feet so you know we can kind of calculate okay yeah like fellas landed to pick up those guys and somalia that and i love the glock soon that day if i had three or four inches on each side of the durham main road you know they're they're incredible they're just great great helicopter pilot so between um 93 when you were in green platoon and then 2001 what was your life like at the 160th the op tempo is extremely high and you're always training uh you got three ranger battalions that you're constantly training with and then the other special operations mostly we work with the army special operations units and so yeah you're i think i averaged like 290 days a year tdy yeah it's been a long long time yeah up until i won yeah we're always learning and developing and a lot of you know the things that go out to the regular army or to the marine corps to anybody that flies helicopters we you know we've done research and development and and general huffman talked about it a bit on his visit that you know we yes we do those things we want to make better cockpits or better gear better whatever to help survivability you know everybody out there so yeah it's it's cost a lot of lives in their early days you know they were trying to figure all this stuff out thank god they you know they made us better i was pretty much the second gym i guess the end of the second generation so yeah and and it wasn't just uh you're flying but because i know and we'll get into this when we get into like your first deployment to afghanistan but you learn fires like you you learn the full gamut of it correct oh yes yes sir we're you know you're an expert in fire support because again you have to learn and and you're you're just a close-knit family because you work with all the fire supporters and all the different colors of green red and you know whoever and yeah i mean you're you're like brothers and and then you get to know the ground force and and other units because you know once you're there you never leave and you stay there so you build these relationships and this trust so to speak and of course you hack on each other and we make mistakes things that aren't so right and but not only do we not only shooting but it's learning the standard for navigation in that aircraft and that's where the map encompass and plot that's it no gps no electronic devices and you have to you have to become an expert at that because our standards plus or minus 30 seconds all the time on target every time and i've seen guys back in the old days guys crash helicopters that plus or minus 30 seconds i was like oh lord what are we doing you know but hey we got i got to the target you know the deep breath is like man you're almost late like oh i made it okay let's get those tree branches out of the skins or the wheels or you know whatever but yeah they're they're very dedicated to that mission into the ground force yeah why does it depend on it yeah sure it's funny because you mentioned when you talk about the fire support you mentioned green and red we get to talk about the uh fire support from blue too here when we get to your first deployment um so yeah that didn't turn out so well yeah so your first deployment can we can we uh unless there's anything in that in that time any notable things that you'd like to talk about um we we can either talk about those we can fast forward to uh to afghanistan sure sure no that was i mean our our time was spent staying ready for sharp and and being prepared to you know respond to anything that might come up and of course there were many times we were you know we were like come on man this is it this is it we're going i mean guys would not take leave because they were afraid they might miss something you know the beef would go off they were like oh man no i can't i can't do that especially you've been yeah very plus years and you know you've been training all this time and you're waiting waiting waiting i want to do my job yeah and i always told guys be careful what you wish for and then 911 came yeah and uh we were busy we were extremely busy it was good it was good you were with your brothers you have to go out and kill bad guys every night so what's better than that so tell us what happened on 9 11 not on 9 11 but what happened with 1 60th after the events of 9 11. yes sir we had i was at fort campbell we had i believe we had a range that day so range 2-9 is our other home that's our exclusive use only range here at fort campbell where we do all of our shooting and customers come out and we train there for you know three to five days at a time but we're you know we're home we're shooting probably two to three days a week to maintain those standards and you always said that shooting is one of the most perishable skills a human has now put in there flying a helicopter hopping on the radio listening to the radio and putting the bullets where they're supposed to be every time so we had two groups out one was oconus one was on the east coast and i was in the gym that morning i went in a little late because we you know we work at night and we're not on the regular army schedule so to speak so we're gonna get a workout in and i was on a treadmill and a guy that run ran the gym there at campbell as a former seal and really really good dude but he walked in and all the tvs were off and he said hey i think you need to see this and turn the tv on in front of my treadmill and i see you know this tower clear blue 22 and burning and i'm like what in the world happened because i think an airplane flew into it uh like a small fix wing and i go well as an aviator you know i'm thinking how in the family do you do that one of the biggest buildings in the world and it was just a few seconds later man here comes the second one and my beeper went off and so yeah i hauled but out to the airfield and we started you know getting kicked together in our our loadout and we didn't know what was going on but no other than what was being reported on tv and we did get word of another plane hitting a pentagon and then another plane going down in pennsylvania and so we just yeah we just started our routine getting the package ready to go wherever we were ordered to go we kind of had an idea i think you know it's going to be afghanistan area and so we we completed our continued our planning went out to fort bragg a couple times to do planning out there and then came back and we had our mission and we were going to afghanistan so we put task force together and i was i was out at fort bragg our last planning meeting and the fire support officer from delta had just left from b squadron was the up squadron so they were all going together and colonel sweater was a delta force commander at the time and approached me and he says hey greg he says i'd really like for you to come over as a fire support officer for the past works and i was like i was like sir i'm an age guy you know i want to go i want to go shoot people and uh and he understood and i understood it was i was honored you know that for him to ask me to do that so my good good friend leon hanson was the fsnco fire support normal commissioned officer for be squadron we've been buddies for a long long time it was uh yeah it was a good crew i mean it was of course the guys that didn't look chosen to go they were poopy-faced because everybody wants to go get it on right i mean you just do that's who we are that's what we do so that's god's path for us so you are going to afghanistan as a as a fire support officer as a firefighter yes your coordinator and not as an age six pilot at this time that's correct i was you know my commander told me that i would consist and you know given going on missions with the ahs also i was an fmq and uh but yeah he's he's like hey man he's the right guy for the right job at the right time at the right place so guess what you're it yeah you had been oh yeah eight years at that point in time is that is that sort of middle of the road or is that kind of a senior position at that point in time for the fires well no just for you i don't know how long pilots are what their longevity there is so with you being there eight years were you one of the more more so seasoned guys yes sir yeah or more senior guys so i mean you guys spent 12 15 16 years there yeah so well that's your home and i'm not i mean a lot of people probably don't know this um but being a helicopter pilot especially sort of in the types of frame airframes you guys were in and flying the types of missions it's hard on the body a lot of hard landings a lot of compressed spine i i mean it's it's as hard on the body as being on the ground being in the infantry or or whatever yes sir i'd say so i mean our my kit weighed 60 pounds that i wore in combat and we always flew with our kit and our plates and vests and anytime we live fire you had to wear it yeah it's good training and especially the new guy it'll teach them where to put stuff of course we have sops you know this goes here that goes there so i can reach over when it's dark and i know there's a magazine or a tourniquet or a radio or whatever the case and but yeah it's especially wearing night vision goggles on a you know on a helmet all those years everybody gets the knife stopper neck so to speak and uh yeah it's hard on backs and knees and shoulders and yeah and one more thing uh before we move forward is you when you talk about going to the range and shooting and then you you mentioned you know where the magazines are you guys would carry your m4s and actually engage with m4 sometimes if if need be correct yes oh yes yeah we might might have dropped a grenade or two out of cockpit also so yeah yeah for those of you i've seen a little bird kind of just look one up but they're they're open side there's no doors there's there's nothing it's just yeah wide open so um yes so you deploy uh as as the fire support uh coordinator and where did you guys go and what what did you spin up for yeah we went to monsieur island it's a small island there off oman and it was ironic i think i i'd said to the battle staff there one evening that hey you know what it was i don't know 20 years earlier when colonel beckwith and the delta guys departed from the same airfield go do desert one and we were departing to go into afghanistan and listen to terrorists so we still we stayed there i'm sorry was there a specific terrorist that you were going after at that point in time oh bin laden and his crew okay yeah joe cowie and ernest or cali but omar and yeah bin laden and yeah just whoever was out there looking for a fight that's who we went and got it on with so and very clear very clear mission statement and what what was the first mission that you guys flew out there uh well my first mission as the fires guy was to go and recce the route that the chinooks were going to take they were going to launch off the ship with delta for our first official mission we we've been conducting missions for some time prior to as 19 october 2001 it was rhino gecko 375 rangers did a an airborne combat assault on the rhino to secure that landing area and then of course gekko or be squadron he went in we had thought that omar may be there and maybe bin laden so that was our first target there west of kandahar and but i'd take i've flown several missions to reconnaissance the route that the chinooks and the daps would take to the target and cleared them and picked her out for those guys and of course went to the ship with it made sure they were all good with it and they they were so yeah cleared it cleared route all the way into the objective area on both both objectives and uh yeah so we just planned off that went from there and i i did several more missions just to set the conditions in the battle space and engage targets you know any any targets that we could find all just all over that southern desert in kandahar over all the way west to alaska do you mind do you mind telling us a little bit about gekko because that that was quite a read in your book and i mean from you know the briefing uh your unwelcome guest um if you want to tell us about that and we don't mind throwing shade at blue here at all um yeah oh good and um and really sort of some of some of what happened on target what what you did like if you don't mind walking us through it well that will there's old there's always mr murphy he always raises his ugly head and it but i mean we we did our breed we did a plan we did a brief went a couple trips to the ship you know final final stuff with leon and the guys out there and then i came back and so we took three five ac 130 u small gun ships three were going to having pass organized three going to get go two going to rhino to cover the rangers then and then we could use fares and backups you know somebody broke so we had to get fuel and to do the mission set so we had some air force tankers were to meet us over a point over the ocean at this very specific time and it was all time driven mission ends so there were no we get on station there's no tankers and i'm like oh crap there's no tankers and there's no tankers and we're like you know this is a national strategic mission and you cannot we can't afford to be late because the chinooks were taken off from the ship a lot of pieces i had like i don't know 80 some aircraft that were going to be overhead bombers from b1s to tornadoes and f-16s and b-2s and b-52s and i i just oh i was just beside myself so we all get on the radios we're calling and calling and so they were late and they finally showed up and we were we were late we were behind i think it was close to 35 40 minutes that's a long time but we had several hundred miles to make it up and i finally got i was talking to the aircraft commander on the on the lead tanker and she wanted me to verify who we were through challenges and passwords i'm like look ladies what are the chances of five ac 130s are going to show up at the same place and you're late you better give us gas or we're going to shoot you down i ain't kidding so we back and forth so we finally got our gas and then we the nav i mean everybody on that ac 130 we were we were doing calculations and i was an e6b the old wiz wheel that pilots used to figure fuel and burn rates and times and of course the nav he was on his computer the i think the foco the fire guy he was on his and i was nugging numbers because i i got to a point where i'd have to call the flight and tell them to drop kick you know i didn't want them holding over indian territory or you know bad guy country in afghanistan so there are a lot of things a lot of stress and of course you know we're calling back to the jock and giving them updates and they they were calling quite a bit and i was like hey look just give us a few minutes to you know work through this and i i believe we either got a i was praying for a tailwind so we could we could gain some time gain some airspeed along that route and sure enough uh aircraft commander he we were lead ac 130 and he says hey man i'm going to put the pedal to the metal you know he hammered those engines and i i swear he was running in red for a long time but we made up our time and you know i got to a decision point where i was gonna have to call the flight of chinooks you tell them hey you're gonna have to hold you know in route or whatever the case and then drop kick to t.o.t i'm on target there the objective plus the rangers would have to you know drop kick and hold and i mean you also had an unwelcome guest right or a a surprise guest i would say yes or somewhat he was a spider pilot he was the tf blue the seal team fires guy nobody ever seen him he hadn't been to any planning missions or briefs or he just showed up at the ac 130 going mission night of of course i was giving him hard time guys on the aircraft were an aircraft commander old swede and he was he got the name from being a big big dude you know he told him hey you just sit in that corner over there and don't say anything and uh so yeah that was you know we were we were kind of concerned about that and another strap hanger so to speak i'll just say it and yeah and we later on that night though it we almost had an extremely serious incident because he jumped in on the radio didn't have any situational awareness as to what was going on you know he hadn't been following the battle and uh they yeah i'll just say he called in some i think it's four f-18s to drop bombs on a a target reference point that was right on the route of the chinooks and the chinooks were coming out of the target and i i heard something you know i was talking and listening and they were ex-filling at that time and it's been a very successful mission so far that night other than the aircraft having multiple bullet holes in them and and i'd heard something you know cleared hot or i can't remember the exact verbiage that i you know for sure one was a fighter pilot i kind of looked over to the right i could see this guy's mouth moving and i you know i said hey who's on the who's that's on the net and guys said shut up i'm working i said the chinooks are coming out and i i glanced at my i knew that trp i glanced down at my map and i just i jumped up and i said knock it off knock it off knock it off cease fire cease fire cease fire i put out on all the nets and and i heard the lead fire bomber pilot say roger that knock it off but yeah the guy was working the bombing mission and what the bombs would have dropped on those six nooks full of delta operators and you had a friendly chat with him at that point you had a friendly chat with him at that point yes it was a very two-sided friendly chat that i had with that young man yeah sure enough uh read the book if you'd like to hear the real story yeah yeah read read the book yeah cause that wasn't very friendly at all i wasn't the kind chief yeah so um and also definitely read the book because the the detail that you go into about that whole operation the level of air the ground force movement i mean it it is staggering what's going on and how much air you're controlling and how much scunnion they're lying how much ordinance was dropped on that objective that night it was unbelievable it really was i was just i had a you know a couple moments or a combat pause so to speak and of course said prayers for the guys going in on the objective and the guys flying and that in that nasty nasty environment it's you know one of the most dangerous things we do is take off from land it was always brown now yeah and when we've had incidents and accidents just it's hard and uh but yeah i was you know i was very honored to be there it was it was the longest aerosol they ever conducted in the history guys flew over a thousand miles that night and just to the target not to include follow on and get back to the ship that was a long day brother age six pilots were they up in the air and flying that up no sir they just we didn't have the legs you know to get us there of course we tried we we came up with every contingency like hey we can land on c-130s you know and push out and be on target preparatory fires or we can take the outer perimeter and yeah the boss said no we're not gonna do it so you were the first one amongst your peers who actually got some got into the action then oh yes sir yeah i had a good friend of mine jim hosey he was an age pilot there in bee company and and i told him when we came back from bragg on that last trip i said man he goes what's up and i i said well i've been tasked as you know the tf sword fired one of the fire support officers he was like booty i'm telling you you're going to be in the middle of that stuff before any of us see anything i'm like no i don't believe so but yeah he was right he was right so what was what was the uh the rest of iraq like for you what are are there any notable operations you want to talk about or i mean did a little bit in iraq yeah or i mean afghanistan i'm sorry because the second operation was in uh last year guy correct or the second yeah yeah sorry yeah the big yeah major group our major um career and that group you know they then our focus you know we we had bin laden on the run and had some locations for him and we the ahs got into the fight after that and they were going out pretty much every night i flew some missions on that and we picked up i guess notable we picked up mr karzai that first time and brought him back and then took him back to do his thing with the northern alliance and you know that of course from the north we're in the south you know fifth group was up there kicking ass and taking names and man those guys you know they just did an incredible job and and but now we we pretty much went into the battle space and killed the bad guys that was that was our mission that had been given to us yeah and it was 22nd sas and you know task force ford and then the task force to the north with the group you know when i and i tell folks that i even made this statement i said you know we did in nine weeks what the russians couldn't do in eight years yeah literally we did i mean they were very small specialized group of men yeah there were nights when between the ground force and your air assets i mean hundreds of uh taliban fighters and aq fighters like just swacking them yes sir yes absolutely this is a good time bad people yeah um and there was an incident was it last year guy where uh everybody was assigned an officer as a supervisor or uh what was was that that particular operation no no that wasn't that it wasn't that one no it wasn't that one that was true uh it might have been it might have been yeah that the often last regal that's correct yeah that's true and what how did that come down what happened there because people who are not familiar with the military won't really hurt this but people who have been in the military will completely understand the lack of logic that went into this decision well and you have to understand that at that level the the commander puts full faith and confidence in the war officers we are the subject matter experts and flying and planning and working with the ground force or whatever the case and there aren't very many commission officers so we're kind of under the old h series where a major is a company commander not a captain like in the regular army the platoon leader is a captain in the 160th not a lieutenant but then there's you know two captains and then a major company commander and then the rest are warrant officer so and the other thing is to put it in perspective is that i think at that time i'd have to go back and look but they're probably only about 18 or 20 fmq pilots combat ready pilots per company that's not very many dudes man you know it's really not if a guy gets hurt or something happens then you know we just really have to double up and make sure things get done so we we our first mission out was out to like you said out the last forgot there was a bunch of mechanized and there were tanks and there were taliban there were al-qaeda training camps i mean it was target rich environment and and again i was out in the ac you know several times a week and engaging targets and setting conditions for follow-on missions but so we had we had planned uh an uh an attack mission we had we had the location of some forces out there between kandahar and lashkar-gaw rush regards to the west and so at the last minute the commander decided to put a platoon leader in in the team so it booted a warrant you know i mean and our guys were i don't think i think one was fmq yeah he was an fmq but the others were bmq so dad didn't sit real well with the warrants you know this is serious business and we're the subject matter experts and we're the professionals and we're the ones that need to be flying these missions they're dangerous sort of like when the s3 is is in the in the chalk for the jump for the for the airfield seizure oh yeah you know yeah there are the intel guys sitting in the jump seat of the chinook or whoever nothing bad on the intel guys was it was it last year where you won the air metal or metal with uh with the v that was no that was kandahar when i was with jamie weeks okay that was my first combat mission that i played with jamie yeah we ran into it it must have been a i don't know if it was like a remain overnight site for telecom as we call them or man there was there were several in there i'd gone down a like a little draw and look you know we're out hunting we're just west of kandahar it just looked like a good place tactically to me where dudes would be hanging out or vehicles and yeah if we found them probably 60 to 80 guys so yeah we and then our we'd split just to cover more terrain and the other ah went coming to the north of us and they were they ran into a bunch of guys up there yeah and jamie and i ran into several they i think they fired probably i know at least three or four rpgs at us before we kind of figured out what that wishing sound was because neither one of us had been out there doing the deed and then a 12-7 opened up and the 14 opened up and then we were like uh-oh time to go to work boys yeah so yeah we we killed all them shot some of them with our rifles so they have anti-aircraft okay that's what you talk about when you're talking about like 12 7 14 right they have anti-aircraft opening up on you and instead of saying okay we need to get out of here you say it's time to go to work yes yeah it's time to go find them and kill them and you did that that's what we do that's what we do yes sir yep yeah we did that's amazing so what uh i'm not sure how much longer your deployment in afghanistan was or if there are any notable moments you want to talk about or tell us about no sir it was i mean for us and we had pretty much gotten word that you know our next priority would be iraq okay so we're gonna you know jump out of there and then start the planning process for our our next mission which was you know saddam's realm and his hierarchy and then wmds or you know whatever the case was so we knew we we got home and yeah immediately started the planning process for that that next operation okay so you start that planning process you find yourself moving out in in february march sometime around 2003. yes sir yeah yeah we went out southwest where the terrain was very much like iraq or that part of the world is red mountains we had desert we had you know all all sorts of nasty terrain out there to operate and train in so yeah we continued that for several months and you know had a good plan put together and it was all of course we operate at night and all right cover darkness away from you know prying eyes so to speak or whatever it may be yep we uh we we prepared for deployment in february of three okay and then where did you deploy to were you deployed to rr saudi arabia and up there northern kind of north central saudi arabia right on not far from the iraqi border from the berm there and that was us and i think we took eight we took four ahs to oef for afghanistan and we took eight ahs to iraq just so we could cover all three range of battalions delta and all the others that you know we had worked some with fifth group before that planning process so you know we wanted to be able to provide enough fire support for those forces that needed us at that time and rr was probably an oasis right oh man yeah it was swimming pools it was on call breakfast it was yes yeah indoor gym you know great cal hall uh no it was none of that it was we got on the ground of course you know we're army guys so nothing's there and we find some old ratty tent that was rolled up in a ball started setting it up you know it was of course it was dark we landed and put the aircraft to bed and prepared everything pci pre-combat inspection to make sure the aircraft were locked and cocked or loaded weapons are good to go you know that's always our priority and we'll finish our part crew chiefs armament dogs you know we're still going over the aircraft making sure the weapon systems are all good to go we had gal 19's the three barrel 50 cal also so that's just another tool for a toolbox or a kit bag that we can deploy and yeah so we we start making a home with the rangers and everybody else that was camped out there at rr and started our planning processes and started building and we we had to have a planning area and a briefing area so those were those were first to go up so yeah it was a good time um so it was iraq where you earned the the title as the world's greatest counterpuncher puncher yeah i'm sure it was it was uh so i earned a lot of yeah go ahead dave no so uh so was your first big op there was that haditha damn or or had you done things prior to that yes for our first our first big operation it was pretty much just the ahs we we had our d-day was 19 march where the rest of the force was 21 march so we went out we hit vis-obs some visual observation posts radar sites opened those corridors for fast movers and the main force that was you know getting ready to attack on the 21st so we spent those first two 19th and 20th you know we were out every night four teams two ahs each and then other special operations forces were moving north and you know just all over looking for scuds or any of those potential targets that could hurt us or hurt hurt the attacking force when that started when you're yeah we i'm sorry when you're out go ahead little bird i mean you're very exposed right and and you're out there two birds or four birds by yourselves deep behind enemy lines do you feel vulnerable or do you feel like do you feel like you're fast and low and and hard to hit like what's the sensation that you have well it's dark and that that's the first thing i mean we're we're night stalkers not day stalkers so bad things happen to us when we go stalking in the day but no it's you know we use the terrain we use our fee we use our our our training and you know whatever we can to you know to make sure we're successful and and in our teams that went out we've configured so we had an image with us little bird and he had a flare pod on his bird so we went we went back in time kind of in in the old pink teams from vietnam so scout the gun so you know it's a roach and a cover for two covers he'd go out front and use the flare to you know positively identify hot spots and targets and of course we were on our maps and everything was checked and double checked and triple checked and then we had some we had some a-10s overhead so how we configured them and i and i i love the concept but so we weren't you know really by ourselves i mean we had other folks there but that was the other reason for the mh little bird that you know something did happen to one of the aids and they can land pick us up and take us back to our art so we would shoot the target engage the target and then when dash two would break off the trail ah the a-10s would be tipped in in their gun run and as soon as we were clear and they'd start hammering with 30 or drop a bomb or going up because that's when we're most vulnerable is in our brakes trying to get back around and they're pretty quick i mean they're only a few seconds but still there are some very large compounds that we hit and it was and hear that gun go off it was just warm and fuzzy and i'll never forget their call sign with china they were from a texas guard unit and yeah so they were very great guys we were just glad to you know all be a part of the team yeah and that was our first two first two nights during the 21st we sat down and then we started you know start going deeper and deeper for more visual observations and our our intent was to take buyout back down at international airport so we're in baghdad saddam international it was called and we had to get the force there and then start hunting the deck of 55 and any other emerging targets that would come yeah because it's busy yeah and and so then but uh so haditha because i know that was a huge op that that you wrote in your book um that's the biggest chapter in the books yeah yeah can you tell us a little bit about that sure we got we got the the mission to go to go up north with 375 to camp out with the rangers for a few days and there were some other missions going on simultaneously that we got bumped off of it is what it is so we went up to h1 where 375 did an airborne combat assault there was an airfield up there and that's west of haditha dam which is one of the largest dam structures in the world i think it's three miles i think three to five miles wide and about 300 feet tall i mean it's a very big structure it's hydroelectric so they provide electricity everything down you know euphrates and the tigris all the way to baghdad and it was it was the most key piece of terrain in iraq so the the mission was take hold the dam clear the dam and then i think it was an armored force was supposed to come and leave us in place that next day and so we got up there and did some short planning with 375 and they went over they jumped in secured their field we came in on c17 offloaded and the rangers drove they went over by by land and then we linked up with them when they got there and it was it was quite a sight that's all i can say when i i had i pulled pulled up the radios and i could hear the fsnco firesport sergeant 375 on the dam they were in a west blocking position i think there were five or six rangers there and every time he keyed the mic i could hear gunfire automatic gun fire machine gun firing it every time just get more intense more intense more intense i noticed that particular fsnco was you know we were close and good friends and known each other for a long time well you know his voice started going up in octaves and you just know working with the guys all the time same time okay shit's going down and we've got to get there it was about a about a 17-minute flight from the airfield to the dam and i i was so so so angry at the radios i couldn't talk to anybody and yeah i could hear him and finally you when i looked at the guy i was flying with and i said i just had all i could take and i said a man standing on the moon in 1968 can talk to houston texas and i can't talk to my fire supporter you know 10 miles away and i finally got on the i got on the satellite radio and i pushed all traffic aside i said this is an emergency and i could hear mo you know asking where the ah is where the ahs they were about to get a very large force it's about a company size element and you know finally i got in touch with and we were about three minutes out and i said hey we're we're less than three minutes you know he's like you know i'm afraid this is going to be over in three minutes and i mean it was very very intense there's a huge lake north of the dam i remember we we hit the lake got right on the water and then bumped up and when we bumped up it was just it was one of the most incredible sights i'd ever seen there were just tracers just everywhere of course company rangers and a few of the delta guys were on the dam and then they had folks going through it breaching and clearing that down it was a huge huge structure and uh yeah we saw a very large size element attacking that west walking position and when we shot we shot approximately 12 meters in front of that friendly front of that ranger blocking position that's how i mean it was just about to be a knife fight for that time so god god washed over us and gave us some tailwind to get us there a lot faster and yeah so we we killed that i don't know there's probably 70 80 enemy troops coming up to that mocking position then immediately got a call from fire from the east blocking position another ranger and it's they i remember chuckling because it's you know these rangers we and us too we we beat into everybody's head that standard call for fire or hey you this is me for my position you know 360 degrees 400 meters marked by you know well that's that's what he was you know under stress same thing a very large force was attacking their bare side in and flanking you know standard call for fire and i just i was like okay i'm just gonna let him spit it out i said i i saw him we saw him and i'm like hey brother i have your position just mark the target and he's like oh yeah okay so here come lasers and you know we went over there and serviced those knuckleheads trying to try to kill our rangers on the east side and then it was just it was constant for the next those sun started coming up i think we shot 9 10 loads there at the dam that night it was you'd go bingo or winchester and then you'd have to go back uh and and reload and then yes sir we had we'd had a little we'd had the rangers put in a small part not too far from the dam it was just a couple minute turnaround there were four loads there and we we burned it up i mean quick and i remember getting on the on sat going back to the talk to see if we could get another aircraft because i you know we we have to manage that ammo and we have to forecast and you know kind of figure out what we're going through at the time what we're going to need for the next few hours or several hours and i i was going to see if somebody could bring us more some more ammo because we we went through that four load part pretty quick we had gas there some leave bags so we land pilots jump out and you know we just we load up the rockets and guns and then go get back in the fight and then the other loads we had to fly all the way back to h1 so they had a farp set up there for us and i swear man those guys look like a indoor nascar pit crew man there so as you land there it's going it's we're in now there under three minutes probably full load full gas back to the fight i uh i just want to point out to the viewers out there i really encourage them to read greg's book about all this from the 160th perspective and and just go do some research on haditha damn in that operation in general to understand it that was a very significant battle that took place there and i i missed it because i was actually in uh the ranger indoctrination program during the invasion oh i was a little bit behind i wasn't there but when i did get there i got to hear all the stories firsthand from the rangers who were there on the ground and uh like one guy i know who was a medic leapfrogging forward with his platoon sergeant as the rangers the squads were bounding forward and they were right behind him and so this guy is a ranger medic with a platoon sergeant moving debt court around the barrels of the anti-aircraft guns and then like popping the time fuse bounding to the next position as it blows up behind them so i felt like they were doing some commando out there and they were yeah it was crazy it was it was the craziest thing i'd ever seen and i had ever even imagined it was yeah it was a busy night and you know we we nobody was killed we had i think three injured i think three rangers were injured where it all was over with and smoke cleared we got them out got them to the cash we escorted one of our chinooks in there a couple nights later and dropped off food and ammo and water for the guys on the dam but yeah we i think we wound up being there for a week your additional vision was 24 hours you know but yeah it is what it is when you're in the thick of things like that in such a like a a target rich environment how long does it take you to go through the the the armament that you're carrying yeah that that's a very good question we we manage it i mean i can i can average 12 to 14 engagements you know managing my mini gun managing because we carry 14 rockets so and not every target will need a rocket not every target will need mini gun or gal you know the 50 cal so it's up it's up to that each individual attack pilot flying you know at that time as to how they you know that's what we're trying to do is to look at that target what can we use to destroy that target you know whereas troops in the open is it light armor is you know things like that so generally yeah i'd say 14 15 engagements if you uh you know if you're managing right plus our m4s and and we were dropping hand grenades on groups of folks too so it's very very effective yeah very exciting so in a very thick fight like that i mean 14 engagements really is not a whole it's not through that like an hour maybe in a heavy firefight no you'd go through that and in a heavy like the dam 15 minutes 10 minutes i mean you're turning and you know you go from one side to the other side and the thing that struck me were the amount of wires there because i guess somebody forgot to tell us about all the electrical wires that it looks like a spider web so you know we had to make sure we were up higher than you know we kind of planned on being and uh and then they they would start to get mortared or in that in that river bottom you know that river will wash and it'll it'll make like i guess sand little sand dunes will those guys would sneak in there with a mortar crew and you know start lava mortars that the rangers well so i got to looking down river and i could see the flash coming out of the tubes so i'd say hey we all carry little commanders pointers you know little lasers because it's really fast we carry more vests you know whoever's flying other guys like there's a flash dude we you know okay i got it so we just fly down the river and sure enough there we really be and we you know engaging with many and then go the next one you always see another flash and another fashion yeah so it was busy time it was a busy night i am every night i imagine that in addition just to just to the the battle stress the stress of combat it sounds like you had you had a real sense of responsibility for the troops on the ground so i mean did that how much pressure did that add to you when you were doing your turnarounds when you were going back to the fart and things like that yeah man it's again you know we have these very very close relationships with the with all the guys and jack you know dave you know and i mean our you know to me for me my job was to protect those guys we were the archangels or however you want to look at or call it but you know my whole mission in life was to protect those those are my brothers those are my buddies and and you know one time we were we were hitting a bunch of targets in fallujah and the delta commander asked at this ask me if we would please not kill all the guys at the target so the guys would have somebody shoot when they when they got there and i was like i'm like sir my job is to protect my brothers so that's what we're doing but yeah that was me personally is you know i had i was very driven to to support them and protect them yeah every time every time yeah yeah i you the battle is in the book is phenomenal it's significant and then there's there's oh good yeah and then there are a couple other uh you know things that happen but can we go to uh amaria and maria oh that was another walk in the park day i i remember that one yeah so that was 19 march 2004 that's a specific date we're yeah we oh man it was you know we were hitting ramadi fallujah and maria it was a triangle out west of baghdad and 0304 506. you guys it was wild wild west out there it was a lot of al qaeda and they were having foreign fighters just just by the droves come into that area and we had hit a target in fallujah the night of the 18th through that period of darkness and got some information off that target that there was another guy that we were looking for that would be at a house in fallujah at 10 that morning so you know we're like daytime we've done no day mission since 3 october 93 in the battle of the black sea and so sergeant major just told us hey you guys just you know go out there and land we're going to drive to this house get this guy or you know look for him and you know something comes up we'll just call you so you know it's just a couple minute response to if they needed us we could get there but he didn't want to expose us for daytime so i hit that target got the guy so they came back and they told us hey go back to buy off go back to baghdad international airport and go down for a while so we did and it was it was after 12 we got a call that there was and then off of that target they got intel that there was another guy we were looking for in amarillo which was south of fallujah so over the previous weeks or been i think seven helicopters shot down in that triangle between ramadi fallujah and amarillo and i don't think there were any survivors there's been a couple chinooks and 58s and black hearts so bad bad place and so there was a tick with that recce team so we jumped in the aircraft to you know go help them and they're like hey they're in trouble troops in contact with a call and we just assumed they'd been ambushed coming out of that target so we got on station it was 13 15 local 1 15 pm there in iraq course it was daylight and i mean every one of us the hair was standing up on our necks but we're like hey we're going so well if they need us then we're going to be there for them and got on station and long story short it was we're getting ready to x fill and i got hit with a missile that i never saw and it was it it came to be it was an sa-16 system so that's a pretty highly advanced system for that time a period and they didn't even think there were any in the country sa-7s and you know things like that but i have a theory about all that i talked about it in the book but yeah i was in a climbing right-hand turn and when the missiles hit and it has a proximity fuse so what a proximity fuse does for those of you that don't know is they'll set it to a distance so like three feet or ten feet or whatever and then that fuse will detonate so they get maximum shrapnel into the engine or into the aircraft whatever they're shooting at shooting the missile out it's pretty advanced it's a heat seeker so it it goes for the engine when it shot actually two of the guys they saw the shot from a two-story building on the very west side of the mill there and it hit and it was just it was a huge explosion i mean it sounded like you know big breaching charge or you know a mortar pretty close proximity and this i remember out of the corner of my eye i saw this you know this flame went by me and my co-pilot so the last seat said yeah this like this meter long white hot rod went right by my head so it it kind of got shot at an angle and then hit the end detonated and hit the aircraft and of course the big explosion so that was a clue right there i was like oh and things got real quiet you know the engine quit running and and uh you have a you have warnings in in the aircraft so if you get a low engine rpm or low rotor they start beeping and i was i was just thinking to myself i was like man i wish those things would shut the heck up i know i just i'm hit i know the engine quit i know i'm in an auto rotation and i i've got this i'm good but at that second and the best way i can explain this is it was like a like a movie that went frame by frame by frame i mean and i understand the physiological effects under stress and we start dumping adrenaline and all these things start going you guys have been there and but yeah it was and my biggest concern was there's nothing to judge or hype out there for you know an airplane guy or a helicopter pilot especially doing an emergency procedure as an auto rotation you know you need to use those things to start the decel because there's very particular things that we have to do as a pilot to get that aircraft safely on the ground so at 75 feet you start a progressive d cell that bleed off that air speed and you hold that until 15 feet you pull initial with a collective so that puts a little bit of pitch in the rotor blade to kind of cushion you to soften that that approach down and then i do remember you know i said to myself i want a real aggressive d cell because i want very little ground run i don't you know i didn't know what was down there i didn't know what the ground was like again i was i was watching the radar altimeter and my rotor i remember my rotor getting real real high like 105 points something so i put a little more collective in you know to get it under control because if you don't control it it can just spin off the helicopter and then then you don't have anything and uh yeah so i kept glancing at the radar altimeter and the whole time i could you know i heard a few radio calls and but you're just so focused at a task at hand you know you know of course when that hit a big explosion i was like okay it's time to go to work so get in trim you'll step on my pedal troll my rotor watch my altitude 75 feet i started my d cell and then 15 feet i leveled it because i think to myself i was real heavy i was full of gas full ammo and i had a tailwind i had the worst conditions i could have to conduct an auto rotation that helicopter and that that particular helicopter falls like a grease crowbar when you're not loading i mean they just don't i mean they just they sink at 26 2700 feet per minute so i was about 165 feet above the ground when the missile hit when a climbing right-hand turn and headed southwest i remember because i just swooped the boys young kind of didn't wave like we're out of here you know and you know you know i said i'm just gonna i'm gonna pull everything i have right before i touch down that's what i did and we touched down and uh the other aircraft said man it was it was the prettiest auto rotation he had ever seen so i was like okay that's good we touched down and we slid probably about 35 meters and the skids went down a bit of a slope of course i'm thinking myself oh yes we got this you know i'm gonna get this thing stopped and as soon as we touch down though it you know that dust and dirt just filled the cockpit you can't see and uh the skids stuck in some soft dirt so we started to roll end over in we rolled multiple times and i think at some point i was i was knocked out for a short time and the co-pilot was and i came to and of course you know we came to rest inverted so upside down and helicopter was on fire and again two of the guys had seen the missile shot so they immediately started to suppress that building one was a ranger and other was one of the delta guys and then the other ah went to work you know shooting trying to suppress stuff back on that side because it just kind of stirred a hornet's nest at that time and you know anytime we have an event like that you know parachute or fast roping or in a helicopter you're gonna go through those checks like okay i can move my toes i can move my feet my legs are kind of working check my package okay it's good my arms and so i i i'm just going through these you know and it's all slow motion and i look over at a co-pilot he's got blood all over his face so i you know i think to myself well did he get hit did he and the little bird was somewhat infamous for the shoulder harness not locking in a crash sequence especially in a roll so i thought okay well he did the old cyclic kiss what happens the guy will hit the cyclic with his mouth in the crash sequence so then my priority was okay you know here we are little black helicopter shot down 300 meters from the bad guys so i got to get out i got to get out and make sure we're secure and yeah and i knew the guys were there so there was five vehicles in the recce team and i told i looked at my co-pot i put my hand on her shoulder i said hey man get out and i said meet me over here because you don't want to get in front of an armed aircraft because you don't know if a rocket might go off and i didn't know any of the condition until i got out it was the whole back cargo area was on fire and i when i came too i was kind of hanging there in the straps and i was like where's all that popping sound you know it sounded like popcorn well that was ammo cooking off in the ammo cans behind me i mean they're right right behind me and i was like oh that's not good and then my i had 17 pound rockets on board so i'm like what's going to happen when these rockets heat up or catch on fire will they explode or you know what are they going to do so so i crawled out of the helicopter i grabbed my rifle and i i tried to stand up my right leg wouldn't work i tried to take a step and i just hit the ground and then at the same time the other ah was coming to check on us they had flown over us i think two or three times and they said they told me later they said man if we hadn't seen you crawling out we were that turned we were landing and we thought you guys were dead and the ground force said the same thing so they saw me crawling out and get up and i'd fall get up he said let's see he said i look like a circus clown i'd get up and fall down get up fall down but my right leg wasn't and they told me later i'd gotten a stinger to that l-spine on that right side and i did i did finally get up then i sat back down and i thought well maybe my leg's broken so i pulled my pant leg up checked both legs checked myself again got my rifle got up did 360 degrees security around the aircraft to make sure nobody was coming and i could hear the guys to the east of me you know they were getting it on they were i mean everybody was shooting at this point and they were on the radios and you know trying to get some help in there and then i i went back to the aircraft to in my we carry our little rucksacks right behind us so in there you know water hand grenades or night vision goggles and you know just stuff that you need well it was fully engulfed in fire so i'm like i'm not reaching my arm in there to get that out and then i went back i checked on the co-pilot again and he was hanging there just kind of dazed and confused i was like hey you okay and he's like just shook his head and i said all right i said you got to get out the helicopter's on fire i ain't kidding so i went kind of crawled back out went back out and i kind of took a knee i was looking to the east and then i looked back and i said where in the world is he so i crawled back i crawled in the helicopter and i pulled his latch on his seat belt and he fell you know he fell down when he hit his head and he kind of looked up and i guess it you know it kind of brought him back to yeah what the heck was going on so i just i just grabbed i mean fire was fire was just licking at his arm when i when i got in there and i said man i gotta get him out of here right now so i just i just grabbed him pulled him up on top of me just pushed i just pushed with my legs out of the aircraft get him out kind of roll him over and then you know did a quick assessment on him and uh what happened he fitting through his tongue and the crash sequence and that's where all the blood came from yeah yeah yeah he's had cell spine injuries and we're all pretty beat up pretty bad i had i had over a total like 34 35 36 surgeries and i have over 40 pieces of titanium in my body so yeah another day at the office for a six gun you describe your actions during uh during the uh crash uh with such clarity how you were at 165 feet how long did it take you to fall to plummet from 100 all these actions you're describing all these thoughts that are going on how long did it take you to go from 165 feet to the ground approximately 3.4 seconds yeah they they took all the data and sent it down to fort rocker and they put it to you know replay it and uh the one of the guys told me that the machine couldn't successfully land the helicopter with all the wind the tail winds the air speed the height the data but it was impossible to land successfully land the helicopter it is absolutely amazing to me that you sat there and spent five minutes going into detail of each of your actions of your awareness of of the auto rotate of of of all the things you were doing and that was within a four second period of time yes sir there's a pro the whole sequence was about eight seconds from the time we stopped rolling we got on slid and came to rest it has about eight seconds uh what do you attribute all that to uh greg that you were able to successfully survive that i mean is that is that your training is that the man upstairs right over your shoulder that that's training in the good lord saying okay i'm not done with you yet mister i got i have a purpose for you yeah absolutely our guardian angels were yeah lee well i wrote about a bunch of them in the book so yeah again i was in he had put me the good lord put me in so many places that at so many times that you know it's like kyle lamb and george they're like hey you have got to write possible this crazy stuff that you've done and kyle always told me that he'd say gravy if it ain't written it never happens so i i really took that to heart my wife was my biggest inspiration for writing these stories because i didn't want to do it i was i'll tell you quite frankly i was scared to do it i didn't want to be that guy and nobody had really written about the 160th the way that i you know we put this into these stories and they're just stories they're just stories it's it's about our tribe and it's about our team and it's very faithful christian men you know doing their their jobs and and i and i you know i want to help vets that maybe are having problems getting through some tough times and man we've all been through it and you know and to let you know i dedicated the book to our children because i hope and pray that it it will shine some light on our absence for all those years and you know to help them understand and they may be in their 30s now i you know my kids are so right that's you know their late twenties thirties and i've met some in their early thirties and uh hey what did my dad do right so and i try to convey that to them and the public and yeah you know and and to help future warriors you know our next generation hey what am i going to get myself into if i want to go you know fight for the 160th or be a ranger or you know whatever and uh yeah it's so that's important though it's it's not um it's not being that guy it is it's recording history yeah and and greg you're absolutely spot on i mean unfortunately if it's not written it didn't happen i mean i i remember talking to somebody once about uh the explorer magellan famous explorer he wasn't the only one to make these huge uh cross trans uh pacific sort of expeditions but he was the one who had a historian with him on his ship right so that was that was the expedition right on time yeah i'm sorry i i don't we don't want to keep you too long but i really i don't know you're you're fine okay because there's more to this crash so so it's daytime the balloon goes up you're at buy up you fly during the day to help out your brothers and of course now that you're down the air force is going to do the same correct they're coming to get you now they're not they refuse to come get us yeah theater dedicated combat search and rescue air force special operations helicopter now i'm not saying the pilot i don't know but the truth commander says hey greg come here you need to hear this they said we're not coming to get you it's too risky wow and i was like what and simultaneously back at bio so the word gets there well they've got every helicopter every little bird every black hawk and the to listen to the guys tell a story is kind of funny they had woke everybody up no green red brown said it looked like a clamp dudes dudes were hanging off out because they were coming to get us yeah and i got on i i finally got on the radio and we got i call the talk our call and i said hey sir don't we're secure okay docs you know the medic was there i mean working on us and i said i do not want any more helicopters coming in here of course you know we have a procedural process when that happens when we get fixed wing overhead we clear an air for you know five miles or three mile whatever 10 miles and to ensure you know the safety of those aircraft that are you know i know that always really kind of made me angry because i told those guys let me tell you something i would have come got you man right i would have who did i don't care what they said who did come and get you ultimately well we so i kind of go back so well it was one of the 160 of blackhawks we finally got to ramadi up to the mss up there on the north east side of ramadi today that that staging area and yeah they landed filled with the assault with the ground forces all the way back to the addictions yeah yeah yeah we've been the mission support site so ultimately nobody came and got you until you were you were back back behind the wire in a secure area yeah yeah so the boys got you out who were on the ground for that mission jordan so so it was the the boys who were out on the on the ground for that operation were the ones that that pulled you off target oh yes sir yeah yeah we were you know i we kind of i've gotten the copilot out and i set up and just a bit of a death blade and i put him in the prone facing north and i was on the knee facing east for security and i told him i said hey if if you hear something or see something because we were both pretty jacked up and and i said just sing out so let's put both sets of eyes we'll put both gun barrels on him he had his rifle i have my rifle and you know we'll assess this before we start shooting at anyone and then about then a few minutes later i heard a truck engine and and then i heard the vehicle stop and then i saw this ball cap you know kind of going up and down then i saw a face and i go oh that's jazz okay okay we're good to go okay good guys were here and uh jazz came running up to us and but i i talking through a few months or sometime later he i asked you know what did you think you know when you came running up there and he's like that helicopter was burnt to the ground and emma was cooking off he said you know we we kind of gave the look to each other when i left that they would had parrot that y'all had perished yeah and he said i when i came running over that you know what i saw he says how did those two rangers get there so fast because we were at one you know what it is like because we were in desert you know videos look like everybody else but he's like oh god that's gravy okay man let's go yeah he he ran up and hugged us and he asked me he says what do you want to do and i said i want to go find that guy kill him i said i at least want to check that building to see if they're already done age or yeah yeah we can get anything to in the but both guys that have seen the shot every service stair missile leaves a signature a smoke trail signature you know it's dark gray smoke grey smoke or white smoke and you know they've seen the corkscrew and and everyone has a signature corkscrew smoke trail and they you know they said man it was a 16 i guarantee you but they had done forensics on what they scooped up and they found a small piece of metal that came from an sa-16 wow that's regardless so chas said i i thank you and you say i want to go get that guy and so what happens well we load up and we got two panders so it's an armored vehicle six-wheel vehicle we have three gun trucks a former v gun trucks one's got a 50 i jump in the truck with a sergeant major and ranger smith he's on dual 240s and the next gun trucks so we assault this bill by ammo and i was like okay i asked for this so you know we're gonna go get some of course doc was poking us and pushing stuff in her throats so everybody's shooting at these buildings and i i just i kind of looked to the right i kind of looked to the left and you know i'll age myself but dave you may remember remember rat patrol yeah the whole sh that show well that's the first thing that entered my mind was those crazy bricks and their jeeps and north africa hunting germans and i was like man this is kind of cool it reminds me of raw patrol you know anyway so we hit the building and and we get two of the trucks get stuck in the mud gunfight so we're suppressing and the pander maneuvers he backs up to one truck and guys jumps out of the back you know with a strap hubby under fire and pulls it pulls that truck out and then maneuvers over to us and opens the strap up we're suppressing and pulls us out we get turned around we go around and we attack hex these buildings in the front and ranger smith had this was a engaged tent or some guys running around there with aks and then we deployed out we had deployed out when on the step when the truck was stuck i've gone to the left corner and dude came out with a he had a black man dress on the phone and i'm like okay this guy is calling his buddies you know the americans were here they're stuck we just shot their helicopter down so i popped him twice with some 75 grain love and then and then ranger smith joined in and engaged with the dual 240s and then we saw a couple guys running one had an rpg one had an ak so i engaged both of them and then yeah and i mean everybody would just ever engage in targets of opportunity and great and then we finally oh sorry got to the building and cleared it and went on the roof and cleared it there was nothing there so yeah so we got back in and we fought our way back out of there and all the way through fallujah and between solutions or ramadi and father wade phil ramadi and then to the msa we got there in about i was probably 9 30 21 30 hours and i just want to say that you're no slouch with a long gun either like you're a helicopter pilot but you're also a three gun com you know a three gun uh competitor and uh yeah like you you shoot a lot yes sir yeah yeah i was a i was an instructor for btac kyle after i retired yeah that was that was by far the best post army job i ever had i just i loved the train i loved the cheap free gun and i shot with the army marksmanship unit for a while and yeah that was i got to train with the best cheaters in the world man so heck yeah yeah i love the shoe i can hold my own pistol rifle long gun ah yeah i just i just wanted to kind of throw that out there for the people watching and listening that it's like okay here's this you know helicopter pilot running alongside you know rangers and delta but you do you know what you're doing like you are you're not a strap hanger you're not like you know the attachment at this point yeah um yeah how were your injuries at that point though how were you able to keep you know were you just gutting it cutting through it a drill one yeah the adrenaline is the best drug on the planet man yeah yeah for sure yeah and i i'm pretty sure doc had wanted to you know do something but i was like hey i don't want any morphine or yeah anything like that you know i'm good i just had this terrible headache when i i'd hit the door frame and the crash sequence and it cracked my helmet wow i hit it so hard god just had this terrible headache my head hurt for like nine months i finally went away so i had a brain bruise so yeah it's all good with the headache and the physical injuries so you get back to the mss they fly you back uh or from ramadi and they fly you back do you keep operating is is that the end like where do you go from here no they they took us both to the cache they're in baghdad and then cash to back home the our docs at fort campbell wanted us home at fort campbell so they're they're very protective of us and so we did that and then i started a process of you know getting shoulder i had both shoulders worked on both knees i had broken a vertebrae and season c3 uh verb ray l three through l5 and you know so with the docs i sat down with them we prioritized and started a plan so i i get stuff worked on and take you know 30 60 45 60 days to then i'd go back to the box and i'd go do that for 90 to 100 days but right yeah that came back and had some more surgeries and got physical therapy and then you know i started back flying again going back flying rotations until i retired yeah that's what i do yeah and so we're talking about the physical toll of the job is there a mental tool yes you better believe there is hey fellas can i take a break for a minute absolutely okay i have to hit the head yeah yeah good yeah oh yeah go for it man yeah absolutely please this isn't live no we're good yeah folks so uh we'll we'll see if i can try out my editing skills but if not this is just a opera uh time to remind you to subscribe to the channel if you're not already and thumbs up down in the description and um oh yeah there's also the link down in the description to our patreon page yeah um also uh greg's book we'll talk about it again when he comes back or near the end of the show but greg's book right now is out on amazon kindle um we'll find out it's it's not in print on amazon yet but i believe it will be but um if you have amazon prime it's free and uh he get he does get uh paid if you read it or if you thumb all the way through it and he is donating all the proceeds of the book to uh to different charities nightstalker foundation i think it's the foundation for the delta guys and then uh free rangers three rangers foundation yes so um please we should also point out the book is uh co-authored with our friend george hand and george is a retired delta force operator and if you go back he was a guest on this show episode 36 uh we did like a two and a half hour interview with him like real in depth about his career so he was the co-author of greg's book that we're talking about today yeah yeah um guests coming up uh we're gonna do a quick video uh for new year's that's just going to lay out some future guests and then the week after that january our first guest in january will be jeff the petsy who is a jtf2 operator canadian counter-terrorism unit ah thanks fellas i still have that little that little bird bladder so what final uh oh so we're asking we're just asking about the mental because because you know i think that um for all of us you know this the job is the job everybody loves the job we wouldn't do anything about the job um but we've had many people on who talk about the consequences of the job and and what life is like after the job and and you do write about it in your book and so i was hoping that maybe you could share some of your experiences with us and and maybe not just for the the personal part in the history part but maybe for any other soldiers out there or any any person out there who may be struggling or going through hard times to hear that they're not alone you bet and that was you know that's one of the purposes of this book is to you know if a vet picks it up and reads this young or old i don't i don't care that you know that hey you're not sharing your pain alone brother or sister and you have a network that will help you and oh by the way god loves you i'm a very faithful christian man that's that's the only thing that got me through the the peaks and valleys well that i went through the last 15 years so to speak and i i go into great depth and detail in my struggles in my failures and my victories and i um you know again i pray that that when a vet reads this he it will flip a switch for him or it will it will motivate him to seek help or go talk to somebody go talk to your brothers go talk to your pastor go talk to a therapist been there done that i've been in therapy since 2005 and i was i guess officially oh what's the word it was i was diagnosed with ptsd in 2005. so the unit went the 160th they went you know above and beyond and we have our own sites there at the compound and for the unit and it is to help families it's to help soldiers to help kids to help everybody and you know i even say in the book i talk about spouses and kids and family members that will they suffer from ptsd i mean dad's gone you know special operator ranger whatever and you know no communication worry about him every night for three months six months a year or whatever the case so but now there is you know there is a focus on that family member and that spouse and those kids but yeah i hit hit some you know the demons come i mean i'd go days and days no sleep and uh you know then there's good old ambien you know you get to that wall you get to that that point your body has to rest your mind has to rest so you know alcohol prescription drugs did it all man and it was all that crushed that pain that pain so everybody suffers from it unfortunately some of my very close friends have succumbed to that pain and taken their life i start the book out talking about leon he was one of my best friends on the planet and it just ah just broke my heart to one i i questioned well how how is it that a highly intelligent human being gets to the pinnacle of a profession and a career and live through all these horrible things right and then succumb to the demons and the pain and take their life right well they they lose hope i these this is my theory my study that i've done for many years now but they lose hope and they don't have a loving god so god got me through these trials and tribulations over the years as i was going through this and it's it just sucks and i went to in 2013 i went to carrick brain center there in dallas and they were they're they're a center it was a two-week inpatient and they would take four vets at a time but their expertise was on tbi for football players traumatic brain injury for football players for years so they started up a program for vets and i i was fortunate to attend that for two weeks that was a that was a big turning point in my life to you know help me mentally and physically it's it they use a whole man concept and and now though they're just there's so many opportunities for vets and you know nothing else i i try to tell several vets every week hey i'll call them or text them or whatever and just tell them that i love them yeah that that's all they want to hear that's all they need to hear and you know hey man call me i mean i've had calls too in the morning during the morning four in the morning at noon you know hey i got an empty bottle of irish whiskey and a load of 45 and i've just had all i can take well no no it's not let's just let's talk about this for a little bit you know i've taken vets into my home that were sleeping in her truck and no job mama left some kids are gone took all their money and and i i get it man been there done that after 32 year marriage failed and uh but you know god loves you and we love you and there's a way out but you just have to go talk to somebody and that's what i tell every man that i that i meet or i mean even vietnam vets i i talk to every veteran i can because that's that's god's mission for me that's his purpose for great coker is go help my brothers and help them get through these tough times where there are good times to be had yeah and there always will be but you just you can't quit you know night stalkers don't quit and you just can't give up you yeah faith faith your faith will will get you through this god loves you and knowing and brothers love you and your parents or whomever that uh we need you here yeah for sure yeah they uh what you wrote about leon was was i mean because we've all at this point i think lost people close to us yeah people who just you know and and it's challenging because from what you wrote about leon you didn't there was no indication there there was no sign there was there was nothing and and that's when it becomes challenging is when there's that front and there's that you know that wall that shield that that you know persona uh but there's so much going on behind that that they just don't let us sin on yes sir yeah you're absolutely right and that's and i see that a lot in our community yeah because that you know there's no signs there's no symbols there's they go and execute they they've made up their mind yeah and they yeah doggone and it's you know not and i i think i say in a book it's i did read some some data last year or it was closer to 26 a day now that veterans take their lives and you know in any other country be an epidemic i mean we're looking at 10 000 humans that sacrifice and serve this great nation and gave up what they gave up and we're not helping them you know we're not we're not doing the job that we need to be doing to help these fellows and the other thing i saw too that was interesting was that the mean age was 50 years old so that's you're looking at the vietnam vets yeah particular lives so yeah it's it's you know it's just it'll never go away and and a lot of guys you know pts and i i never did like that you know that symbol or that stigma with that i always felt that it should have been called post combat stress because anybody can suffer from ptsd post-traumatic stress disorder or post-traumatic stress i mean a rape victim somebody that's been in a car wreck somebody that was abused or you know whatever the case every human is different and i i think the you know to better serve veterans it should be post combat stress because that's what it is right and you know you guys know especially the off temple which we kept and are still keeping today 20 years later throughout the you know throughout the world as you know the leadership and they've done a good job but we have to stay on top of this stuff tempo it just killed us yeah and i think you're you're absolutely right i i've never thought of it that way before but it repost combat stress is is very different than post-traumatic stress in the sense that it's not just the the psyche the traumatic like jack wrote an article on uh on blast injuries and and and how those good articles and then i also think that there's just the idea that these people who were at the top of the game the top and and living their dream and then that ends and and there's nothing like that for them in that life afterwards and trying to find purpose after that trying to find meaning after that and so all those things mix together and create this very very challenging scenario they go from being like a formula one racer to being like a dude with both your legs broken paralyzed in bed and yeah that's that's psychologically dramatic and of itself right yeah yeah yeah we don't quite you know we haven't quite broken the code on you know how to help them and how to you know seek medical care or you know their their mental stability to you know help them advance into a good a good life for themselves and those those that are around them and loved ones right yeah while you were gone we were telling everybody that the proceeds of your books you've been donating them to different charities um you know and um that the book is out on amazon kindle right now when will the book be out in print okay i just talked to the printer last week and i will be getting deliveries of the special edition hardback color books 15 january all right we're so you can go on the website death weights and darth.com and there's about 250 of those left the first 500 edition those books right so i numbered the books and then i designed a coin a challenge coin which we all are familiar with and each coin is numbered to match that book number cool well those sold out in 20 days i swear i was like lord if i just sell 50 books i'll be good boy they i mean they went fast so i had a couple other they're like because i wasn't going to do any more so i had several people tell me and text me or message me that hey i really want one of those hardback books with a coin i don't care about it being numbered so i did or i got another 500 of those with a coin and they can get those on your pardon they can get those on your site yes sir you can go to the website and instructions on how to order i've been handling all this myself so i'm going to go over it it's pretty easy so we can we put it on our bookshelf right here i'll get you well i had so this is the cover you know you see it yep looks good that's it yeah the cover it's pretty cool story about the color that that's a rob wentz print or have you ever heard of rob ritz art gallery he's a former blackhawk pilot from the 160. oh really and just yes and i mean this guy he's he's phenomenal but so i called him and he did the latest i was probably three or four or five years ago he did the latest six gun plant so for b company it's got a he's got a that's his print that he did for us for becoming that's super cool and so i we were wargaming the cover you know the writing was done i was like okay man we need to come up with a really cool cover and i'd throw some stuff at geo and a couple other folks and well that prince hanging in my office at home i look at it every day and i was just like duh you know i'm not the smartest ranger in the truth but right there it is so i called rob and told him you know i was like hey man he's writing a book too that's that's going to be phenomenal and i said look man i'm i need a cover for my book not in the words you didn't get out of my mouth and he goes yes and he gave me the copyright to that print to use his book cover that's amazing it was nice yeah it was really really cool but you know here it is again you know guy from the community of course geo being from delta i was just so blessed to have him go on this journey with me that it you know if it's been a another editor with no military background or experience you know you have you spend a lot of time explaining things right well geo knew it i mean he's lived it he's been there he's i was just blessed and his style of writing is quite entertaining so yeah he's the who yeah and then the way the book cover came together i promise you if you read you will you have not read anything like this book before and i mean and i see that oh wow in the best way we cover a lot of special operations books around here on this it's such a novel and unique tale because we just i would i mean you're really i think one of the first pilots really come out and and really like like right there in you know in the cockpit and and uh it was it wasn't it was amazing yeah and you know i was blessed that kyle lamb wrote the introduction for sergeant major land wrote god i've been good friends for many many years and he's seen you know good and the bad with me for those times and you know he and melinda have helped me get through some tough times and we just you know because we love each other and you know back when he was operating and hiding under a bush scared like a bunny rabbit calling for they just come help him yeah i mean what can i say no no don't don't print that but yeah i was just very honored that kyle did that for me and yeah he he told me he's like dude i cried when i read this yeah and that that that was powerful i mean that was pretty powerful okay greg thank you so much for joining us on the show for our what will be our christmas eve edition of the show i hope everyone enjoyed it and we will be back uh we'll have a kind of a new year's message for you guys on the first and then we'll be back live again on the 8th potentially in studio with jeff the patsy yeah the one disadvantage of having pre-recording this is that we don't have like the audience input so we're going to have to have you back on at some point maybe not to go through the whole thing but even if it's a shorter segment so that people can ask sure after they watch this that they can ask the questions that they want to ask you oh well thank you so much fellas it's it's an honor and a privilege and i i really appreciate you doing this and i guess i just want to help help some guys yeah it is our honor we we deeply appreciate you spending your time with us it means a lot to us thank you god bless you and have a merry christmas you too right you too stay healthy

Channel: The Team House

Views: 23,883

Rating: 4.8950615 out of 5

Keywords: 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, SOAR, 160th, Nightstalkers, Little Bird, MH-6, Iraq, Afghanistan, Helicopter, Special Operations

Id: oVlHZIHdH3A

Length: 137min 11sec (8231 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 25 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Catswagger11]

Awesome guest. Just want it to throw it out there, that god is not a necessary component to successfully overcoming PTSD/TBI/suicidal ideations.

[u/AirWolf412]

Outstanding episode. Amazing to hear. Thank you.

[u/mig1nc]

Hey guys, great episode. I just finished reading Col. Pete Booth's excellent collection of gunship pilot memoirs "Returning Fire: In the Beginning", so I wanted to go grab this one to read next but for the life of me I can't find it on Amazon. Do you have the link handy?