WEBVTT

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mm . All right . Can you start off by

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spelling your first and last name for

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Jessie J E S S E . Walden W A L

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D E N . And you're a sergeant . And

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what's your ability to build a is

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company chief scout , which is

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basically the guide of an infantry

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battalion for the airline companies .

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Uh , SR 0311 of the company . And

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what's your , what's your hometown ?

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Hometown is Muskogee Oklahoma . It's

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not Thailand . Yes .

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Um ,

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how what were your expectations of what

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was going to happen in borrowing shaw

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and kind of compare that with what the

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reality was ? Well , I've been through

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a couple battles in Iraq and come

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through here . My expectations were a

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lot different than I actually turned

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out . It wasn't really up front in your

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face , Close range fighting a lot more

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of his a at a distance . Uh , we were

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able to identify targets at ranges and

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they were trying to attack us from

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ranges . Uh , the difference was , is

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uh , we had a little bit more time to

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react and to make a better decision as

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far as right in your face . Just going

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off your instincts a little bit time to

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kind of decide what to do More than

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normal , what you would in a straight

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up in your face , 300 yards or less

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fight . Have a lot of your marines

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or have a lot of the , the guys in this

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company , Ben in those other fights

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like you were talking about ? Not

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really . We had a really young company

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coming this time to Afghanistan . Uh ,

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I've been around this battalion for

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like the last seven years . So all the

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way up from O . F . Two . All the way

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up until the last time we left . And

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then coming here , my expectations were

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a lot different . As far as you know ,

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the stories you hear from the other

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earlier . You don't just left from

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Afghanistan . Uh Getting here is kind

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of boring at first during the

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interdiction piece . And then uh we got

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into some more ops more dismounted ops

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uh started finding more stuff I . E .

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Ds . Drug cash A's uh one or two

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weapons caches and stuff like that . Uh

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Coming down off my met T into bottom

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shaw . Uh That's exactly what I

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expected him to do was to stay towards

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the mountains and co locate and hide

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within the buildings in the towns . Uh

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Not really come out and try to fight us

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face to face . All right . And I was

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just reacting to them and they always

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have a vote . So yeah .

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Uh So you got all these young guys ?

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How ? So for a lot of us , probably a

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taste of any kind of uh What do you

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think They uh they did ? Well , I mean

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before we came down , we had a training

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package , you know , and I was going

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over rates of fire and stuff like that

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because when I was a young marine , uh

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my first contact , you know , I didn't

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do anything with my races . Fire except

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for shoot everything I had . So they

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did . Well they kept their sectors

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covered each other's back and uh it was

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appropriate . Fire didn't waste a lot

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of rounds and I did what they had to do

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uh talk about like uh we had a lot of

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supporting arms going on there too . I

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mean pretty much everything that we had

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to throw at the enemy high bars ,

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artillery , mortars here , support . Um

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I mean have you have you seen that use

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before ? Kind of like that ? And I have

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seen that use before like that . It was

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really good because we did a r mojave

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viper was real , real heavy on the

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supporting arms aspect and uh we got a

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chance to actually use our fifth team

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and uh The company , the line platoons ,

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individual marines are identifying

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targets , passing it up for our 15 to

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use those supporting arms . Uh air the

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RT 81s , they're all working

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appropriately , all on target . We had

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good target locations so it's very

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effective for us . Uh huh . In 20 years

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time . Let's see um

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As far as like the interdiction stuff ,

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can you kind of talk about what that's

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been like for you guys like this thus

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far in your deployment . Uh the

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interdiction pieces , it's kind of

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those things that you have to do , you

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know , it disrupts the enemy's freedom

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of movement . Uh We don't always find

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stuff , a lot of it is just people

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traveling back and forth . You really

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don't know who they are . Each time

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someone gets out it's a little bit

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different Their little story ? Uh a lot

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of times they'll tell you stuff you

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don't want to hear and you do want to

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hear . It's just one of those pieces

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that you have to be patient with and

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work through it and continue to do it

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because if you don't they have the

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freedom movement to move up any of

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these lines go wherever they want . So

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just by us being out there it disrupts

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them . And how many you guys been doing

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a lot of interdicting during the

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employment like how many how long have

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you guys been doing that for and how

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much how many have you done of roughly

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the first three months ? All the

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company has been out there doing it

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just our pretend alone , we conducted

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more than 300 snap V . C . Ps . Uh More

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than 1500 personnel searches . The

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majority of stuff we found was just

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goods coming back and forth . We did

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find some uh fertilizer but it was a

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legal kind but you can still use that

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to make IEDs and the way is coming

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across was in bulk . So we're just

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trying to figure out how they're using

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it . You know how much they need to

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plant and stuff like that and then just

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establishing a pattern of life which

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routes they're using which routes are

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not using and that's where we set up

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and how do you think ? I mean ,

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obviously , you guys are gonna stay

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farther south now , doing those

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interdictions , would a how do you

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think that that mission is going to

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change now , a little bit back in the

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wake of the attack on uh , at first , I

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think people are gonna be hesitant of

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us just because we did go down there .

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So they know what we're capable of as

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far as our firepower and what we have

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to offer . So even civilians traveling

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through the area are gonna be weary of

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us and might try to steer away from us .

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But overall is where we're going to do

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is disrupt the enemy . And even

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sometimes when we disrupt civilian life ,

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it disrupts the enemy life . Um , you

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kind of talk real quick about

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it's um , I mean , do you think that ,

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you know the mission down there was a

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success ? I mean , why I do , I do

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think that we showed our hand to the

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enemy and they know that uh they don't

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need a mess around and they know that

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we know that stuff's going on right

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there on the border and into Pakistan .

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Uh , we did see a lot of people coming

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from Pakistan into Afghanistan to fight

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us . So I do believe that they know

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they know everything . So It was a

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success for us . Uh , obviously ,

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assess for us . We didn't take any

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casualties at all going in or coming

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out and killed 32 guys . So it's a

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good day when people are guys don't get

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hurt . Good day when our guys don't get

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hurt . All right . Do you have anything

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that you want to add about ? Got the

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plumbing in or ? Now ? I'm good .