Three Veterans Recall the Battle of Mogadishu

you know do this panel it for those that you don't know if you look at the counter right it's 25 years ago today that the battle started went into the night so if we were had our act together would have brought you out for PT actually p10 tonight that's not too late we're gonna plan a really good PT event for you guys did I get you weighted down and puts you under under some duress but it's a pleasure to introduce my panelists and I'll take a seat after briefly introducing them I'll keep it really short so we can just kind of get into it first Colonel retired Lee Van Arsdale class of 74 and in Mogadishu he was a lieutenant colonel and he was within the headquarters next command sergeant major retired Chi Lam he was in the ground force in Mogadishu he also taught me how to shoot and it's he reminded me before I well he probably Denis how to walk out of a barn door but I learned that myself you could tell the rest of it later and then last but not least Colonel retired Larry Perino class of 1990 who's the that would make him the Commandant classmates if you want some good dirt on the Commandant and you might want to stay down for this short question and answer later but he was a platoon leader with the Ranger Regiment 20-25 years ago today so kind of will start out we'll go a little bit kind of setting up the stage for and then get into probably what you really want to hear but to really understand that you know put context on the ground operation think it's useful to kind of take a step back so I guess you know starting with Lee since you were kind of in the headquarters element you know when did the when the mission came down and when and over there what kind of was the what was the mission that the task force was assigned to do over there it's very simple mission killer capture Mohammed Farah Aidid so why do we want to do this Somalia is in a state of civil war it's a clan based society and each clan has its own militia so one of the militias massacred a group of Pakistani peacekeepers in June of 1993 and then it fell the United States to do something about this so we activated Task Force Ranger with the simple mission of kill or capture the cat in charge of this militia who had been a general in the small e army but the Somali central government collapsed after the a union claps so now they're in a state of civil war they've killed these Pakistanis and so Task Force Rangers actually to go get them it's not unusual for the elements that made up Task Force Ranger the the Rangers the first US force operational detachment-delta task force one sixtieth the Special Operations Aviation Regiment they monitor activity worldwide 24/7 so when something pops up like Pakistanis getting massacred that that raised the attention okay we may have to do something here but there are numerous things that we may have to do something here so even though we trained and rehearsed for Mogadishu for two months prior to deploying in August of 93 there are other things going on in the world that all had our attention so the short answer to your question is okay we got another one let's get ready and do whatever we're told to do and then for Larry and Kyle I mean was a felt pretty good at the training going in I mean working with the you know two different units working together describe that a little bit Wow I'll hit from my side because actually we had no idea this was at our level that this was even I thought and we were actually training as part of a big joint readiness exercise in Fort Bliss Texas and I mean it was pretty large I think Colonel Laughlin he was he was with 2nd Ranger Battalion a time he was we were all training this big exercise over multi days and all of a sudden we were pulled aside not told anything stood and you know grabbed our stuff loaded onto a c5 flew to Fort Bragg and then the next day we got introduced to you know Disneyland and basically got brought in and said this is about Somalia what you know I mean we knew it was in the news and it actually went from there but very comfortable from from the get-go but it was things were moving in a lot more of a rapid pace than we were accustomed to at the time and and you may not be aware because those before your time there but the same Ranger company had worked with the same squadron for the Kuwaiti embassy rescue during deserts so those of us who'd been there for a while had that habitual relationship and I felt like being a union guy we were totally trained up ready to go and then once the Rangers rolled in what we tried to do was take the lieutenant's platoon sergeants and all the cats with them under our wing and just kind of show them some other tricks to the trade that because this was our specialty going in to a urban environment you know kicking in doors doing what we got to do rolling up the right bad guys shooting the other bad guys that need that trying to kind of get that that across to the Rangers date obviously airfield seizures they would teach us something there but when it come to the mount environment that's kind of our specialty so it was a it was a great working relationship we I know with our team I was on a team the best team I think it wasn't C squadron at the time and we we worked really closely with Matt Eversman and Tom ditomasso with air platoon and try to get them spun up to just and we did a lot of that even when we got overseas once we got over to Mogadishu we still tried to continue to do that training we didn't stop training because now you're in combat because you never know so we're still doing PT we're still doing firearms training we're taking these guys with us we're doing some hip-pocket training whatever and then we were talking about this morning east 6 and e7 Delta dudes were pulling KP duty with Rangers private so that was kind of fun if one thing is consistent over time it's the best team in C squadron is probably still not as good as the worst team in B squadron the combat never see you when we get back all right so uh so you got over there in July of 1993 and then did a couple missions before August 3rd yeah can you describe you know how those missions were conducted and and went down so we had six missions before the mission on the 3rd of October and the the very first mission was kind of a let's go spank something because we got mortars dropped on it's pretty heavily one night general garrison and the the guys in the Joc there said ok we got a target we're gonna go hit this target and that was my first I'd been with v group I'd been to Desert shield/desert storm but that wasn't storming the castle type stuff so you couldn't have driven a stick pin up my ass with a sledgehammer on that first mission we went out - you guys will see what I'm talking about the first time you get called out to do a mission and you you're looking at the face of the enemy it's not going to be like being on the range so it's gonna there's gonna be some feelings you're gonna have that you've got to just fight through and continue with your mission you can't stop if you're scared worried you know hungry whatever you you just can't stop you got to continue with it so that mission was a little nerve-wracking I remember I had shotgun the door and I kicked it and I went all the way up to my crotch in that door cuz I kicked this door so hard so now I'm kind of stuck in the door and the next several missions things were better because you start to understand kind of the flow and what's going on and you're not you know you're still probably a little worried but you're not you're not scared of what's happening there so we were I felt like we were pretty comfortable when we headed out on the on the 3rd of October yeah I wouldn't say overconfident yeah I wouldn't say overconfident I think we were confident in our ability to to kind of handle things were maybe we're blissfully ignorant of what was what was to come you know just kind of what something and I would say you know when you're in and you're faced with something like any more funny but I would just say you know that thing with about the stick pin you know that's just it is almost like running in sand and you have as a young leader you have to kind of wilt yourself to keep pushing forward and it's different I mean he hits people at different points you know depending on how tight it is I you know maybe I was just I would just dumb it I didn't realize until this stuff really like we talked about this a little bit this morning and we think or this is my opinion when you're just worried about yourself it's probably harder on you than it is when you're worried about all your people so for you guys you'll kind of be lucky there because hopefully you're thinking more about the folks that you're leading than yourself but as a Delta private as an e6 I'm I got none to worry about but keeping my gun zeroed and doing PT and and you know doing whatever these guys were they had to worry about that larger picture and I think that's something y'all need to keep in mind when you're going in the situation is that don't worry about yourself you got a lot of other things that are much more important than yourself the mission is way bigger than you are and if you don't like that then you're in the wrong business because this is about you doing a mission for United States of America it's not you know start singing the national anthem here in a minute but you've got to have that perspective every time you go out that you've got these young men and women that you're leading that are looking for you for that guidance in the combat situation you've got to be who they look to and say yeah I'm looking at Larry Perino because we ended up spending the night of the third together wasn't very romantic but we spent the night out there in the battlefield together and he was he was very calm during that crisis and that helped to keep all of his guys calm as well Sigourney on August 3rd after doing six previous operations I'm sorry act October 3rd did you feel like you were you know short anything in terms of assets their capability that you you know wish you would have had their ORS are kind of a consensus hey we have what we need over here how about that when we did our training and rehearsals August through or June through August we always had ac-130s as part of the package and we just assumed they would deploy with us and when we got there they weren't there and to this day I don't know who decided that that that would not be part of the package but that was that was kind of a major aw crap when you've got that kind of a weapons platform and that kind of vision in the night up above and you get there and it's not there and we also had an additional Ranger platoon also in the part of that and original train up and now all of a sudden you lost a reserve a very large reserve a fire support platform and that had huge impacts later when the you know the old crap happened and then when you lost reserve then what was the plan then who is gonna pull the reserve well 10th Mountain was gonna be the QRF now they're not organic to our element but they're gonna be part they're gonna be part of this this puzzle that we're dealing with here but the commander I mean and that's that's the other thing so general garrison was our commander one of the greatest generals I've ever known for sure he he looked at what we had and he said we can continue with the mission so once the boss says that that's it we're gonna we're gonna do it we would have loved to have all those other assets but you know the deal there's certain nights out on the battlefield you're not gonna get everything you want because some other target has has higher priorities so it may just be for a night for us it was several months that we didn't have those other assets but we had to deal with that you know you plan everything you know for the oh happening but when it happens twice so if we would had that we probably would have you know we could we could what if this thing to death but yes sir going into October 3rd then so I mean the mission came down or the intelligence you got the intelligence and decide you're gonna go launch so you just described I guess either you know from the headquarters perspective or the mission so it was kind of the plan for that for the mission on October 3rd yeah so that's widely misunderstood is the mission that day was to capture two of I deeds key lieutenants so since we got there two months earlier we never knew our Aidid was we never had that intelligence so we decided to take out his infrastructure we captured his key financier we took out the radio station he was using for broadcasting he was everything and now we add what we consider to be actual intelligence to capture two of his key lieutenants so that's one of the things that in the aftermath of the battle when there were no journalists in Mogadishu they said you know failed mission did not capture ID'd the the fact is that was not the mission that day yeah and so what was the kind of the the infiltration plan yeah well let me walk you through kind of how that alert work for us so you're out running or there's a volleyball volleyball net I mean who the heck plays volleyball tap done yeah Top Gun you know whatever some over with Iceman over here and the radio call comes in that okay we got a mission so we all would run back we're in our Ranger panties and I head to the the leadership would head to the jock putting on their uniforms we would grab our our team leader and our team leaders our NCO so we would grab John Hale all of his gear that if he had left something behind we were all jacked up we'd head to the aircraft they'd start the aircraft run and the copilot would the crew chiefs would get the mini guns loaded we get ready to go fast ropes were rigged everything was good to go and then the team leader and the pilot would show up and we were kind of joking about this earlier the the the plan that day was done on a mimeograph machine does anybody know what a mimeograph machine is you're like 400 years old but if you go into the right well maybe not quite that old but you don't have a did you serve with General Lee when he was here he's already sorry I gotta give you a hard time know that so a mimeograph machine was a predecessor to a Xerox machine and it would give you these really coarse like purple yeah purple copies you don't need that one cranker did it was a hand thing man Frank and you this stuff would pop out and that's what they had and we didn't really need that we we know that when we get in field we're gonna slide down the fast rope breach a gate and do our thing so John Hale shows up he pulls the I to secrete on which is like a suction cup peering piece and he pull that out and said hey when you get in the ground there'd be a big gate you got to breach that I was the team breacher so I had some extra large charges for doing that all of our team members had charges to blow gates and that's that's the extent of our planning now how fast that happened I don't know that 10 15 minutes well when we trained up for it we understood that you know and I thought Lee earlier today you kind of really really described it we built a series of templates because you did know where this guy you know we didn't have days we knew intelligence to act on it you had to be very fast so it could be in a structure multi-story structures single-story structure a structure it could be moving on a convoy in the ground and we had these built these templates with how the assault force and the range of security force would either isolate the target or and really to accomplish mission so that's the basis and we run it we rehearse them over and over and over again and so basically just you throw out a piece of train really awful overhead shots and it was like drawn in a Sandlot drawing a football play with you know basically the piece of blotchy paper and say here's the you know here's the target and then draw okay little stick figure helicopters here's chalk one here's chalk - here's chalk 3 here's chalk 4 face out yeah so you've got different levels of planning so when Kyle says you know we'd run and do the planning that is built on an existing plan because we had to have those templates because like Larry said time is of the essence and so Kyle who like you say he was a delta private he was a promotable staff certain time he was so young he hadn't started shaving yet so oh good point all all we would do is take the template and now it's just a matter of okay a team you're in this mh-6 little bird your primary breaching point is right here so you're going to land here and your secondary your alternate breaching point is here so that's what you draw up on a butcher paper and then you take that and transfer it by hand to a piece of typing paper so you can run it through the mimeograph machine so nobody thought to take their iPhone out and take a picture of it I don't know why so that that's you know the different levels of planning those you've been to Buckner know that if you're at squad level you're looking at something different than your platoon level differently our company level and so on so when you're an assault team level all you need to know is what's my primary breaching point what's my alternate and do we have any I do do we have any Intel is there is there a big gate there is is there a door there that I got a breach do I have to kind of use my shotgun do I use my explosives and then you take a step back okay where the Ranger is going to I already know we've got 12 13 guys on the back of a Blackhawk and they're going to provide the external security so now you just draw up okay your bird is gonna go right here and and your bird is gonna go right here so that's a plan it takes less than five minutes do because the majority of the planning has already been done so you've got that template and now you just modify that very quickly for the existing target that you're gonna go in on all right in Iraq if I can talk about that a little bit we we wanted to have a very consistent plan so we same thing we're in Iraq I did five tours to Iraq with with the unit there and we would have those cookie cutter plans but the only difference was now we had a day code that we would fix every morning when we got ready to figure out who's going to go out on the flights or who's going to be on the vehicle departure airfield commander this is a test oh no I just he said okay so our majors Hannah runs out he's gonna take o people off of the off of the target and make sure you don't leave somebody behind so he's gonna be making sure you got the right count there so that was one of my primary focus is just to make sure because you don't want to leave some dude pulling security facing the wrong direction and and that happens that's happened on the battlefield so we would in 30 minutes we would get alerted we had put together a plan we would get overhead imagery and we would back briefed every ranger in every unit guy that was going on the objective now this is Iraq if the pilots were there they were part of that brief as well so think about that 30 minutes from the time they say go until you are wheels up and you're going out there to spank some bad guy in the battlefield time sensitive target we may have to move faster if it's a vehicle movement or something like that and I kind of look at what we did in Mogadishu has more of a time-sensitive target because 30 minutes was too large of a window so it had to be quick so when I say we didn't have much of a plan we actually had a good plan we just didn't we couldn't visualize what we were gonna see because we didn't have a picture of it once we got on the ground you know the team leader says that's the building that's all I need to know I don't want it I don't want to lay out of this building we're gonna clear it we're gonna take it manageable chunks and chew it up and do it we got to do so it worked I mean it went yeah I mean it's a battle it's effectively a battle drill if you're really highly trained it's just a battle drill going in there and like you said if you have the inside plans it oftentimes that'll just screw you because then you you're gonna have this plan that you can't execute as soon as you go through the first door or first window something's there and it force you go to different directions so it's right it's it you can you can really short-circuit that kind of like you know you guys spend six hours doing a op order to me CL Beatty and brief this plan that's kind of a you know but by the time you're a platoon leader been in the job for a year and you got the same squad leaders it might take five minutes because you all know what they have to do because you've been you've done it on your time yeah we did it Connor can we handed him one sheet he said we're out that's that's all the information you're getting because as long as the guys going on the ground know what's happening and the guys that are supporting in the rear know what's happening who else needs to know I mean the most important thing is the guy going through the breach you know you guys out on the ground are gonna need to know that plan and understand what your people you expect of your people and then the people supporting you but other than that you know a lot of times you see a lot of dog and pony shows it's if it's not for the people that are conducting that mission in out on the battlefield we're in the rear man and the radio or being in control of the situation and it's they're not nearly as important as the guys on the battlefield so before turning the actions on the third describe what the end what was Mogadishu like like how wide are the streets how big would it built the buildings I mean what was it like there there's no electrical grid in Mogadishu at this time so you've got remember I said there's a civil war now the population of the city has grown 2 X 3 X so you've got all these do shelters out there for all the refugees that came into the city so it's a city of roughly a quarter million people now over a million so you you have an overhead photo taken before the crisis and it shows pretty normal grid for a city but since then every building has had a lean-to built on it so now the the street is about half its width and then the lean-to s have leaned to is built on them so a lot of them you can't even get a vehicle down so most of the traffic is foot traffic or donkey carts and you've got all these open cooking fires so you've always got this continuous haze over the city you don't have to worry about flying into electrical lines because there are none you don't have a power grid so it's a it's a almost a medieval setting there you've got open cooking fires you've got open sewage you've got livestock everywhere you've got a lot of people out walking around with literally nothing to do but go out and walk around and a good percentage of those people are well armed because you got the civil war going on at the same time so it's a very different environment also because it's a clannish society and the civil war it was there were different areas and we had to learn pretty quick who was where so there are areas you know if you crossed into it you're probably going to get into a gunfight you know if they wave at you the other ones still you know give you the finger I mean or something worse you know and and so that thing was you know the Crips and the Bloods I mean it was just like there was a dividing line between streets and people knew not to cross and it was hot that it was freakin hot it was we had started to take out our plates because it was so hot and you're crawling over walls and I put a plate in after the 3rd of October I never took it out again and I even started wearing one on the back as we were we got the ability to do that but it was really it was miserable hot which doesn't it's not just bad on the ground it's also bad for your your heel oh lift capability so there's days that the birds couldn't lift what they needed to because the the air got too thin from the heat or however that works when you rock it some festivals yeah tell about what I just do what I'm told and then the structure rarely and the buildings here what mostly one or two storey kind of buildings it was the old cinder block or how would you describe the kind of there's like Adobe construction almost and we came to find out that if you stand behind a wall long enough and it takes enough incoming rounds that wall will disintegrate so mostly one or two storey there were a couple of four and five storey structures there which we actually used for landmarks like the Olympic Hotel but mostly it was one and two-story mud construction yes I guess turn into October 3rd then you want to talk about the infiltration in the operation and then kind of how things went well you know and everyone was different but based off the streets so because that we we had infill points then the primary the assault force was going to go by air the Ranger trucks we're gonna go by air but we realized there were no viable L Z's very close to pull out by air and that was always a preference and you couldn't choose whether you went day or night by the way it's just when the target would present itself so the plan was the assault force and the blocking force will go will go in by air and rope in to the targets meanwhile there was a convoy of Rangers with up-armored Humvees and five five ton trucks sandbagged in you know for all the the guys that we pull out of the target basically would link up with us on the ground in X row so that that was that was the plan going in so when we when we went out our plan was I was told I'm gonna breach this big gate so we flew out we got put in at the wrong intersection because you couldn't tell you really couldn't tell in that area the difference GPS didn't work real well in that area so we fast-rope in there's a gate I shotgun it because the wasn't a real big gate we made entry and the team leader said no it's that building there it first said go this way no that's the building we hit a building we went cleared two floors and it was just nothing significant to report there we knew it wasn't our target building at point there's nobody there and when we came out from that building that's when things start to get exciting for us because we strong point in a intersection behind that building and that's when we started I saw a guy run across the street with an aka and we engaged him once he was down his buddies kept trying to run up and get his his a k2 get in the fight and that's where you know things like the donkey that came up and got donkey got shot because it has six legs because the guy was hiding behind the donkey trying to sneak up to get that rifle so there was a lot of things that were happening fast where we were at we still weren't we were still kind of in the having confidence of what we were doing there we had a guy try to in place a machine gun against our position Earl Fillmore one of our guys that would be killed later in the day he stepped around the corner with the 203 and and eliminated that threat and then at that point the team leader said okay I know now where the where the target buildings at he got himself oriented to the battlefield a little bit better so he crossed the street went over four or five walls in the back of these buildings and finally got to the target building and in the meantime and really once they went in once the assault force went in the range of the four range of birds over strong pointing strong pointing the the target building came in almost right on their heels we were all put in the at least three of the four were put in the right position the fourth one which was in tombi of Moscow splatoon that mad eversmann was okay was the Chocolate er actually because of the brown that was so bad had to be dropped but they knew it you know like a block at a block two blocks back behind it and it was a real high rope and that was one where we that was really probably the first casualty we had is you know private Blackburn Todd Blackburn fell about 60 feet missed the rope whatever but he fell about 60 feet and so he was pretty badly wounded right there on the ground so so little off but close enough to still be supported and it was you know we we didn't realize anything was going to go sideways you know but there was like a kind of a civil defense plan that was that was starting to be put into effect and it was and how I described it was a slow build-up it wasn't all of a sudden we we realized that we were in a big hornet's nest it just kind of started building I think we knew we were going into a hornet's nest but the key was get in and out before they wake up right and they eventually woke up but just to take a step back and set the stage all the Rangers were all in Blackhawks you know those are incredibly powerful birds on dirt streets so they can't land so the question why are you fast roping in because you can't get that close it creates a brownout plus Ramar I said you got all these shacks and make new dwellings dubious building codes their roofs would tend to come up if you flew too close so you don't want anything in the rotors so the assault team is in mh-6 little birds there the sports cars the helicopter world they can get in and out but the Rangers in the Blackhawk so they got a rope in and then that creates its own set of planting conditions because like you said you had a guy fell off the rope for whatever reason and that's our first casualty now we got to get him off the battlefield so you got all these plans and contingencies and branches and sequels and the leaders have to make decisions instantaneously and for those I mean most of you I'm sure know what fast-rope is but just think of like you know it's just a rope hanging out the back of a you know the helicopter that's probably about what three inches in diameter or so and you just put your hands and your and your boots on there and you just slide down the thing with all the right keep in mind you've got your body armor on all your weapons all your ammunition right so you're carrying a lot of weight going down this so if your private Blackburn and for whatever reason you missed your handle then you're going 60 90 feet way faster than the human body is intended to when we when we finally got to the target building everything the the lieutenant's we were after were already secured they were flesh stuffed and bagged and we were waiting on the convoy to pull up everything was still kind of normal convoy pulls up and at some point in their super six one gets shot down well we're really we're watching their load and we're loading we're getting the countdown even told us the Rangers of the black musician police up your fast ropes start bagging them up we're gonna start moving and we were just right about ready to exfil we're still we're at this point though we're still shooting because at this point we're having to engage with folks but it's still not very heavy but we're still having to engage the smallest do tactics like push kids out front trying to mark our position to point us out we had to scatter them we had a guy that I guess he's a big John Wayne fan he he had a shirt he put on a stick and he brought it around the corner and he brought it around the corner and everybody's like oh and then he stepped out the operation from the first infill of the assault force to super six one getting shot down was 20 minutes so think about that I said earlier speed was of the essence so you got the assault force going in here all we knew is it's a compound with a wall around it multiple buildings multiple stories they got to go in and clear every building because each one of these two lieutenants had about a dozen bodyguards their sole focus in life is to eliminate any threat to their principle so you got about two dozen well-armed guys in there I can't wait to kill you and you're gonna go in not knowing exactly where you're going police up these two dudes then get out of there before the rest of the militia can respond which is estimated to be around 3,000 people and we have significantly less than that so it was a textbook operation for that 20 minutes and we're in the process of doing the exfil one super six one gets shot down and so that's right before he got shot down to her struck her leave with Blackburn and the three vehicle convoy how did that fit into it really you didn't it was trans you didn't really notice any of that going on I couldn't see cuz I was on the other side all I knew is you know they were treating him and I think they were moving the vehicle to pick him up yeah and and I think I think that made probably is what happened they knew they had to get him back the medic there said we got to get him out now he's not gonna last and so they decided to break off three vehicles independently and get him back and they they had a heck of a fight getting from the target area back to the airfield where we have our headquarters Dominic pillar right and so when super six one goes down then what happens what's the well how far away was it from your I mean it was a humid air two to three blocks yeah they were like 10-15 degrees off the top of us there we we heard it yet we watched him auto-rotate to the I guess be the north of our position there and when there was no there was there wasn't even a discussion because we all knew the contingency and the contingency was that if we had an aircraft go down in the city we were gonna move on foot to that crash site and secure the crash site that's it there's there didn't we didn't have to have a discussion on the battlefield because that's the contingency why not vehicle as well because you can't fit the vehicle down these alleyways are too narrow we got Humvees and things that are a little bit wider so it was just a matter of determining the order of movement and yeah lieutenant Perino they said you got the lead well right first of all Tom de Tomaso's his chalk which was behind mine they were actually they could see it was almost a straight shot where where he was and when they first went down half of his team actually just saw it and took it on they're almost on themselves just to start running Tom goes well I'm not gonna link up with us at um because I'm not going to split my force and stay here we're linking up so Tom on his own ran and there was a it was a great call on his part and everybody else's part to move to the crash site while they're doing that there also we had one cease our combat search and rescue bird with another 15 it was a mixture of operators and Rangers and PJ's PJs the fast-rope their rescue medics yes so they actually fast-rope at the target right when tom and his guys at the same time which was which was necessary in the meantime because where I was it was basically Rangers you know get up in front and start moving now this way and then link up at the crash site and so we just started leapfrogging where's the vehicles that are just gonna be behind us they'll catch up we we were we weren't exactly sure where the bird was we knew the general direction so when when they took the lead and we started going north that's when all hell broke loose we started getting heavy heavy fire one of the guys on the team I was on was killed at that point he I didn't see that happen you did but we had actually moved forward so I was almost bye-bye y'all when Smith was was shot so we we started doing what we do there we had cleared a building woody and I a guy from the Saltine I was on we were separated from the rest of our assault team because of Earl getting shot and they were working on him he was he was already dead but they had they were trying to get him out of the street and we cleared a small courtyard came back out told these guys to get in and that's when well I guess before that Jamie Smith got shy because what happens we moved up on a parallel time and right when we were moving and what what he's talking about is we were as close as we got to and you did it right you know it was a race at that point because you have all the Somalis the SNA the militia racing to get to the helicopter and you had us racing to get to the helicopter we beat him but boy was that it was it was like walking into a wall of letter you know or just you're almost in a shooting gallery and so we were moving up and we were just discussing we wound up going into a corner which we didn't know at the time was right at the corner just on the other side of this giant wall was the crash didn't know that there was no smoke there was no fire there was nothing to indicate that there was a bird there we were within 20 yards of it and we didn't even know about three blocks total or about three or four blocks and then how long did that movement do you think took I mean you might have a better sense than these guys wouldn't know a couple of minutes at most I mean how fast can you run it was like an airborne shuffle with with guns and then like as you said you mean you're taking casualties that you're going so the lead element is getting there then how does that slow down movement trying to move with the casualties to this stream well we stopped I mean we well I say we I didn't know where the crashed helo was that even though it's literally 20 yards from where I'm standing and I'm working on it on a ranger casualty he was shot high in the femoral artery also hit his pelvic girdle there so there was a lot of bone fragments and stuff so I had my fingers in him trying to slow that bleeding and then woody and and was lieutenant Perino then he they grabbed him he was a big guy he was a two or three gunner so he was a heavy dude pulled him in behind cover and then they were zinging rounds off the wall right beside us and we're catching a little frag off that realize they weren't just potshots they were shooting a group on the wall so we pulled him a little farther in the courtyard got the guys out of the street and then continued to pull try to pull security and I mean our focus right then for for us at least for woody and I was trying to provide first aid we didn't have a medic there yet what I would say is we took the majority of our casualties especially those ones that were that couldn't move on their own right at the vicinity of the clinic well we wanted strong pointing by the crash site so we really didn't have to evacuate one of the guys in my platoon sergeant Aaron Williamson was caught some shrapnel off of a grenade that was flipped over a wall the guy didn't remember to pull the pin on that one I think and different guy yeah different guy and and but that was when we were still in contact with the vehicles now remember the vehicles if you watched the movie it was kind of confusing I'm not gonna because I wasn't there all I know is they were there then they're not but we were able to put him to the to the vehicle we just kept moving but everybody that was that I think that was moving was that was wounded especially the point where you couldn't move them they couldn't move on their own was in the vicinity of the crash site anyway so we didn't have to move on does that mean so yeah so at this point everybody's kind of consolidated the crash site and you're waiting for the the exfil right well yes and no we're waiting on exfil but the reason we could next because cliff Walcott's body was crushed inside the aircraft so super 6-1 when it crashed crushed him we were not leaving him and the co-pilot yeah him and the co-pilot we weren't gonna leave until we recovered their bodies because we'd seen what they would do to our guys if we left him there right at this point like the the the cease our crew did they have like the jaws of life or any of those to get him right so by the time we got to Baz by the time we utilize detachment commander in like 98 99 in Bosnia are supporting the combat search and rescue mission into Kosovo we had those as standard equipment right is so we learned themselves from the lessons learned right but then how do you pull someone out from here and so they're struggling with this the whole time they're right and simultaneous with this the vehicular convoy which was plan a for the exfil from the target site is trying to get to the crash site to pick everybody up and get out but they're they're being vectored from above by the command control helicopter and it's borderline impossible to get a vehicle when you don't know how wide the street is so you tell them okay take a right here and you take a right and then all of a sudden the street necks down to the point where you can't go any further so now you've got multiple vehicles all being shot at continuously and now you got to start backing up so just put yourself in that convoy and then the helicopter is doing a racetrack so much of the route can't be seen because it's occluded by other buildings so you got all these complicating factors going in and eventually the convoy got so shot up that the commander said okay we got a limp on back this is this is not working for us so we got the the element there at the crash site and now the convoy is out of the picture after a while of driving around getting shot at and now we got to figure out okay how do we get these guys out of there oh by the way don't forget don't forget at the same time super six one goes down so everybody thinks it's two aircraft we had multiple aircraft that were actually damaged you have super six four which was by bird which was when super 6-2 was hit they brought my bird over the top of the original target building and then he gets hit and winds up crashing mile or two miles away from there and that's so now we've got two crashes now we actually had five Black Hawks shot that day most people aren't aware of that three I made it back to the airfield okay two of them went down in less than nice neighborhoods it's a prior to this though there once a Black Hawk had been hit by an RPG prior to this mission 10th Mountain Division Byrd got hit a week or two prior so they had broken the code on volley firing RPGs same technique is use a shotgun to go bird hunting instead of rifle so their volley firing RPGs and brought down a 10th Mountain Division helo right sounds like Kyle said we knew what they do the bodies they they pulled the bodies out and desecrated them in horrible ways so that's one of the reasons we got to get there first and we can't leave these guys behind all right so as you're learning operating environment so is the enemy with their attackers as well so by this time the convoy is gone and then what are you guys what are you guys doing well we're what's still continuing to treat Jamie Smith corporal Smith and we're we're basically strong pointing it and buckling down and and realizing the bird is right there we had an RPG hit our building at that point I wasn't treating the casualty and I grabbed Larry and I said all right I'm gonna kick in this door you go left I'm going right don't shoot me because we could hear these we had was more like don't shoot me yeah I got it and that pin was still up there you know so we when we cleared that building we heard women and children in there so in the RPG yet they screamed we went in there cleared that just to make sure there was no bad guys in there pushed all the women and children back into a safe room I guess you guys are called a safe space but we we put a cow psyche you know I do we had to put that in there yeah we had to put a couch in front of the door there just and they stayed in there the rest of the night we didn't hear another peep out of them but after that then we kind of as things continue we realize exactly where we're at got a little bit better essay on the battlefield there and we just knew we were going to be there for a while and there were some calls we talked about this this morning you know the highs and lows of what you're hearing and what you know what calls should you make which calls shouldn't you make I'd heard my team leader come on the radio and they commander Scott Miller he'd come on the radio and said now the commander in Afghanistan yeah now yeah now he's big Sarge or big cheese or what do you call him over there big general dude right is that the proper terminology by the way I'm probably the only non politically correct guy up here just if you're close so he makes a call he says alpha one you know what's your status John Hill comes on the radio he says I've got this many wounded in one ki a and when I heard that in my mind I justified it as a ranger had been killed very unfortunate that's a sad deal but wasn't one of my buddies and then five minutes later Scott Miller come back on the radio and said alpha once again your status this many wounded one ka and then he said who what's the callsign of the ki a he said alpha two when I heard alpha two because I hadn't seen Earl get shot I knew that Earl Fillmore was dead so at that point you think you think about what your motivation level is and then you find out that a member of your team is dead what's that going to do to your motivation it's gonna bring you you know it's gonna bring you down a little bit later John Hale came back and radio he said all right all elements this is alpha one this is what we're gonna do I heard that I'm like okay if he's back in the fight he's got his best friend laying there dead you know if he's back in the fight we got to get back in the fight and I did some pretty serious praying at that time too so good Lord was looking out for me and we continue with the fight at that point so at this time it's getting dark the intensity of fire is coming up but it's great because we own the night so we don't have night vision goggles well actually so some brave souls climb into super 6-1 and grabbed the pilots pilots nods of course that's you know they're not mounted having to hold them with their hands and shoot at the same time right so this is hindsight again but right it mean the decision was made with the night-vision goggles yeah yeah we they were that was kind of a new deal does we I mean we didn't have envy geez a couple years prior that nothing that we could mount on our atom but to warm around your neck and they were cumbersome and awkward and they fill up with dust as soon as you're in that environment so we knew we're on a 20-minute opt in and out so you mean you know when you're wearing 75 pounds of lightweight gear well before your rucksack goes on then unfortunately you're looking to make some cuts in some places and you know how heavy ammo and aichi and everything else comms are so yeah we don't need our nods but you know just imagine this clunky thing bouncing off your chest and every time you try to do something comes up and hit you in the face and then you you put it on and you have to take your helmet off to put it on and then you have to take it off to clean the dust off the lenses like now we have all these nice helmet mounts and all this right I mean but at that time we had the flip downs we had just gotten those so there was just we were it was a we're still kind of in the learning phase with them we didn't have enough water you know that we probably don't have enough ammo there's a lot of things that you look I mean hindsight's always 20/20 but the good thing is we learned those lessons we passed them on and now we've got you know the guys in the battlefield with they're in Afghanistan Iraq or wherever I mean it's their direct descendants of what happened in Mogadishu and us coming back and saying hey we're Rangers were the unit we we learned these lessons how can we be better the next time we go to battle because you don't know when it's gonna be you know you're sitting in this room right now if you stay in the military for ten years I guarantee you're gonna you're gonna be in not where you think it'll be yeah you just never know what's gonna happen I mean Mogadishu Somalia there's no way I could have found that on a map you know six months prior to that I'd have been like Mogadishu where what the I never heard of this maybe I wasn't quite that dumb but you get the idea that you don't you don't know what you don't know and you guys are consolidating or attempting to consolidate as you kind of spread amongst two blocks between the Ranger company and the in the unit operators and then back at the headquarters what are you guys trying to do to get them exfilled at this point because the the ground vehicle convoy return to base and you're yeah what are we trying to do we were taking multiple steps we cobbled together or whatever vehicles were there and whatever people weren't on the initial assault and sent them out but they quickly got shot up badly and just couldn't make it there they tried multiple routes and and whenever they got close to the target site they got shot to pieces so we also as soon as the first helo went down general garrison activated the quick reaction force which was another one of our contingencies so he had the tenth Mountain Division their second Battalion 14th infantry and they came over to our location there weren't far away but we were separate location it's pretty quick yeah just a few minutes wasn't too bad and so we pointed out to them where the target is and the fact that they need to go there and pick up our people general garrison turned to me and said go with them so you know three word op order and commander's intent I knew because we had worked here for years and I echo a Kyle said general garrison is one of the finest leaders I've ever had so go with them and to me your job is to go out there and develop the situation and get the desired end result so that's what we did we went out with the 10th Mountain Division son armored Humvees drove into a pretty well laid ambush got shot up pretty good and the commander said okay let's let disperse be the better part of valor here and figure out a plan B and that's what we did so you guys are back then at base there's no plan for and then what do you guys hear and on your end what's kind of the expectation well after a while quickly at least he's listened to his you know we were talking about is easier and the hardest part is viewing that battle from where you're at it's kind of like watching a football game through a soda straw or a toilet paper tube and so it's the constant struggle to piece together you know we didn't have blue force tracker you didn't you you just don't have it and so it's it's trying to piece together where are we at and in knowing yourself and what's going on so that was that was kind of a struggle it's the constant struggle for information to kind of figure out where you are and so once I realized quickly like where the vehicles they were right behind us what the hell and they said well they're getting together a it was like our you know first of all when we realize we couldn't get a medivac couldn't get anybody in to be back corporal Smith he winds up passing away at twenty thirty eight hours for saying they're cobbling together a relief convoy it's coming does anybody have a time you know and it's it's a this is a gargantuan task they're having to slap together in a little no time yeah so our plan B after the first failed attempt to go out there and get them was to put together an international task force with Malaysian armored personnel carriers and Pakistani tanks so we've got at least three different languages involved here units that have not worked together I have different SOPs and different ways of doing things and send that out and and that took a few hours to get that convoy put back together so now I'm writing a comment in the back of a Soviet made armored personnel carrier which whoever thought that would happen and and this time we're able to get out there and get to the two different crash sites at this point in time as fire member yeah my company commander saying they're on their way and of like I just said kind of flippantly yes sir I can hear them because it was just like a rolling firefight that got louder and louder and louder you can hear would fade away and they've keeping the fight and then it loud yeah it just kept going and all of a sudden and it comes Matt Ryerson walking in with a quickie saw in one hand and a car 15 and the other and I was like this guy is my hero and then so at that point you loaded up the convoy and fight the way back not so fast right and I know his call signs lucky did you guys know that do they know why because a cat has nine lives and sometimes you call your cat lucky I was putting him through OTC and we're in a barn tell him what OTC operator training course I'm his instructor he looked up to me like a father [Laughter] we got a barn and in a barn you got him outdoors at the end so when you need to be fair how many doors have you gone out in your entire life have any of them not okay um not having something on the other side of the Kota so I've been in a barn before we clear the first floor they clear the second floor he goes to the door that leads to nothing and he opens it and he runs out it's like Wiley coyote it was like Chinese Hills it was like I was still moving turning the corner clear in the corner and all I could think is crap so he falls 15-foot crumpled mess he pops back up I'm good yeah somebody pulls out somebody pulls out the white lens flashlight are you okay I'm like turn that thing off we got a X bill I was like this guy is he's not real smart but no you're low in the when the vehicles arrived my opinion was the vehicles are here we're gonna load on the vehicles and we're out of here but not so fast once the once the wounded and dead were loaded there was there wasn't any room for any of us so oh by the way people had a quickie saw and right quickie saws work really good it's like a very heavy construction because construction saw that works on everything except for this except for Black Rock and the hard part was you know we still had people you know we had cliff Wolcott still in that then we had to get him out and so it was a race against daylight because everybody had an internal clock going I really hope we're out of here in a cover of darkness cuz it's gonna get loud pretty quick louder yeah so it's something we didn't exactly drive up to the crash so we had a plan where we're gonna go to a rally point equidistant between the two crash sites then we'll take a 10th Mountain infantry company to each one of the crash sites and leave one at the rally point is a development so I want with the company that went to the first crash site because that's where all our troops are and I figured one of my primary responsibilities is to prevent fratricide and we had to dismount the vehicles because the Somalis had a number of burning roadblocks out there and the vehicles couldn't drive through them so you dismount us guys and we go tear them apart and then we just stayed just mounted down to the next burning roadblock and providing mutual support between the vehicles and the dismounted troops technique used a lot starting in World War one when tanks were first introduced so we had about 800 meters of that distance to travel on foot for some of us and about halfway there we got bogged down we took some heavy fire stop rectified the situation but then we lost some inertia so the company commander told me that the lead APC refused to go any further the Malaysian there said nope that's it we've had enough and he said I don't want to go forward without that armored support so I told Matt Ryerson get in that lead APC and make him go forward I'll just you know I'll go through the front of line to get these in troops go so it was easy I just want to uh said let's go so American soldiers you show him some positive leadership they will respond and in the desired manner I don't know what Matt said or did to get that thing moving forward but it was very comforting to have that thing rolling along beside me there and another thing I want to add quickly about Matt Matt was killed a few days later in a mortar attack so he paid the ultimate price too but he was one of the guys that was just I mean he was Matt was an assault team leader in on the initial assault then he accompanied the lieutenant's and their bodyguards back to the base and then he went in with me on that later mission not a scratch and he'd been out there in the fight as much as anybody and then two days later on the 6th of October he was killed in a mortar attack so basically at that time I mean loading the vehicles and then fighting the way back and make it back before daylight no no no it was kind of surreal you know the plan we were talking we didn't get a chance to talk about the and they said okay this is what we're gonna do we're gonna run out what you know and APCs are gonna roll with us right so you've been there all night fighting up all night and then now you've got to run all the way back well we just didn't know we're gonna impact any stadium I go that's five miles that way and you know so you know I was a break a little bit not that bad we just figured we'll figure it out but the whole idea is well stay next to the a pcs the a pcs we're like covers we're running down so they go we're ready to go yep a pcs just take off really we're staring at each other and as the Sun rises and it was kind of a real surreal moment they go hey little birds are gonna make one more pass and it was it was kind of like the movie yeah Apocalypse Now or something you saw on a parallel streets you saw cobras just running down the street with their guns blazing you know chewing up the streets parallel to us and then little birds just popped right over our heads and then la la Rockets you know empty their pods and then we just take off running and we bound and that's and that's where you the rally point right by the Olympic Hotel that bus station mm-hmm and that's where we wound up we moved there and then then everybody could transfer onto vehicles yeah so imagine you know you've got 200 or so soldiers dismounted soldiers and you've all done road marches you understand the accordion effect so those APCs were about two inches off each other's bumper now the the lead one never got out in front of the troops but the troops spread out so the guys in the back the Rangers say hey we just got left behind but it was an 800 meter run trot I was old and slow then so it wasn't a run believe me back to our rally point and at that point in time I got an up from each one of the Ranger lieutenants and from Scotty Miller and from the tenth Mountain Division everyone had everyone present accounted for so we all loaded the vehicles and we got to that location that's when buck beside the vehicle that we were going to load on one of the 10th mountain guys have been shot and they were working on him he had I believe it sucking chest wound at that time and he ended up passing away a couple days later but he was one of the guys from 10th mountain that came in to help us and and also was killed you know they had they lost two soldiers and the story of Blackhawk down the book and subsequently the movie was basically told the eyes of Rangers because the the Delta guys aren't allowed to talk to the press and the the task force 160 pilots aren't allowed to so you've got a distinct perception of that and most of them weren't aware that the 10th Mountain Division was even there so they're their story largely went unnoticed and we probably wouldn't be having this conversation day of a wooden for them yeah those guys in the the 160th they saved our skin I mean it was they did gun runs all night they flew 18 hours straight I mean they they would land grab a bottle of water you know maybe a PowerBar more ammo more gas more rockets and they were right back out there to support us so for 18 hours they flew their aircraft yeah so I mean um I want to save some to our you know some audience questions you guys think about him I mean you know what was one of the key lessons each of you learned from there I mean I'll start I mean like so when we went to Afghanistan in 2001 for the first time right still some of the same debates right when you go in there in the operation do you carry as much ammo when everything as you possibly can or right or is it the kind of the fight light right the lighter you are the more survivable you are and you understand that the importance of body armor but I had snipers and and they told me hey if we cannot get but down behind our weapon with a front plate in so well then just don't wear the front plate right but then but you got this other history up against you so right there's always gonna be these tough choices you have to make out there so what we're saying what what was like one of the key lessons and we talked about these yeah well that's one of them I mean we would have we would go in Iraq and we would have inside of our panders which is like a striker just a different armored vehicle right so what was a lesson right instead of having just the right five ton vehicle with sandbags think of it as a kind of a older unwrapped or something so we didn't fight off of our kit we fought off the vehicles so we had water bottles that were frozen in there that we could drink those while we're driving we didn't have to take anything off our gear we had magazines that were velcro to the side of the vehicles so that we could just if you're shooting at somebody can just drop that mag grab another one and when you dismounted you still had everything that you had and then beyond that we had go rocks and inside of our go bag we would have extra whatever we needed and you know chow was not a huge priority because you can go a long time without food but we definitely had water and ammo and you know if you needed that bag you could drop it by the entrance to a building or you could leave it on the vehicle or whatever kind of dependent on the guy what situation she's been through you could see some guys that if they got more - like ten-foot from their go bag they're like but I mean if you have that experience you learn from that you're gonna you're gonna be better the next time you go out because you got all these things going through your head I think we had we also had a better better better planning process more efficient planning process so that everybody would know you know all the Rangers would know what we were thinking we know what they're thinking and that way if if something happened to a vehicle we knew that other guys could step in and take that that position of course medical medical was probably my biggest my biggest pet peeve so if you look at all the stuff that you guys are now if you're issued I fax you're not yet but if you've got combat gauze if you have a tourniquet you know chest seal things like that a lot of that came directly from this this fight everything down to the way that your combat gauze is folded it's not rolled up it's folded so that you can pull it out this has all been thought through so when you pick that up this isn't some good idea ferry that flew in and gave them that idea this is a combat medic or a guy like one of us that have worked on something on the battlefield and said what do I need the next time I go there and that doesn't just apply in this room this applies to schools across America in your own vehicle law enforcement so there's the medic the medical thing I think is is to me it's probably the biggest the biggest thing that we learned and everybody here I mean you guys probably all know how to use an AED who cares you're not gonna have an AED in combat what you're gonna have is somebody that needs you to do direct pressure put on a tourniquet use combat gauze so when you do that training or you take your guys out and gals out to train that better be one of your highest priorities and physical fitness goes right along with that because if you're out of shape try dragging somebody that really is unconscious it's not easy it's really not easy now he can pick me up and throw me right on my shoulder or on his shoulder and go but if I pick out one of you young ladies in the crowd that I probably weigh at least two times more than you do what's gonna be your technique and you can do it you just need to learn how to do that so that that would I mean medic to me would be that would be the top the the two most important lessons for me and important for you guys here is wanted the concept of leading from the front you've all heard that I shared a little bit of my story with you you know I I'm in nobody's chain of command I'm a lieutenant-colonel walking point for an infantry company because somebody had to do it somebody had to lead from the front so when you're a lieutenant out there in the army you're a platoon leader you can't email in your leadership you can't phone it in you got to be there you got to have your troops see you you got to be visible you got a lead from the front and I mean taking point I'm not the one going through that's exactly right you got to know where you've got a better term for that is lead from the decisive point because chances are as the commissioned officer you're not going to be walking point I don't recommend it because you got people who are better at that than you are and if you're walking point you have no idea what's going on behind you so you have to be at the decisive point where you can best command and control and the other concept has always be ready we didn't have a single contingency plan that had me in it and yet there I was out there so you got to always be ready no matter what your your unit is on you know the 18th priority all you guys are out picking up pine cones on post and next thing you know you're in it so always be ready is one you're gonna have to accept the fact is if you think that you're the subject matter expert look you're your soldiers know that when you you know even though you you come from here you've gone to Ranger School you've gone to your basic course you know you're probably still not the expert at the job they understand that and it's it's a mutual it's a mutual training experience however they they also by being there they learned how to trust you also - believe it or not even if though you don't think it I never thought I was a subject matter expert for sure but I understood that you know that that feeling work I mean I'll be honest fear gripped me so bad I couldn't move at times in it you acknowledge it but then I also realize it there's a lot of people that are seeing me and I you know if I lose mine if I lose my you know it's gonna it's gonna be bad for everybody else and the most thing I can do is be about as calm as possible but be you know scared out of my wits because there needs to be focus and and all you become as a liability to your organization and not an asset and I refuse to be an ass a liability as an NCO - I'm gonna add to both of what you guys said as an NCO we're looking at these guys even though I may have more time in the army that he does because I was you know I come in a little bit earlier though the guys your platoon sergeant or whatever but I'm looking at these guys lava here was credible before Mogadishu well what do you think that did to his credibility after that fight it was up here same with lieutenant Perino he went from some lieutenant that I'm like okay he seems like a decent enough guy now he's a credible combat leader that's what all you guys are hoping that guys and gals are hoping for right you want to be credible but when you get that credibility it's a whole lot easier to lose it that is to gain it and that's one of the things you guys have to constantly fight with when you get put in that leadership position because you're you know for an NCO we work our way up to that leadership position you immediately have it establish your credibility maintain your credibility and just remember that everybody knows what you're doing and you can lose that credibility a heartbeat these guys are awesome because they've never lost their credibility you got your main man here general never lost his credibility of a combat veteran that is highly highly respected in Delta same thing with Liam so you've got to maintain that level of credibility so that that you you have that throughout your whole career alright we'll turn it over the audience for some questions I'm sure you're there's plenty of them out there yeah yes sir my question is one if they can just talk about ethical decision-making so there's our are we there's non-combatants and then there's also the decision to infill shoe garden boarding and if you could talk a little bit about that that through the decision-making process so as our future leaders you know which none of those are easy decisions all right and people are faced with them I'll start off the ethical decision part I'll give you an example of that I for years I thought I was the senior man at the first crash site so I was making all the decisions there then later I learned that Eric Olson who went on to be a four-star Admiral and commander SOCOM was actually there and I didn't even know it and and he said Haley you were you were doing a good job no need for me to step in but he outrank me at the time so that's there's a good leadership nugget in there for you but one of one of my decisions I had to make is we got two dead bodies here and everyone there is committed to getting them out but what if we're losing people along the way what if now I got four six twelve dead bodies at what point in time do you say we're taking too many casualties to justify staying here to get these two dead bodies out which have now you know now we've got ten times that many at some point in time we're all going to die in the name of getting these out so that I don't have an answer for that thank God I didn't have to make that decision because we weren't taking the casualties but ask yourself that at some point in time when you got the time to reflect and you can put yourself in that position what do you do our whole culture is leave no man behind we always take care of our own but but does it mean we're gonna sacrifice our entire unit to do so and that's one of the questions general garrison had how you know I've got only got a finite number of people left to send out there in the battle to help the guys who are stuck out there and how many times can I send them out and get them shot up and then limp back and then try to find some other vehicles and cobble together someone else and send them out so those are those are the kind of ethical questions that I don't have an answer for other than to say that you know you've all heard the words duty honor country presumably that gives you an ethical a moral foundation it's a foundation of integrity and when you're making all your decisions based on that you can look back and say okay I made the wrong decision but no one can question why you made that decision if it's built on the proper foundation so I I don't have a you know a brilliant analysis of here's the here's the equation for always making an ethical decision but I think if you put yourself in those positions and say what would I do then then then you'll and and if you have that values based foundation then that's gonna serve you tremendously the rest of your life in an Audi uniform with regard to rules of engagement when you go to Iraq is there a difference between rules of engagement between Delta Marines in the 82nd no but what there is a difference in is how its articulate articulated to your people if your men and women do not understand the rules of engagement that's on you it better be crystal clear what a threat non-combatant unknown whatever you want to call them they need to understand that before they go out there and and do what they got to do and that being said when you're on the battlefield you see what's happening when you're not on the battlefield don't second-guess your friends there's a lot of things that happen on the battlefield some people call it the fog of war I hate when people say that because it's there yeah it's not the fog of war it's you're doing what you perceived to be right at that moment in time if you're doing what's wrong then you're you're wrong and you can't hide that because every there's gonna know that that was absolutely wrong but rules of engagement you every one of you have got to understand that but more importantly all of your people have to understand what their rules engagement of engagement are does that answer that kind of question and we know a little long if we got this he's got one here yeah well he's bringing the mic on the roee part the same mortar round the killed Madurai arson wounded Gary Harrell who was the squadron commander so I got put in command and Gary's absence and Kyle and the guys brought up to me and said hey our rules of engagement suck it's like two paragraphs of this that the other thing and I said your rules of engagement are if you determine a threat you eliminate that threat because I could trust these guys their level of training their intelligence their target discrimination but we didn't have to have several paragraphs or pages of detail are we it's if there's a threat you eliminate it and that was never an issue for me yeah if you're coming up with rules of engagement to cover your ass I don't want to work for you I don't even want to be near you on the battlefield I want to be on the battlefield with a dude that's gonna give me rules of engagement that allow me to do my job eliminate that threat and continue with the mission but you better make darn sure you identify the correct threat yeah Roger that gentlemen cadet Nix hell do I know company Delta one as I'm sure you're all familiar with dance our instructor now chaplain Stricker has a speech about the Battle of Mogadishu really shaped his faith and as SAR major Lam briefly touched on I was wondering if any of you all had similar experiences in your faith from you know there's battle any other experience in the Army you know my first time out one when I told you we went out in the unarmored Humvees and got shot up and came back I was standing in the back of a pickup configured Humvee with my RTO right next to me and suddenly we saw thousands of green tracers and they were all converging on my chest and you know that's every fifth round so I never figured out why I didn't spring several leaks but today I know because I was supposed to go and answer his prayer you do look lately the guy was looking for any port in the storm I mean I I'm a Christian so I I have my faith and I've always prayed before every jump and done things like that so I've always asked for protection but in that moment I asked for something else you know which was just I wanted to not be a coward I wanted to do what I needed to do so there's nothing wrong with having faith so I mean and I'm maybe that's not the politically correct thing to say but I'm happy to stand up and say I'm a Christian and believe in God and I've done a lot of praying because I've been in a lot of places where it was dangerous so for me that's part of that foundation I talked about earlier it's a belief you know if it's your time it's your time but you just understand that you know you still have a mission and you know the best you can pray is that you know you represent yourself and your faith well it's a steady day so we probably got time for one or two more questions and I know you guys probably won't have and then all of a sudden we'll end it there'll be 22 down here to talk to him so no one's got the cut mental courage to ask a question Larry Larry here we have our foundational military competencies shoot move communicate treat and lead they're all our combat lifesavers at least coming out of here now as they grow up and we we packed a ton on a on a foundation of fitness and you you were in this battle 40 months after graduation in you and I have served many at times I know your great trainer is Kyle said you're very very credible in our force what's your advice to the cadets that are here about how they should should invest their time for spend or waste their time as a cadet going into the future what was kind of weird my experience and I've been really lucky I consider myself very lucky with the folks that I surrounded myself by and associated myself with I always looked at my time here and and I enjoyed my time as a cadet and and even though general Gillan keeps saying that you know I got to see him it's the first time I voluntarily got to go into the commandant office was today I actually never was but I always looked at it you know never forget why you're here at this institution it's a means to an end and what's what's the end you know and so you know it's it's you know it's great that I have a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy in computer science but it was pretty much obsolete about five minutes after I walked across the stage because I you know as an infantry officer I mean hell email was like a new thing back woman yeah we were just talking about that they thought that abacus was a computer that you know it was funny actually I'll take this for him I thought my computer monitor was a really good place to hang all my stinking spy so I always looked at that this was a means to an end and my my mission was you know my desire was to be as a leader in the United States Army true and and that's what my focus was you know and and never forget why you're here and and it's great to be from here and it's great to say I've got my graduation but you understand what what is it was just kind of a I really wanted to do that you know I didn't want a degree from West mine I wanted to be a commissioned officer in the United States Army and lead soldier that was just it I do think we struggle with that sometimes in think we're here to be number one to on USA Today poll and that degree and that scholarship and everything other than military training is why we're here and you guys you know very credible we're in a battle that formed how we grew up in the army now after we took those lessons forward like you said how have we changed our medical training how we changed our marksmanship are we integrated nods and Technology to be more effective at not only targeting but eliminating threats protected our soldiers and what it starts with the foundation if you wait for bullet to make it happen it's gonna be too late right you're not gonna get these speakers and stuff like this at Bullock's and take advantage of those opportunities you get here that you kind of just take for granted then you're gonna wish you took advantage of them once you graduate from here so I think that's probably it and you'll probably get swamped by people that didn't have questions when we're done here so if you could again thank my panel for taking [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Modern War Institute

Views: 381,308

Rating: 4.8879337 out of 5

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Id: yFwivrpFHE0

Length: 79min 55sec (4795 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Duncan-M]

Lamb totally hijacked that. Great stuff.