The Sniper Who Loved to Kill - Untold Madness By JT Taylor

41:56Um, and that's what, you know, but a couple more things on the Trump thing and I'll stop talking about it. But, um, because as soon as that happened, of course, me being the president of the Marine sniper association and being a sniper, people started calling me, wanting to do quick little interviews or podcasts, blurbs, you know, Hey, tell me what you thought, you know? Um, But yeah, I don't think it was, I don't personally think it was a setup or a plan. I think it's just, you know, they were, they had the guard down. They were complacent and failed the president that day. That's it. There's really nothing else to say about it.

42:38They just failed the president all around. The local law enforcement didn't do their job. Secret Service didn't do their job. the buildings were supposed to have people on the roofs, but guess what? It's 90 degrees in the middle of summer on a metal roof. What do you think those local cops said? I ain't climbing up there. Fuck that. We'll stand out here at the bottom of the door and make sure nobody comes in. You know, and that's exactly what happened. So, yeah. And then the guy just, you know, he's just walking around with a backpack and binos and rangefinder and climb up on the roof. shit he didn't have a ladder that's a he didn't have a ladder but he he shimmied up the um the drainage pipe there's like a drain pipe and he just climbed up it does this stuff happen more frequently where people do that but because snipers do they take them out in silence and never get spoke about is that does that happen also when these sort of big events where stuff like this actually happens but nobody hears about it because they've done they've saved the president basically um no not really no i mean you know anytime anybody in law enforcement has to fire a shot you're going to hear about it you know because there's going to be investigations there's going to be people on leave you know it's it's a big deal media would get wind of it yeah you'd know but no it's very rare you know um and and i know some of the secret server sniper guys uh and you know the teams that were there did their job best they could um they eliminated threat just gonna write off topic here but see the jfk killing see being a sniper like where do you think that bullet came from because there's so much conspiracies and speculation actually who done it like if you've seen it where you've seen a bullet and where does it come from do you know being somebody who's trained yeah i've seen it but i haven't really lived into it that much yeah um wow it's just the president stuff because we were on that but i've seen people say there was somebody that was the person next to them or the bodyguard at the front it just doesn't make sense i don't understand it because i'm not a sniper but just in case a certain bullet or a certain angle you'd think there was maybe something behind them yeah a lot of that i mean you know a lot of that stuff i don't know but the u.s government you know is is so deep that there are a lot of things that they do that we'll never know because they don't have to tell us.

45:10You know what I mean? And that's just part of it. I'm not a conspiracy guy and I could really care less. I just try to support who's ever running, who's ever the president and I support common sense and being a good person. Other than that, I don't really give a fuck. I think that's the best thing to do. I live in a day and age where everything is thrown in your face. everything's pure divide you go on social media you go on apps and it can make you see the world a different place you know yeah it's just intriguing how much pull the government has how much the world is controlled you know and sometimes you can look at people being oblivious seeing when you're on tour are you ever envious of the people who just work and don't realise what goes on a few miles across the water you know were you ever envious or were you just happy of doing what you were doing

46:04um yeah i think you know really once i wouldn't say 9-11 was a turning point for me but um i really think since now once 9-11 happened something's flipped to me to where i just wanted to be that guy like you know that that phrase from the bible like who shall we send send me you know i just i felt like that was me i just wanted to i guess protect people that couldn't protect themselves or protect protect we i don't know i just wanted to put myself out there help people you know and if we're going to get attacked if we're going to fight we have to fight let me go fight you know i want to go do it um and that i think that's just how a lot of the mindset was with us during that the guys that joined during that time what was it like shooting someone for the first time um well i can tell you my first my first kill um that same town i was telling you about doolab uh i'll tell you the whole story so i was running a sniper team and we had split our sniper teams up we had two teams um and actually what had happened was a during this time during the iraqi war when we were there and OIF, the op tempo was high.

47:31The deployment cycle was high. So units were going all the time. Six months back, six months here, six months back. Rotating out units. And the area of operation was huge that we had in Iraq that we were covering. So it didn't matter if you were a tank unit, if you were a AAVs, which is assault vehicles, amphibious assault vehicle unit. You were going over there and taking an AO and being infantry. That's how you're, that's just, they couldn't afford you to do anything else. They needed you on the ground patrolling, acting as professional infantry. So what that did though, was it left some capability gaps in some of those AOs because some of those units didn't have the same capabilities that the infantry units had.

48:17So one in particular, there's an AAV unit, AAV unit, amphibious assault vehicle unit. these are the trucks that you see that um can launch out of the back of ships go in the water haul troops and then go onto the beach and drive that's called avs we call them um so this aa unit av unit had its own ao in this area doolop and they were running all the operations in that in that ao they didn't have any sniper capabilities any long-range precision capabilities, any reconnaissance capabilities, any surveillance capabilities. And they were getting harassed a lot with gunfire from across the river where they were at.

49:03And there was nothing they could do about it. So basically their commander, the company commander for them, reached out to the division that controls all the movement in the area. It was like, hey, we need sniper support. is there a unit that can send us some sniper teams or a sniper team to help us

49:27neutralize this threat because we keep getting harassed from across the river we want somebody to take these guys out so they so they passed my team with it we we drove out to their their a.o so this is marines that i don't know we don't know them whatsoever you know i've Never worked with the AVs before. So my team, this four-man team, we decided, oh, this is our chance. We're going to go out there like we're fucking special forces. We're just going to fucking roll in like cool guys. So we took all of our rank off, took our name tapes off. You know, like I'm out from the command now. I'm on my own.

50:04And my buddy that's my ATL, he's a Mexican guy. He grew a beard during this time. and so we get there and the the company gunny for the av unit's like hey got you the snipers we're like yeah he's like who's this your your interpreter i was like no it's my atl he's like oh he's got a beard like yeah i don't worry about it you know and um marines are all about regulations and uniforms and grooming standards but the av guys they didn't know any difference they thought we were like you know some kind of special forces unit coming in so we were like milking it having fun and um so i linked up with the company commander there and he was telling me what was going on and uh i said all right we can i think we can work it out i was like i was like i tell you if you really want to make this work keep all of your operations out of this area of town for two days don't send any patrols in there don't send anybody in let us go set up in a position to overwatch that area and get eyes on the area across the river that they're harassing you from and um somebody's gonna mess up they're gonna slip up they're gonna pop out with something we're gonna see them they're gonna get comfortable he's like all right done so they kept all their operations all their movement out of this area this village for three days and on the third day that night we inserted into a mountain on a mountain range on the back side of it and came up made movement and took two positions one position on top of a ridge overlooking the village one position down on the river looking across the river so then we'd have a team that was close to the river that could engage if they seen something and we had my team up on a hill that could kind of overwatch everything and be their support.

51:57We were there for two days. The end of the second day, sun's about to start going down. And that's a lot of the time when they start making their, when they start doing any kind of attacks or movement, they do it either at dusk or at dawn.

52:14So it was about to be dusk. And then my guy down on the river was like, hey, JT, I got a guy. He just popped out of the mangrove, or the palm grove. He's got an AK. He's like, I'm watching him. All right. So I get up there. I crawl up. Get on my sniper rifle. ATL comes up beside me. He gets on the scope. He's looking. He's observing. He gets the range for me. He's like, all right, this guy's at 900 yards. I'm like, fuck. All right, well, I'll put the dope on anyway. Put the dad on. And then my buddy down the river's like, we're going to watch him walk. I'm going to watch him walk. If he gets out of distance, we're going to let him go.

52:52but if we see him do something we're going to engage i was like all right so before you know it he met up with another guy on riverbank they they did like a deal the detail was like a weapons deal a trade he showed him the weapon clearly he gave him a bag like maybe probably money or something i'm not sure they were doing some kind of trade for weapons and ammo and as soon as we identified that for us that gives that's positive idea of hostile act hostile intent positive idea of a weapon and we can engage so we engaged on t2 my guy on the river and me we counted down five four three two we both shot so his he shot the guy on the left i shot the guy on the right um his guy went down immediately my guy down went down immediately oh shit you hit him I'm like, oh, fuck, I actually hit him.

53:48And then, so I hit the guy. He crawled for a little bit. Tried to pop up again. I hit him again in the back. And then he was kind of yelling for help. So some of the people from the village were coming out, like, waving a flag, like, you know, hey, let us grab him. And they finally came, a vehicle came. They scooped him up and got out of there. but they took him straight to the hospital and just dumped him out and he was dead so both of those guys died that day but that was my first ever engagement actually shooting someone um it was from 926 926 yards um and i hit him first try just nuts and what's that feeling when you had someone for the first time you know i hate to say that it felt great but it felt great I mean, is it making me fucked up?

54:42Maybe. Am I fucked up? Yeah, of course. People say. But yeah, I mean, it felt great. You know, it felt great for many reasons.

54:56I know what that weapon is going to do. That weapon is going to be used against us. You know, that money is going to be used to keep funding them, to keep getting other weapons, to keep getting IED materials. And anything that we can do at that point when we're there, and like I said, this is what we're doing at the time. We're there for a reason and that's what we're doing. Anything we can do to protect Marines or civilians' lives at that time, we're doing it. And if it meant kill somebody, absolutely. I would take the same shot a hundred out of a hundred times and not feel any remorse whatsoever.

55:34Tell me that. Does it change you? Or did you still feel the same? Um... No. I mean, here's the thing. Anybody losing their life is not to be celebrated, right? A loss of life is not celebrated. But under the circumstances, we can agree that sometimes it's warranted. Like people get the death penalty, you know, or people. for me the only thing that's different about shooting you know a target in a person is that you you really get that more of a personal connection when you fire you know shooting the target it's like you're going through the motions when I when I fire at a person everything about that guy's life that i don't know about goes through my head kids wife family job what do you do why is he doing what he's doing is he just doing this he's doing this because he's forced to do it if i met him you know in the village and he was working in a shop we'll be laughing and shooting the shit you know um is this guy just doing what he has to do to survive is he being forced to do this and has no other choice or is he just a fucking terrorist that wants to kill americans and kill innocent people you know all those go through your mind in a split second before you take that shot um that must be a main fuck though to go down that to go down that hole to thinking would i have a beer with him would we have a laugh You know, I would have to stay in the mindset and he's trying to kill me.

57:25I wouldn't want to go down that other route and try and figure it all out. None of those, none of those affect the fact that I'm pulling the trigger. Yeah. It's just, that's what you, I couldn't help. But those images flashed through my mind every time. Do you think that's just a human kind of connection? Because we are all human, you know, different borders, different governments make us go against each other, different religions, different faiths or whatever it is. even soccer teams baseball teams I'm saying soccer teams fuck's it I'm interviewing an American I've went full I've went full American myself but you know what I mean everything is kind of that easy to divide you know but for me I would probably try and I wouldn't want to overthink that you know but again I just think it's maybe the human a natural feeling to think I wonder if he has kids I wonder what he was doing but on the other hand you would think well fuck it I'm here to do a job that's why I love Peter McAleese I loved that bad kind of, I was there to kill.

58:23You gave me a job. You gave me a mission. I'd done it to the best of my ability. No questions asked. Right. People speaking about mental health and stuff, and he was saying, I don't give a fuck. I'd done what I'd done. I wouldn't change it. And I think having that sort of strong mindset as well, I think when a lot of people who I've interviewed, a lot of veterans, you know, and I think they struggle because they then question everything they've done they've questioned the people that they've killed they question that and i think that can really tear away at you you know and you start feeling guilty yeah you know i don't like i say when i when i say i think i thought about these things um you know some of the more human aspects come after you know but but i i don't i mean that's just me man when i was firing when i was pulling that trigger all those things flashed in my mind but it didn't matter what was that adrenaline feel like um it's a pretty crazy adrenaline rush and dump because um do you get a dump after that yeah because you want to make everything in you is trying to make sure that you hit this person you don't want to miss you know i mean um first off you miss they're gone and now they're not going to be as they're not going to be as um quick to make a mistake like that again so you might that might be your only shot um and then back then our mindset was back then so being a sniper in your battalion in your a.o if you're firing somebody you miss word gets around that you missed you know or if you shoot somebody that didn't die oh fucking team one's out there injuring people and you know now we gotta because if you know from from our law you know the way we work um with the u.s is if we have to render aid so if you fire if you shoot someone and you injure them and they're not they're not dead you have to render aid so we have to go out there we have to patch them up render aid bring them in and all these things so um that's another thing it's like a so if you don't kill him the enemy you have to save him yeah we're we have to yeah yeah that's strange behavior that that's fucking nuts yes so do you feel the pressure then if a sniper goes out and misses because then it potentially puts his other brothers kind of well what it does is it what it does is it affects confidence from leadership so trust trust and confidence from leadership starts starts going away a little bit and they might not want you guys they might not want to give you those cool gucci missions to where you go and you know they might not have the same trust and confidence in you if they're knowing that you're out there winning people and missing people and you know not not doing your job because when when you fire you're compromised now that position that you shot from is burned and there's only so many spots you know so that's another thing you want to take advantage of if you're firing if you're firing a weapon in combat you want to make sure that every round kills every i mean every round counts you know it's one shot one kill fire for a purpose you're firing to eliminate a deadly threat period is there a celebration for your first kill how does it work does it leak yeah of course i mean we all say yeah every kill Everyone?

1:01:51Every kill you're high-fiving and fucking smoking and joking about it. Yeah. Every kill. Everyone? So it's not just a kid. It's like you're a fucking football player and you score a touchdown. It's the same shit. Just a definite level? A different fucking level. Same shit, man. Like, you know, am I crazy? Maybe I'm crazy. I'm not scared to say it. It is what it is. anybody that thinks otherwise they're lying or full of shit I interviewed Craig Harrison who's became a good friend, he was a sniper Craig struggles mental health but the amount of kills he had was over 80 or something I know a lot of snipers maybe a lot of people don't talk about it but I think it's good to be an open book but being in the war zone he can't handle life here where there's no chaos when it's calm he feels more at peace in the war zone which is fucking crazy but i guess people can't understand that if they've never lived it did you find that experience where it's hard to separate normal life to war life different different but but yeah so for me the biggest thing um not and i i don't speak for everyone but most of the guys in my that in my that i've dealt with It's just the dealing with the everyday life that you're not used to dealing with when you're in the military.

1:03:21You're kind of spoiled in the military, at least in the American military. You know, you're taken care of. You're told where to go, where to be there, where to wake up, what to do, what you're doing every day. You've got your meals. You know you're going to have breakfast, lunch, dinner every day. You don't have to worry about paying bills. You don't have to worry about if you're a junior Marine. You know, you're living on base. everything's paid for you got a meal ticket you go to the child hall you eat um your paycheck's coming in every two weeks you don't have to worry about it you know first and the 15th um and you're not dealing with all the normal things that that regular everyday people are dealing with like you know your your your normal household bills you're running errands you're you know Being there with your spouse and your wife and going through issues and being there every day, waking up every day with her, going to bed every day, being around your kids, filling that father role or helping out at the house and taking them to school and making sure that you know who their teachers are and going to teach.

1:04:25You don't have to deal with that shit when you're deployed, right? And you get used to it. And when you come home, that stuff can be way more stressful. You were good at your job. You knew what you were doing. you were respected. You were, especially as a sniper, a sniper and a team leader, you know, I had a good reputation. I could do whatever I was. I wouldn't say a king, but, you know, I had, I had a team, I had a group, I had guys that looked up to me. I could do it, you know, I, I had a boss, but it was more of a friend, you know, and then I knew exactly what to do. I knew what to say. I knew how to train.

1:05:01I knew how to teach people. And then when you get home and none of that shit matters. Did you do the laundry? Well, you're home now. Can you help me with laundry? You know, where you're home now, you know, we need to, this needs to happen, this project needs to happen. You know, you're here. Can you do it, please? You know, just those little things, I think, really get to guys when they come home. And it's just living that daily, that day-to-day life that guys aren't used to. Did you struggle with normal life, especially being a bad fucking motherfucker to doing what you've done. Did you struggle with the certain chores and certain, because you're a man who kills, you're a man who takes lives, you're a man who's a fucking, a bad man doing the right thing for his country, but did you struggle to kind of separate the mad life, better structure, the leader, to actually doing the smallest of tasks?

1:05:57You know? Yeah, of course. You're doing the biggest of tasks that anybody can ask for, anybody who fights for their country. That's the ultimate, at what you do you know but for the smallest tasks to be like a a husband a friend a father did you struggle with normal day-to-day tasks is that a big thing with majority of men who serve their country 100 is it 100 and um that's one of the biggest factors i think that leads to the veteran suicide rate is the all those little things you know you've got and then on top of that you throw in the culture that we develop while we're there it's like fraternity so every night you're getting blackout drunk and getting up and running and ptn and doing your shit the next day and not you don't care and every night you're you know and you know you get home and those habits don't leave you and you you start drinking you start doing your shit and then all these other aspects start start hitting you you know now you're having relationship problems on top of that you're adding alcohol on top of that you you've got injuries and pain now you're taking pills you know so now you got alcohol and pills in you um you know then you're dealing with your wife your wife struggles your day-to-day struggles you're um it's just a lot and then it's like a one of my counselors one time was like a describing it to like an egg putting pressure on an egg you know if you can hold an egg in your hand and squeeze it as hard as you can and as long as it's upright you're not going to break it but you put one finger in there and you squeeze it's going to crack all right so it's like you get pressure coming from different angles and eventually you're going to crack and um that's how i describe it you know you start putting all these things on you got relationship finances um alcohol drugs um separation anxiety all those things stacked together are a recipe for disaster one or two of them you can deal with it once you get them all somebody's in trouble and you just start looking out for them did you know is it late living two separate lives then 100 it's like living two lives because you can't talk about the same shit with your family that you can with your fellow teammates you know you can't hey man remember that time that that um suicide bomber blew himself up in that truck and then you picked his arm up and you were skipping with it holding his hand threw it in the fire pit that was fucking funny as hell you know your wife don't think that's funny you know your buddies are like oh i remember that i still remember his hand you remember i you know like um yeah your your your it must your wife's co-workers at the insurance company don't really like that yeah that's not a good company trick is it when you're sitting everybody's room for dinner and you're talking about throwing body parts in a pack do you ever look at these people though like not your family but other people and don't realize how good they actually have it and they complain and moan about the slightest things but they've never actually seen like that these are that's basically in hell for anybody that's fighting in wars it's a it's a hell zone you know it's the worst of the worst and you're seeing things that you should never see but do you ever look at people i know we spoke earlier about being envious but do you ever look at people and think you don't realize how lucky you are for the life that you have you know compared to some of these people do you ever look at them that way um you know some but for me i chose that's the thing about the u.s military It's an all-voluntary force.

1:09:53I chose it. I chose that path. You know, I made the decision, the conscious decision to do it. So I didn't really look at it that way. If anything, the military is a crutch. You know, it's a crutch because it kind of leaves you behind a little bit. You come in the military at 18, 19 years old. Then you got a person. So say Joe military goes in 18. His friend goes in to college at 18. He's partying, going through his college life, getting some life, getting his degree, whatever. You're partying, but you're doing your thing. You're serving your country. You're seeing shit. You're killing people.

1:10:37Doing all these things. but what he's also doing is he's he's getting introduced to the social social world as an adult that you're not he's also going through the aspects of normal life that you're not so paying bills um having having friends and relationships being around his family these things and all of a sudden you do your four years you get out and now here you are they're they're already past you now you're playing catch-up now you've got some other skills that they don't have but you don't know the basic you didn't get that basic time to socialize as a young adult you know as a young man like um so in my mind it's like you it's like you almost take a break out of real life for four years if you do four years it's like you took a break from real life for four years and now you're being released back into real life and you got to figure it out but guess what now you're not at home anymore you're not a high school student you gotta have a paycheck you gotta pay bills you're on your own and i think that's some of it too it's like a world within a world it's like if you're in that sort of is it like a dream sometimes does it not feel like reality at times you never feel like you're a normal person when you're in because you're not you're not normal you're not you are a

1:12:07you know you're a result of what's around you you are part of the system you're you're part of the machine of the marine corps or the army and you can't even be your real self or know who you are because you don't get an opportunity you can't be an individual it doesn't work especially in the Marine Corps. You have to be part of the group think. You have to be a part of the machine, the big machine that's moving. So I think that's a lot of it too. Does the killing get easier? Or is it all the same? Because your first one, you seem to have done it with ease anyway, but does it get just a straight job, just like anything?

1:12:48Well, not only does it get easier, but it gets, it becomes, easier to know when to fire and when not to fire. It becomes easier to make those calculations in your head to where going through the continuum, force continuum, positive ID, positive act, hostile act, hostile intent. Does this guy got a weapon? Can I engage him? Should I engage him? Blah, blah, blah. As you've done it and you've gained that experience, you know when to shoot and when not to shoot. um and for guys that um haven't ever killed or have never had to kill somebody or engage as a sniper you're kind of hesitant at first like there was a few times where i was hesitant before that first kill that i'd had people in my sights i just really wasn't sure you know um and that split hesitation in a in a really serious situation can get everybody killed right so as you become more senior, that starts going away.

1:13:51You don't have that hesitation anymore. You can make that decision on the spot and fire. And that's why it's so important when you're leading a team and you've got younger guys to have at least a guy that's been to combat so he can make those decisions and show the other guys. Now let's back table that. I shot the guy. Why did I shoot him? if you were on the gun, would you have shot him? I'm not sure. Why not? Because I couldn't really, okay. And then you discuss it, you know. You can't hesitate. You know, you had positive ID of a weapon. You had hostile act, hostile intent. You met all the criteria.

1:14:35You know, engage. Those little things like that, with time, what you get better at. See, when you're doing it, see when, is there a lot of paperwork after that? Do you need to then talk back to somebody or do you just get full power? and control of your team and your decision-making? Yeah, for the most part. I mean, what we do is after a mission, especially if you engaged, you come back and do a debrief. We would debrief with the Intel shop and just tell them what we did, what happened, where we're at, give them the grids, give them the location on the map, what the people look like, good descriptions of people, descriptions of vehicles.

1:15:14That's how you drive Intel. That's how Intel was created, right? So the snipers go out, your reconnaissance teams go out, they gather the information, they bring it back, they do a debrief with Intel. Intel starts working up packages based off of that. Was it always teams of four or did you ever go on a mission yourself? I never went on a mission by myself or with two people because by the time OIF and OEF were kicking off, it was just too kinetic. if you went out in a one or two man team you were just a sitting duck if something happened you just didn't have enough ass to get back you know you didn't have enough ass with you to protect yourself and to put up a fight so four man team you had just enough ass to sustain yourself in a shitty situation to call for backup or to get yourself out and then when we went to Afghanistan we switched to six man teams why?

1:16:15just because our movements were further we were moving further from friendly lines and the enemy was just a little more dynamic I mean you didn't you didn't want to be caught out there as a small element because you wouldn't make it back yeah would they torture? uh don't know of course they would but of course we never had anybody killed and tortured but yeah they would love nothing more than that they would love that is there any kills that stick out for you that you think about um

1:17:03there's no real kills that I have ever doubted um and I've always, you know, used my best judgment every time. I'm never just going to engage somebody to engage. I'm just not that type of person, first off. But secondly, I always had guys watching me, right? And so I was the example. So as a team leader, when you're engaging a combatant, you have to make sure you're meeting those criteria because you are training these guys. and what they do after you is a direct reflection of what you taught them. You know, they're going to go and lead teams. They're going to do stuff, and you just don't want to build bad habits, right?

1:17:48So I always, and all my guys can tell you that 100%, that I didn't just go around shooting people. You know, you've heard. And a lot of times I even let, there's a lot of times I should have engaged that I didn't for certain reasons. you just have to make those decisions do you think a lot of people can lose their mind having that sort of power again when I interviewed Peter McAlees he spoke about someone who went rogue he went rogue and I think he joined an army in Africa and started fucking torturing people he lost the plot and he was in the same unit as Peter but he just loved to kill he became a mass murderer and started working, I forget the guy's name but do you see people losing their shit completely because you're still saying you've got your eyes everything's kind of fair do you know what I'm saying listen we could finish this podcast and we could go fucking nuts but you still have it together it reminds me of Peter like he still had his shit he had the twinkle in his eye he didn't look like kind of frere and he just owned his presence he owned what he'd done and that's what I think it's about but do you see people just completely lose the plot yeah I've seen it yeah I've definitely seen it um and you know I to be completely honest, those guys were already fucked up anyway.

1:19:11Yeah. They already heightened up. They were fucked up before they even joined the military. And then, now that they're in, it just heightens their fucked upness. Yeah. I mean, most everybody I know that was, I would say, a bad Marine or people that did shit like that, they were fucked up before they even came in. You know, that's just how it is. I mean, you're getting the disenfranchised youth, the bastard children of America that join the U.S. Marine Corps. When you sign up to be a Marine, you know it's going to suck. It's like joining the French Foreign Legion. You know you're going through hell.

1:19:52You know, you know it ain't going to be easy. You know, you're not taking vehicles and riding there where you're fucking humping and marching and fucking they're going to put you through shit. It's the same thing when you become a Marine. Because guess what? You've got all these other choices. is you could join the air force you could join the army you could join the coast guard now your space force but you chose the marine corps knowing it's harder right so just a bunch of fucked up dudes save me up brother yeah fucking save me up yeah how many kills did you have can you answer that um i can't really put really a number on it honestly tell you the truth um

1:20:36and that's really something we never really, it's not taboo, I would say it's just, I mean, of course I was keeping track in my mind a little bit, you know, but there's no like official record of that, that, that don't exist. People think that exists, like, you know, confirmed kill, it gets logged in. This guy's got 34 confirmed kills like that. That's not true. But, um, you know, we'll say, more than 10, less than 50. That's a number. Double fuggles are still not long. And it could be more. Because you get in a lot of shit sometimes and you're you don't always know if you kill someone or not.

1:21:20It's very rare that you're it's not like in movies. When you're engaging people in a firefight, you're not looking at each other. They're not standing there looking at you pointing their gun. You're not standing there pointing your gun at them. You very rarely if any if all see them you see the dust and the muzzle flash from where they're shooting and then you fire into that as accurate as much as you can until that stops and you're like guess i got his ass you know but you don't know until unless somebody can put their hand on the body you don't know if you got to kill one way that we did know though is that um like a couple days later, you know, like the, cause the enemy talked to, so we had our interpreters that would go out and we had sources out in towns, you know, and our interpreter would go out and go shopping for us and do shit.

1:22:13And he would, you know, hit his source and say, Hey, there was a firefight over this farm down there two days ago. Anybody die? Oh yeah. Yeah. Two, two guys died and you come hey y 'all killed two guys two days ago yep you got them both of them all right sweet fuck yeah you know and then you see the funeral a couple days later you see the funerals you're like all right well got those motherfuckers because they get their bodies quick they don't you know that's one of the things they don't you can't an infidel is not supposed to touch the body because if you touch the body they can't you know they can't go so um even the locals they're they're in on it they they grab them and get them out of there do you become cold towards life do you become does it change your whole persona of becoming numb towards feelings of that or do you still kind of in tune with how you feel i was always in tune I was as compassionate as I possibly could be to the local civilians.

1:23:18I mean, they are not the enemy. They are not even... These people don't care. Like, they... You were talking about back in Jesus times? That's how they live. Like, they don't have running water. They don't have electricity. They don't have phones. They don't have... Some of them have phones, but they don't have TV. they don't know what the fuck's going on in the world. All they know is that do I have enough water coming to my field to grow my crops? That's all I care about. Is my crops going to grow this year? That's all they care about. They don't care about anything else.

1:23:59But that's the only thing that those assholes have to use to hold over them and to extort them with is their fields and their crops. And that's why Afghanistan is such a haven for heroin production, poppy, marijuana, because not only does it grow there easily and often, but these Taliban and these terrorist cells, they force these farmers to grow it. You know, they force them. They're like, you're going to grow us this. You're going to yield us this, this return. And if you don't yield us at least this much, we're going to take your daughter when we come back at the end of the season. And then they'll come back.

1:24:52Didn't do it. Give me that girl. We'll bring her back next year. You know, and what do you do? And, um, that's, and, and the locals. So, and that's another thing that I like to throw around. I like to bust this myth all the time about Taliban. You think you're fighting Taliban and everybody you're shooting at is Taliban. 90 % of them are not Taliban. They're just drug... They call them pimps. The locals call them pimps, which basically means a drug lord. They're thugs. They're local gang members that are extorting the people for drugs and money. Billion people? Yeah, period. That's all they are.

1:25:35Can you kill them then? Yeah, they've got a weapon towards, yeah, yeah. That's the guys that are fighting. I don't mind them getting killed. You know, they are trafficking kids and bullying people to grow drugs. And they're the bad people, you know. They're the evil ones who are using these people. But it's just the media can portray a certain narrative, you know. Yeah. Well, I mean, the Taliban are involved in all that. Don't get me wrong. And they're helping fund that. And these are like, say you got the Hells Angels. That's the Taliban. And you got all these little support clubs. that's how these guys are you know you got this little support cell here but they're not really connected with the taliban you know they don't we've probably never even seen anybody from the taliban they're just doing their job they're doing what they're supposed to be doing or told to be doing extorting people for money period to have power and then um so we would come in you know the U.S.

1:26:31you know our military we'd come in and be like all right hey we're gonna eradicate all these crops all this marijuana this poppy all this shit and we'll shut this shit down and we're gonna provide you with bags of wheat seed and you grow this instead and the farmers are like fuck that this wheat takes me twice three times as much water three times as much land I've got to grow five times as much of a crop to yield anything close to I get off of a small portion of a marijuana filled like no i'm not doing that shit and um you know that's it's never gonna stop so they were being offered help so it's not a case of people going over there and stealing poppy fields and oil and gold and money they were being offered help yeah oh yeah we would come into these areas of operation we would come in we would we would offer we that was our goal was to try to to try to coerce the locals into not supporting the taliban or supporting the terrorist cells not supporting the drug trade the drug production like here here's wheat grow wheat instead or here here's new generators for water pumps that you can pump water from the river straight to your fields you know it's going to help you and um here's a new we're going to build a new well in your village so everybody can get water and we're going to put up a new little market right down the street here we just we'll bring our engineers in we'll build we'll build like a quick little strip market with shops, put, put freaking, um, light poles up and build them a little area.

1:28:05And sometimes it worked and they really started really enjoying it. Like, all right, Hey, this is what we could have. if we do this, we've got this nice little, uh, nice little market now, but guess what? As soon as the Marines leave that area, they come right in and sweep all that stuff up. Yeah. And start extorting. I guess I fainted. I lost cause then on it. It's fighting the lost cause. We would, you know, say we would come in, we'd take an air operation, we'd clear out all the bad guys in our six-month tour, and we'd expand, like, you know, a few miles, whatever. The next unit would come in, they'd fall in, they'd backfill into where we were, and then their goal would be to push it out further, just to keep clearing, right?

1:28:51And we would set up patrol bases. and as we clear these areas out we set up patrol bases we turn over the older the old patrol bases that we built turn them over to the afghan forces to let them run all right hey now you guys have footholds now you've got a patrol base now two miles out there we've got another one all right now you've got another patrol base but what would happen is by the time one or two marine units came through and cleared this whole area the talladan the bad guys that already came in and started backfilling and now they've taken over this patrol base.

1:29:28And guess what? Next unit comes in, they've got to start here. And it's just they're coming back through the same shit. A revolving door. How did you get involved with one of the longest kills? How did that come about? Well, it's kind of a I guess right place at the right time. Lucky type thing, I guess. If you want to call it lucky. But we had this big operation in Afghanistan and we were doing a joint operation with the Afghan army and Afghan police. And our unit, basically, this whole operation was to, just like I was talking about, eradicate marijuana and poppy fields in this region to the east of the town that we were in.

1:30:15that was known to, this whole area was known to have a lot of like drug activity in fields and production and terrorist activity. So we were going to, our whole battalion, or not our whole battalion, but two companies were staged to the west. And basically what we were doing is we were going to push to the east. As we were doing that, the Afghan army, Afghan police were going to push north to south. So they started north. They were pushing through locating, identifying, locating and burning and eradicating poppy fields, marijuana fields, lighting them on fire. So they were doing that and questioning the people that were there, whatever, whatever.

1:31:00As they were doing that, my sniper team was inserted into a building at the far east so that we could observe this happening for a couple of days. so basically what we're doing is once again observing that pattern of life in the couple little villages that are there from a distance to see if we can notice anything changing as this operation is progressing and of course you start noticing things changing you start seeing motorcycles with three or four guys on it all in black coming in from the south and the back side of the villages of course we got like our isr and our drone you know the planes are up there and everybody's you know looking and saying yeah we got guys coming in from the east we got guys coming in from here we got guys all right so they're getting ready to fight and as they would come in they start setting up their little positions um waiting for the afghan army and police to get within range that they could start firing at them my sniper team was already in place 2 ,000 yards away observing all this going down and they don't they have no clue we're there so we start seeing um first to start seeing a group of guys five or six guys gathering behind this old abandoned wall and it's it's near a berm and a canal like a little man-made canal and they were using that that wall and that berm is like cover and they were hanging out there It was kind of suspicious, like these guys are up something for sure.

1:32:35And one thing about the guys in the area, as they would conduct their operations, they would fight, they would put on all black. That was like their uniform for fighting. They'd wear like all black schmock and stuff. And they would carry it with them. They'd be dressed in regular clothes like every other Afghan, and they'd have it tucked or whatever. And when they go to fight, they drape that thing on. It's like their battle robe. They fight. they take it off tuck it and haul ass um so i've seen them all in black i was like all right these guys are getting ready and um we're we're getting the distance we know it's far we know it's over 2 000 because we can't laze it with our our range finders so we're cross-referencing the map we're using you know grid you know we're putting the grid in to our dagger we're looking at the map we're measuring like all right it's at least 2 ,400 yards to that wall where they're at so at the time um my point man was on the gun he was he was laying on the gun we've been there for you know two days you can't sit on the gun on a scope for two days you pass it off you switch out so he was in a gun he never got a kill so we'd like to also try to spread the spread the well hey you haven't got a kill yet you're gonna be on the gun today you know so um so anyway he's seen the guys i seen them i start we start getting all the data together i put the data on the gun but our scope maxes out we can't the you know the max effective range of the 50 caliber sniper rifle that we're shooting the bear at 50 cal um is you know 1800 hundred yards um so it's past the mass capacity capability of that gun so with that you got to know how to do mill holes so like educated kentucky windage basically you know like hold a little higher you know be able to calculate that in your mind read the mill dot pattern that's in the scope and go a little higher and basically he maxed the scope out he took a shot he wasn't a sniper school trained.

1:34:52He was good, but he wasn't school trained. So he fired his shot. He was about 300 yards short. So short that the guys didn't know they were getting shot at yet. It just kind of poop in the desert. And he was like, fuck. I'm like, yeah, you're way short. Pass up Agmessa? Yeah. I'm like, you're way short. He's like, I don't know. I can't hit him. It's too far from me. Because he had the scope maxed out at the elevation. So there was nowhere else for him to go. I was like, alright, let me get on the gun. So I was like, rule of thumb with the Sasher. it's 50 cal if you can see them you can fucking hit them you just got to know where to hold right so i got on the gun and um i said okay walk me on about to take a shot tell me where i hit and at this time because he told me where he was holding he was looking in the scope he was already had it maxed out so i just took that picture of the scope that was on these guys and imagined it was on top of the scope.

1:35:51And when I did that, I was looking at a cloud. Right? So I've got my scope. My crosshairs are on a cloud in the sky. That's how high I'm holding. But I knew from my calculation and knowing the reticle that my visualization was correct. I knew where I needed to be. So I was like, I'm going to fire. You tell me where I hit. I fired. Boom, hit the wall right where they're at. he's like oh you're fucking on him you hit the wall the windage is good stay right there like all right staying right here so put a fresh mag in 10 rounds and then um you know the guy's asshole puckered behind that wall they're like what the fuck was that because they don't even know we're there right they they stood up and shot a rpg and that's what made me fire they stood up and shot a rpg we fired our first round we're short i jumped on the gun fired hit the wall.

1:36:44Now they're like, oh fuck, these guys see us. So we waited a couple minutes. They started getting ready to walk out. And the first guy walked across this little opening with a wall at his backdrop. He started walking across. And I let him go. But I'm holding right in the middle of that wall. So as soon as I see them all coming, when they all start to peek out, I'm going to drop an entire mag of 10 rounds of the 50 cow and hopefully kill them. Or at least a couple of them. So he's like, all right, they're moving. They all started walking. Once they got to a certain point where I was holding, I unloaded a whole mag.

1:37:23Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's about a six second time of flight at that distance. So it's a long time. One, two, oh, fuck. And then you're seeing the rounds impacting right on their bodies. It's just... And the round, you can see the impact that our rounds make because it's called a Rothfuss round. It's like a, it's kind of like a mini tank. I don't want to say mini tank round, but it's a Rothfuss round is basically, it's a, you know, a 50 cal round. Yeah, massive. Inside of that projectile with the Rothfuss round, there's the tungsten penetrator. It's like a tungsten steel.

1:38:03And the goal of it is to hit a vehicle or hit a engine block, penetrate in, and then around that tungsten penetrator is zirconium particles, which is like incendiary. So it lights on fire. So the point is that round hits an engine block, lights on fire, burns the truck now. But that's the only rounds we get issued is those ROFish rounds. So when it hits a person or it hits anything, you can see because it flashes. And then all you've seen was their bodies, just the flashes engulfing their bodies. And it's hot. so then we're like oh fuck we got them man and then you know a few minutes go by we're still engaging we see we see people popping up and stuff we're still engaging and shit but basically that all stops so we send out um a squad infantry squad to go do a battle damage assessment to check out the area i was shooting at see if anybody was dead or see anything they got there and they're on the radio like yo jt man there's shit everywhere blood everywhere fucking chunks of skin fucking these guys are fucked like if if they ain't dead it's a miracle it was like there's bloody rags bloody blankets bloody towels like just fucking carnage and um so a couple days later you know got confirmed that five guys died that day i don't know if it was all five guys on that shot or if it's other guys that we've shot but it went down in my my fit rep which is like your performance evaluation you know like that your boss gives you it's like an official marine corps record it's you know the the co put in there 5meka this operation this day where and so with that um we never told that story i've told it a few times but it wasn't a big deal because back then that kind of stuff happened all the time.

1:39:59It was a long shot, but I never knew there was an official way that you could get anything recognized. You hear about somebody who had the longest shot. Well, how do they know that or who determined that? Never even thought about it. I did a podcast when I became the president of the Scout Sniper Association. I started putting myself out there to put the Scout Sniper Association out there because it was so important to grow the association and help out fellow scout snipers and their families. So I was like, I'm going to start doing podcasts. I'm going to start putting myself out there as the face, start attaching a face with the association and see if we can grow it and start bringing some good fundraising and honor the legacy, you know, let people know who we are and what we do.

1:40:48And I was on a podcast, that story came up, and then he labeled the title of that podcast, Longest Confirmed Kill by a Marine. and that started bringing the conversation up. So people started asking, what is the longest? Is yours the longest or what is the longest? And so we started researching it, and the longest one ever confirmed, documented, was Carlos Hathcock in Vietnam. It was like 21, 2100 or something, something like that, 2186 or something. So mine was further. So I was like, all right, well, mine is further. let's um and but it's not about me right it's not about me having the longest shot it's about bringing eyes to the scout snipers and our legacy because they just did away with the program and i wanted to do everything i could to make sure that we weren't letting although the program was going away scout sniper school was going away in the marine corps i didn't want to let the legacy that we've lost that the legacy be lost because if you're not telling stories they're not being heard and it wouldn't take but a few years of after that school being shut down if people aren't talking and telling stories that goes away to be forgotten you know so that's that's been one of our initiatives with ssa is get people to tell their stories why did they take away this night for school uh they did a new force design force design 2030 they called it and um i don't know they just they did away with scout sniper school in the marine corps they did away with tanks and Marine Corps.

1:42:20They did away with artillery or some artillery, I think. Um, but yeah, they, it's a, I don't know, it's not being received well. Um, pretty much everybody thinks it's a huge mistake and it'll come back. Um, we're not sure though right now at this time, but my, our mission with the Scout Sniper Association is to make sure that the, the guys that did serve and sacrifice their stories are being told and that we're, we're honoring them. Does that meet you question everything you've done what was it for if they're taking it away or is it just because times are evolving and things are changing you know where they don't really need them but again with the way things are you're going to always need the best of the best you know for people to protect but how is that feeling is that a kind of love hate feeling that you question everything you've done for the cause um i wouldn't say i do because i have my time and i served during the conflicts.

1:43:19Was that people actually serving as a sniper and then they took their job away? Right. So the most recent generation of snipers over the last few years, they're the ones that I think are feeling it more than anybody because you know, say you joined the Marine Corps in 2018, 2020 to become a scout sniper and 2023 the program shuts down. And you're like, what the fuck? What am I going to do now? Or you were a sniper serving in a billet, serving in a team, and then they take away the school, take away the MOS. And now you're just a school-trained sniper in the infantry. Like, what the fuck do I do now?

1:43:57Where do I go? So they created something called Scout Platoon, which is something the Army does, and it's like a basically just a watered-down version of a scout sniper. They just took the sniper part away. What makes a good sniper? What makes a good sniper is somebody that can independently operate, make decisions. They don't need to be told what to do. They can make decisions on the fly. They can be an on-scene decision maker. Of course, you have to have patience. And

1:44:36you can't ever quit. No quit, you know, but patience for sure. Because you're going to be sitting there in spots sometimes for three days, four days, in the sun, no shade, no nothing, living in a hole, living in a fucking sheep shit, in a swamp, and you can't say time out. I want to go home. I need the toilet. I want a clean shower. Yeah. How far did these rifles actually go then? When would it eventually go to a stage where there wouldn't be any sort of impact There wouldn't be any sort of harm to anyone. How far can the Axelobillocks go? There are sniper nerds that know that. I'm not one of them, but there are guys that know that.

1:45:20But I don't know. I mean, you know, the max effective, and when I say max effective, that is like, if you put the.50 caliber sniper rifle that we use, the Barrett M107s, you put that on a vice, and you've got an electronic trigger. You're not touching it. There's no human error. Right. And you fire that gun at 2 ,400 meters and you fire 10 rounds. None of those rounds are going to hit in the same spot. They're all going to hit. You've got about a 70 inch group that it's going to hold. You know, how tall is the average man? What, 69 inches, 68, 69 inches. so you're talking a group just based off the ballistic coefficient of the gun and how how accurate is and the ammo and the barrel and you know the 70 inches so that means one's going to hit here at 70 inches one will hit 70 inches down low one might hit 70 inches to the right 70 to the left it's just going to be a 70 inch window that these rounds are going to hit in so as you start pulling it back you know that starts tightening of course right as you go further that starts opening what else have you got to judge with it the wind has it got to do the spin of the air but how what's the the key ingredients to be on point as all to do with touch also and and how do you judge the actual perfect shot well there's so a lot of factors go into long range shooting, precision shooting.

1:47:04Of course, the wind. We've got calculation and formula that we can put in and gives us our wind call. How many clicks on the rifle do we need to put the windage, either right or left?

1:47:21Same thing with elevation. Our elevation, the same thing. You have different clicks and different numbers for the range you want to be shooting at. um we have all that data the best way to really get good at that is to shoot your gun and obtain the data get the data so going to ranges and shooting at all the different yard lines at all the different distances in the different wind conditions and keeping a log of that so you you keep your log of that and in that data book you've got oh when the temperature is 75 degrees, this is how my gun shoots. When the wind's blowing at five miles an hour, this is where I should put my windage to the right.

1:48:04At this distance, my elevation should be at 3.2. At this distance, my elevation would be 4.1. And you get all this data, you gather, and historically, you start memorizing it. And you always make a range card to kind of have a cheat sheet. But when you're in a combat zone, you're so familiar with that gun that I could jump on my sniper rifle and not need to look at anything for the most part as long as I had the distance. Because I could judge the wind, and as long as I had the distance, I knew what my gun, where my elevation should be because I had shot it so much. What about the noise from them?

1:48:43Did it ever affect your hearing or did you get good kind of earplugs? no you know you're wearing ear prugs in combat may they tell you to nobody does you know you don't have time like when you're taking a shot it's boom boom it's not you're not sitting there getting ready very rare those couple of engagements that i have the one that's the 926 and the the far one those are like textbook story sniper missions that don't happen like you're you're sitting there you're gathering your data you see the bad guy you get to fire you see him drop those are one in a million most of the time you're shooting at somebody on the fly they popped up they fired you're waiting for them to pop back up you're shooting again you know or you're shooting at the flash from a hillside somewhere or shooting into a window where there's flash coming out it's very rare that you know and see what you're shooting at well you're just looking forward to the next mission see every time you've done a mission as well was it just taking you further away from reality no um no because as soon as the mission was over we're going back to our little patrol base and we're watching fucking uh entourage you know how much is black like dark humor important to get through life oh i'm the kind of guy if i'm at a funeral i will laugh but it's not that i'm try to be a dick it's just i laugh through my pain you know i laugh through my struggle because i think ah just laugh you know but do you feel dark humor gets you through a lot of course fucked up situations we were going back and having like 10 dudes crowded around us a dvd player like a portable dvd player with a computer speaker jerry rig to it that you had to hold it to your ear to hear what was watching freaking broke bat mountain with like 10 dudes you know they're like oh no what are you watching broken mountain i want to watch you know and that's just what we did man you know just if we weren't out there we were good and even there's one mission man too that my team this one we always crack up so much we had a mission where we're we were staying at a cemetery we had to hide in a cemetery and it was cold as fuck and um we were hiding like we're split up and like hiding behind tombstones like laying on graves basically right it's like three in the morning and it's fucking cold and like one of my guys we had inner team calm so we could all hear each other saying right and one guy's like hey man this ground really sucks the life out of you you know and then it's like you're sitting in church you're not supposed to laugh you know you're on a mission it's three in the morning and you know the next person yeah it's dead cold out here you know and then like you know all the little inside little jokes about being in a cemetery you know and this next thing you know all everybody's just dying laughing three in the morning laying in a cemetery freezing her ass off you know making jokes about laying on dead people you know i mean that's definitely normal you haven't seen me up brother and i was like you know and then also another thing that i like to like to talk about is the fact that you know this is a crazy thing too that in iraq that we did um that was normal is we would take occupied houses so we would we would use occupied houses for missions, for hide sites.

1:52:24So there'd be a whole family living in there. And we would sneak in two in the morning, you know, three in the morning. If the windows wouldn't open, if we couldn't get in the windows, couldn't get in the door, just fucking knock or knock on the window. And somebody come to the window. Like, hey, let us in. You know, they're like, okay. You know, we come in and we'd use their house. We'd use their, because maybe they had a window on the second floor that was looking at an area that we needed to look at and that was the best vantage point. You know, or most of the time that's what it was. They had something in their house that was good for us to hide in to get eyes on something and we would use those positions.

1:53:07Is there anything you'd regret? No. I mean, we treated those families as

1:53:17most of them welcomed us just fine. You know, and the ones that didn't, I understand why. You know, I can imagine being in my house in Maryland and somebody knocking on a team of fucking giant Ninja Turtle dudes full of gear, knock on my window and say, we're coming in. And you got no choice, you know. And then they lived there with you for three days. and um first couple times we did that i started getting it wasn't comfortable it was it was uncomfortable knew how to do it it was chaotic because you couldn't speak the language and we didn't always have an interpreter with us so one way to combat that was like all right i gotta start doing something to make it i don't know more friendly i guess so one of our interpreters I had him write out, I wrote out a statement in English on a paper, like an entry statement.

1:54:16And I had him translate it for me in Arabic and write it out. And so when we go in these houses at two or three in the morning, whoever the man in the house was, I would just hold it up for him. Say, hey, look, read this. And he'd read it. And it'd say something like, it was generic. It was like, we're U.S. Marines. We need to use your house for no longer than the mission requires. We will treat you. We will not harm you. We will treat you with respect. You know, you guys, please bring us any weapons you have. Bring us bring us any ammo, any cell phones. We will collect them. You'll get them back when we leave.

1:54:50You cannot leave the premises of your house. You can do your daily things that you need to do in the house, but you can't leave the compound. Basically, that's what we'd say. And then usually they would read it and give us a head nod or thumbs up. And then he'd walk us around the house. We'd get everybody out of the rooms, put them all in the living room, put a security on them, find any weapons or ammo they had in the house. He'd bring them to us. We'd collect those, gather the cell phones, collect them. And then once we did that, bring in the sniper rifles and the gear so where they couldn't see us, go up into whatever room we need to go to, set up our position, and then start a rotation of guys going up and observing, guys doing security.

1:55:33if Susie need to go to the bathroom go ahead Susie go to the bathroom whatever if you want to cook cook whatever you want to do and sometimes within a couple hours you're sitting there watching fucking American movie with them some kind of satellite movie in Iraq you know we're watching remember one night we all got around the TV watching like Freddy Got Fingered or something you know like in Arabic like laughing our ass whole family you know just nuts dude and then we we would we'd also bring like medical stuff and like hey grandma that's lays in the lays on the rug 24 7 has bed sores you know we've doctor up or hey is anybody sick any kids sick anyone and we would doctor them up we'd give the kids like candy and shit or whatever you know how was it when it was coming to an end did you know it was coming to an in did you get dust charged how did it work yeah when i so i had a lot of medical stuff going on anyway that i'd always pushed on the table my injuries that were kind of too hard to start ignoring and um in afghanistan i had some pretty big injuries that um ended up leading to me getting out so once i got out i um went to like a warrior process um had surgery did some things like that took care of myself but i was also having some pretty serious ptsd issues by that time um because i was going through a pretty bad divorce um one of my and this is a segue into that whole conversation, you know, but, um, a lot of, we all know about veteran suicide and, um, Marine suicide.

1:57:26And we had a lot of guys commit suicide a lot. Um, and I would say probably right now I could at least 20 to 25 that I know of committed suicide that I either personally served with or were in a unit with.

1:57:51And one of them was my really good friend. It was a really good, it was a junior sniper to me that actually killed himself on the phone with me with a 30-06. I heard everything. His wife there, she's screaming. He's like, he just blew his fucking head off. There's blood all over me. What the fuck? And I'm like, oh, but that was a pretty big one. And then, um, how was that feeling when your friend calls you and takes his own life on the phone? It was nuts, man. Because did you know it was going to go as far? No, no. I mean, I knew that he had been struggling since he got out. He got out. I was still in.

1:58:34And, um, but he was a very emotional guy and we all knew that. And he, you know, he had his own demons, um, but I never seen him kill himself for sure. He was always a cheerful comedian, you know, big guy. Yeah, but he's going through some shit, you know, relationship problems, alcohol, whatever else he was doing, I don't know. But all those things were piling up on him. And he got drunk one day and him and his wife were separating. And he got the gun, wouldn't let it go. She called me. and um i started talking to him and he was kind of calm for a minute and then he was just finally as i started telling him like hey you know let's he was just like look it's over man there's nothing else for me to do i'm done it's over and then next phone call i got they were arguing and then she called again and then you heard boom and then you heard the loudest scream you could ever imagine fucking hearing man and then after that that was a Sunday night I had to go to work Monday morning and went in my office to the platoon commander stuff and said hey so and so killed himself last night I've got to write a formal statement today and fax it to the detectives.

2:00:07So I won't be around for the day. And that was it. And then you don't talk about it. It's sad that they'll end up when people go into these war zones and survive up to then coming back and taking their own life, you know? It's sad and it's fucking selfish. And it's, it's, um, now it's at the point where it just pisses me off. I used to be emotional about it. I'm still emotional about it, of course. But now it just pisses me off because it's like, you know, and you probably know this too as an adult, your friends and stuff. You only hear from people when they're doing good. You don't hear from people when they're doing bad, right?

2:00:47Because they don't want to reach out because they're going through some shit. And it's, I hate to say it's up to you, but, you know, If you've got friends that you care about that you know have issues and you hadn't heard from them in two or three weeks, fucking call them. That's one thing that we try to take more ownership on, especially with the Scout Sniper Association now and running that. We put that message out all the time. Hey, hog check. We call it a hog check. Snipers in the ring corps are called hogs. A school trained sniper is a hog. Non-school trained sniper is called a pig. A hog is a hunter of gunmen.

2:01:23a pig is a professionally instructed gunman. So, um, we put it on our social media every two weeks. Hey, haul check, call the guys in your platoon, check in, you know? And that's, that's super important because you don't hear from people when they're doing bad. You only hear from them when they're doing good. Yeah. And then when something happens, you always hear that. Oh, what? So-and-so. I just talked to him. Fuck. That was eight months ago. I just talked to him. like fucking last summer you know what I mean you tend to see it's the ones with the big meerkat smile you know look at Robin Williams as well a great actor, unbelievable movies and took his own life you know you just don't know it must be such a I was an addict back in the day with drugs and gambling and I was really messed up in the head I used to think about death I used to think about it all the time but I never had the guts to actually carry through with it i used to think fuck that you know like to eventually thinking i'm done or the lights are out it must be a mad experience you know for people to and i've said it before it's probably the wrong words i wouldn't say it's the bravest thing on the planet to end your own life but it's some amount of courage to do it obviously the courage is to fight and stay on we don't want people killing themselves but to eventually decide that you're never going to play the game again and take your legs out there's some courage in that yeah you know and that's what but like you say you've you've you know i've never been suicidal but at times when i've struggled and went through some of my worst times and then you hear somebody killing themselves that you never would have expected or you hear so-and-so kill himself you know it doesn't hit home until it somebody you really know yeah you know and then once you know somebody that did it and you're like like man is that possible that my brain could do that too yeah and when you start being surrounded with death it starts making you think you know is that like could i do that too is that gonna happen to me like it's it's it's really crazy to think about that shit man it's psychological man um nobody's safe from it i don't think so you know i think so i don't think you really know what what it's gonna be yeah what's it can can change and you a lot as i think as women problems you know i was going through the family coats there for a couple of years and and i'm quite a strong character being through so much in life you know and a lot of fucking dark stuff but going through the family coats and having family issues it tested me you know it tested me thankfully i never went back drinking or taking coke but it did put me i put on a lot of weight i lost myself you know because i eat my emotions but it tests you you know and you never know what's around the corner you're a second aware one bad relationship or a death a family death to rank go fuck this people are tired as it is you know people are struggling with balls and pressure and social media and everybody's battling you know and it's always the hidden battles but obviously i think it's important to touch on this sort of stuff now all the stuff that you've seen all the stuff that you've done but to hear your friend fucking blow his brains out that's a different level of pain you know did that make you then question life even more so not that you never questioned it but you know what i'm saying like that's a lot to take it made me really start

2:05:00I'm not addressing any issues that I might have. Because when you're active, you can't mention mental health. If you mention the word mental health or I'm not right, you're done. You're ostracized. You're fucking blackballed. You're a head case. So you don't talk about it while you're in.

2:05:29which I think that's good. And yeah, it has its purpose. You don't need to do your job, you know, as that's how it is. But when you get out, you have to do it. You have to talk about it. You know, if you're going through shit, just you can't be afraid of the taboo to fucking mention it and talk about it. And there's safe places to do it. There's especially with the military. There's what's it called? The military one source, which is a, it's a free service to active duty, our vets, that you can reach out and they give you unbiased, unconnected therapy. They don't tell your command. They don't talk to your command.

2:06:11You can do those things. They give you like up to 10 sessions free or something, you know, but sometimes you have to address. And I think that's the biggest thing, just being willing to accept that you're vulnerable. Like I was never, I never want to be vulnerable in my life. I never was. But when he killed himself and I was transitioning out, having all this doubt, marriage failing, financial just turmoil, I started becoming vulnerable for the first time, you know, and I was like, fuck. And then it just took me to say, hey, something ain't right. I don't feel right. Like this isn't right like i don't i don't feel like killing myself but i wouldn't mind smashing my car into a tree and being in a hospital for a week so i don't have to talk or deal with anybody you know like just take a break from life um and when you you know that's just not normal so and i went through some but as you're going through that stuff all it does is heighten any past trauma that stuff just starts bringing its head, coming to the head, you know?

2:07:23And when I got home from, from my last tour in Afghanistan and I was, uh, back at home with my, with my wife and, you know, my ex-wife and trying to live a normal life, I couldn't do it. And I was so anxious at night that I couldn't sleep first off but i could not sleep unless i had a knife if i could if i could not open my hand and touch a knife or open my hand and touch a sword a dagger or a sword or something that i had keep beside my bed by my nightstand i could not sleep unless i could just grab it and that freaked the hurt the fuck out you know and you hear a sound like the ice maker go off you know ice ball and i'm like dead sleep to where i'm knife out of the bed every room of the house out the front door around the house back in the front door right back to bed without even and she'd just be sitting up in the bed when i got back in bed like you all right everything good yeah i heard something good yeah that's good that actually ain't normal you know like and uh i never i thought oh this is how it is you're a sniper you're supposed to be vigilant you know i'm just being vigilant at night protecting my family no that ain't fucking normal normal people don't fucking do that you know and um so i just had to start talking about it and realize that i got some issues and it and it wasn't all because all the horrible shit i did in combat and killing people it's just dealing with shit you know and everybody's trauma is vibe nobody's trauma is less in value or whatever you know trauma is trauma that's what i'm saying like yeah policemen a nurse military somebody was sexually assaulted trauma is trauma and you know your trauma is no different anybody else's and it's it's important that you address it how are you feeling now by speaking out and trying to address it and face it head on did you feel a relief did you feel the weight off your shoulders i felt a big relief off my shoulders um because i can open up and like be vulnerable and not care like i don't care i did what i did i had a great career nobody can take that from me if you think that i'm a bitch because i said i had ptsd and had issues then that's a you problem yeah it's not yeah i don't think anybody can call you that brother but you know i'm saying yeah yeah but that's what you think as a guy yeah nah and um that's braver than anything being a fucking alpha male that is vulnerable you know and it doesn't mean that you're weak it just means that you're aware which I think is important but like you said there's so much ego there's so much pride and to show vulnerability people they see it as a weakness I struggle with vulnerability because everything's fine fine fine but you actually sit with yourself and ask yourself the question am I fucking fine you think nah but again it's difficult for anybody to go and seek help because like you say everybody's trauma is differently people get life sentences from things they've been through as kids you know but the wonderful thing is people can use that trauma as a sort of reflection that people can change and you're not alone you know like so many people and that's why people who go to meetings and GA or NA or CA or whatever it is and it shows you these people doing these meetings 10-20 years of speaking about it how it can change their life you know and you don't have to sit in misery you can rewire the brain you can change how you think and feel it just takes time stay with it stay consistent and just try your hardest not to pull the curtains closed you know because you will be missed and a lot of people think they're alone you know like people genuinely would miss you and it's sad to think that a lot of people who do take their own life as well they just don't want to speak out because they feel as if they're burdening everybody else with their problems you know and sometimes it's important to fucking just make the phone call but again it's okay that me and you are trying to do our best but some people just don't feel they have the strength to speak out but you can find that and it's not your fault if somebody does do it you know that's another thing I've realized that now that there's nothing that I could have said that night to stop him.

2:11:59Did you have blame on yourself? I did. I did. I was like, what could I have said? What should I have answered the phone that second time? You know, should I have? I knew he was going through some shit. Should I have called him a week before? You know, should I have went down there and seen him? Just had the same thing happen with another good friend of ours. It was a stud, a stud. But as soon as he got out, Um, he just was just enveloped by addiction. And he, for the last 10 years, 15 years, he's been in and out of rehab, in and out of rehab. Couldn't have a normal life whatsoever. Just deep in addiction.

2:12:43And he was finally seemed like he was getting through the kind of waking back up to normal life. Like, all right, this ain't the way to live. Let me start trying to do something. And he started reaching out to me. and so us with the scouts neighbor association we helped him we put him in a hotel for a week we um helped him pay the deposit on a house so he could get into a house he was going to therapy rehab you know he was doing all these things he got a job finally working at a restaurant and um

2:13:16you know a week later his dad calls me and like hey jt i know you guys have been helping chris a lot I just want to let you know we found him dead yesterday. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm like, man, should I have just drove down there when he was going through this shit and met with him and just took him under my wing? Like, hey, it's coming to me. Let's go do something. Let's, you know, was me just talking to him on the phone and texting? Was that not enough? Should I have, you know what I mean? what could I have done there ain't shit I could have done you know and that's just when people decide it's time there's nothing that can be said because they feel a relief yeah I worked for Chrissy's house which is a 24-7 suicide centre we used to have people come in the door with rope burns on their neck where the rope used to snap but one of the kids did say as soon as he tried to hang himself his first his first reaction was I still want to be here.

2:14:23I don't want to do it. Thankfully the rope snap, but I think people don't get that realization. You know, some people are in just so much pain mentally that they just want to get away from it, you know? And you can never blame yourself for reaching out and trying because we can't save the world. You know, the main thing is to save ourselves. How's life like now? How do you balance it out? Man, I couldn't to go from where I came from, my childhood, to the military, the things I've done, the life I've lived, to being where I am today, I couldn't have wrote a better story. You know what I mean? I mean, my life now is basically like a dream, man.

2:15:04I've got the best wife you could ever imagine, the most beautiful kids you could ever imagine. You know, they all love me unconditionally. The same, you know, and we're just blessed beyond means with, with family and, um, it's going great, you know, running this association for the last two years, you know, as the president, being able to help other snipers and give back and pull guys out of the gutter that are hurting. And, um, it's just such a, I don't know, it's like a 360, you know what I mean? And then, you know, now I said, you know, I worked for the government for years and then resigned and I live in Germany now.

2:15:56You know, we just relocated to Germany. My wife's military still. So she, she got orders to Germany and, um, I left the government and started a new career, uh, doing like defense sales. Now I'm like a regional account manager for Europe. Um, so I'm living in Germany, traveling all over Europe, now with the family and a great new job new career and you know things are going great do you think it's easier for your wife because the life that you've led to understand you a bit more because people who are not sort of serving or doing that sort of stuff it must be difficult to be around not having some sort of just of what you've actually been through it's a lot easier being with somebody in the military for sure because she gets a lot of it you know um Um, and yeah, she's just, she's just, you know, people in the military are just very resilient, you know, and pick it up and going and doing things on the fly.

2:16:56Um, don't stress her out, you know, so it's, it's pretty great. And she's, she's down for the adventure too, you know, and we're, and, um, she's like my cheerleader too, you know, that's what you need. Yeah. I think that's important for a man is to have someone because we have down days sometimes we don't want to speak about it but it's just knowing that somebody's present and not giving you any more shit the last thing you need is having the weight of the world on your shoulders going home and it's even more pressure you know somebody to understand it yes we fuck up from time to time we're human but just having that presence everything's going to be okay sometimes that's all a man needs to give him more energy to kick on to the next day you know yeah um but for anybody who's watching brother who's in a lethal struggle what advice would you have for them if you're going through anything and you it you come to a realization at any point that you don't feel right don't be afraid to reach out to somebody reach out to someone and address it because if you don't address issues it just gets worse you know i think that's a big thing that people you know live with their whole life but you know it's no different than not paying that parking ticket it's gonna explain it's gonna get worse but that's that's one thing and then also um just not being afraid to to go for what you want to do and think about other people's opinions all the time that's the that's a big thing about me putting myself out there now and telling stories and being on podcast and, you know, being the face of this association is, um, it's, you still got haters, you know, and those people, you can't let them affect what you're doing and your path.

2:18:47Um, that's, that's something I struggled with is even telling these stories and coming out there just because, you know, especially right now, the military veteran community and the military influencer community is facing a lot of blowback from guys out there claiming like the stolen valor shit and guys on they have big podcasts and big followings that are full of shit starting to come out now you know so it's making a lot of vets not want to tell their stories even more because they don't want criticism and like I say it's my story I don't give a fuck what you think about it yeah fuck everybody else you're going to be criticised no matter who you're fighting for who you support what you're doing I put a post on my Instagram about a terrorist who says he was the ringleader of the London bombings he got 20 years the judges just says I wish him all the best for the future he's getting released people were in the comments saying I'm being a paid show this and that I'm just promoting someone who's a British terrorist that's going to be wandering our fucking streets who was involved in, he was setting up tenorist training camps in America.

2:20:02He got 20 odd years, he's just getting released and the judge says, I wish you all the best for the future. What the fuck is going on? Yeah. You know, and people are criticising me. British people. I'm thinking, where's your head at? But I get it, people see the world, everybody's different, but I'm just trying to shed more light on how fucked up the system is, you know? Yeah. For people who maybe wants to contact you, maybe ask her a bit of advice, whose members struggling, how can they get in contact? So with the USMC Scout Sniper Association, we have a website called scoutsniper.org, scoutsniper.org.

2:20:37You can go there and see everything about our association if you want to donate. Everything, we're a complete nonprofit 503C. Not a dime goes to anybody on our board of directors. Every dime that we bring in goes straight towards providing services for Marine Scout snipers and their families. However that is, we have to do it. And also holding events to get snipers reconnected. We call them hog calls when they're like gatherings, like basically mini reunions. We do those a lot. But really it's just about honoring the legacy, making sure that the stories are told, making sure that we're taking care of their families and the snipers.

2:21:20And then, of course, I have all my own personal social media, as you can put that in the comments. But, you know, I'm doing a lot of stuff. And I'm just glad that you let me come and tell my story and tell the world about the Scout Sniper Association and the legacy we've left throughout the conflicts in the world. thoroughly enjoyed it brother again thank you for your service thank you for your honesty anything i can ever hit with in the future you have my number would you like to finish up on anything else jt one more thing so we do have a new um we're trying to build a fallen sniper war memorial like a monument or a statue and we've got the site picked for that it's in quantico virginia um it's a big fundraising undertaking that we're trying to do and it's slow processed to raise money for something like that.

2:22:18And we created, with that initiative and wanting to do that, we created a sister organization to the Scout Sniper Association called the Marine Scout Sniper Heritage Foundation. And the Marine Scout Sniper Heritage Foundation, their purpose and mission is to do a comprehensive research, documentation, study of all the Marine Scout snipers from World War I all the way to the present, who they were, who died, who died in the server in a sniper billet in the Marines, and catalog all that stuff, and basically build a history for us. That's one mission. Another mission is to build that statue, fundraise and get that done.

2:23:06so that's the Marine Scout Sniper Heritage Foundation and that's another initiative that we have right now that we're trying to raise money for anything you set your mind to you seem to achieve but Jay listen for coming on today again I thoroughly enjoyed it keep up the great work and I wish you nothing but the best for the future brother God bless thanks man