WEBVTT

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um Well tell me I just kinda wanna get

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an idea of what you've been doing and

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how long have you been over there ? We

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have been in country for 10 months .

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We've been away from home for 12 . And

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we most of us have gone on leave . That

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was nice . Um

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mainly we work with finding

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uh when they find caches we report out

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there collected , destroy it , going

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to scenes to check out I . E . D . S .

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Um possibly anything , recipe .

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Yeah , ideas , improvised explosive

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device . And the cachet is just a large

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collection of weapons , mortars ,

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anything that would injure us . So we

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go grab that . Okay well in the time

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that you've been there 10 months that

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you've been in country , what what

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what's the experience been like ? Uh

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It's not

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as good as home . That's for sure . Um

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One place where at is barely any trees

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about the environment . It's green for

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a little while and then it son comes

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out and heat comes and then it all

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burns up so that stinks . But

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the actual experience

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um I haven't really been able

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to intermingle too much with the

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community except for some of the

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smaller towns where there's not as much

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of a threat . When there's not so much

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a threat . You can talk to whomever .

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You still keep your guard up but get to

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interact with more of the community

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when you're in the largest cities . You

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can't really take that chance . Can you

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talk to me a little bit about your last

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assignment . The last thing you all

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were out doing . Yeah that's cool .

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Uh latest thing we did that we've

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completed was the bridge

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security which sure you guys started

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playing about a little action there ?

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Which was kind of fun but uh I don't

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talk to some people haven't heard about

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that particular . Uh huh .

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All right , well I don't talk too much

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of the bad things that happened just

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for the sake of my mom probably

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watching . So it went smoothly

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and there were some injuries . But

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those who attended to and we basically

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reported out there and we secured

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bridges to keep the west side from

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the insurgents on the west side from

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getting into the east side , localized

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them and do the best that we could and

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finding them and trying to get rid of

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them . What about the insurgents that

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you come across ? Uh What uh those

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kind of confrontation been like for you

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hurting ? Well

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uh

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it's been uh I think a lot of times are

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are groups or convoys don't doesn't

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suddenly they get attacked as much some

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of the others and I'm grateful for that

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for the protection that we've had . Um

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But when we do have contact a lot of

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times they like to shoot at us run

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away , they don't really faces like men .

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Um So that's kind of annoying

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because when you're getting shot at or

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I . E . D . S improvised explosive

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device takes you you kind of want to

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retaliate . So if they're not around

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it's pretty frustrating . So so how do

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you do you feel like you kind of take

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it all in stride ? I get kind of comes

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with the job , but people are shooting

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that things are blowing up and it just

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kind of is almost normal or what is it ?

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It becomes normal really . You get used

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to it a lot of times when hear mortars

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coming in , it's just like , what are

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you going to do ? So you

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just , I mean , you take cover when

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they're , when they're close , but I

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mean when they're off in the distance ,

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they really don't faze you anymore .

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Most people at least . Um , and I have

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to ask you one of the uh , one of the

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stories that kind of came out of Iraq

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uh , on the news here in the last week

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was a question about armor on vehicles

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and when you go into areas where there

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might be combat whether or not , you

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know , Children over there are armor or

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not . Um , what do you think about that ?

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I think earlier in the war there was

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um , some problems there , but recently

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all the vehicles we've been taken out

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of the well armored , in my opinion , I

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feel safe and in the sense of I E .

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Ds , regardless of what you have ,

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there is a threat there . But when

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you're rolling down the street through

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a convoy with a convoy , you know ,

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your buddies got the other sector

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covered anyway . So he just kind of

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trust that he's got that covered ? So

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we feel pretty secure in my opinion .

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What would you say is the most

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difficult part about with , uh ,

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whether it's personal with or dealing

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with a particular aspect of what goes

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on in the war .

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Well ,

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I don't know if you want to hear this

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or not , but when I was doing , I was

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talking to a few of my college friends

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and uh , when I got back in that

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environment , which I'm from Virginia

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Tech , by the way , if anyone's

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listening . So a whole anyway ,

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um , I told them , you know , it's

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pretty stressful environment , all

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these classes and everything , they

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just started getting because , you know ,

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I'm over here getting shot at and

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everything , but you get used to that

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part . And once you get past the mental

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thought that you get shot at , you just

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accept that . So when it comes to

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actually being attacked , um , to me ,

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that's not really stressful anymore .

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Especially with all the prayers coming

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from home , I feel pretty confident

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over here . And a lot of

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times believe it or not , some of the

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hardest things are dealing with the

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same people for a long time . There's a

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lot of , uh , difficulties . They're

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getting stuck with someone 24 7 for a

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year . Uh , I don't

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think God intended that . So ,

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uh , that's probably the roughest part ,

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but you learn to work through that and

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uh , set aside your differences and

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work together . A , uh ,

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uh , a hard thing for

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him . You know you spend time with

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you kind of a

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and sometimes you're in situations

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where you lose people have you had to

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deal with anything like that ?

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The only a lot of the people that we

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worked with , you know , we've

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experienced people in different

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battalions and brigades where there had

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been deaths or serious injuries . Um

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None of my close friends have been

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terribly injured . Um I . E . Ds with

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shrapnel wounds and things like that .

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But uh you know doctors take care of

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that . So uh there was one soldier who

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were out in a mountain town and he got

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shot three times I believe and it was

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kind of crazy . Um We had the

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experience was me and three other guys

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who lifted the stretcher brought him to

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the helicopter and medevac him out

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and that was an experience that was

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strange . I was you know , I knew the

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guy from working with him in the gym

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and heard that he was going fine now .

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So that's awesome . But being around

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that , the injury aspect is the

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strangest part probably to deal with