Close-Quarters Battle In Fallujah | Afghanistan Chaos | 2X Purple Heart Recipient 🇺🇸

Dude I need on this channel. We lost 8 guys one day to a 2000 pound IED in Afghanistan in 2009. It was the most horrific thing I ever saw in my life. And the smell of burning flesh of Americans made me pass out I was 19 years old. 1-17in 2nd sbct cco 2 platoon

He’s one of the main reasons why I pursued infantry in the Marine Corps 2014 1/3 lava dogs! He was the head recruiter at the time I was joining the Poole program.

I served in Vietnam in 1968 / 69 3rd Battalion L company 1/5. I fought at the Battle of Hue City. I was 17 years old at the time and didn't know shit. I'd been involved in a couple of small actions But Hue city was my wake up call. Urban combat is no fucking joke. The enemy, VC and Nva were in prepared fighting position and they took it to us. Without air support we'd of been fucked. Lost a lot of buddies in that action. It was close to 150 Kia and over 1,000 wounded. Not a day goes by that I don't think of my buddies and that God awful battle I can relate to everything this young warrior is saying. Semper Fi brother.

The reverse psychology of the Corps is absolutely true. I walked into the recruiter and he said “What can you do for us today?”

I wish the politicians would watch interviews like this before sending men to war, and before pulling out of the places they fought for.

I had the honor of serving with Gunny Praxedes for a couple days at the time he was an E6. From what I remember one of the best, humblest and funniest Marines I had the pleasure of working with. He left a positive impression on me as a young E5 in a short amount of time. Glad to see him doing well randomly on the internet. Semper Fi brother

That's a Marine warfighter, 110 proof. I can relate to everything he says, 55 years after my own tour in the Corps. We are timeless, as Marine combatants. Stay in touch with the Marine inside you, Gunny - it's an integral part of you, a source of strength when you need it. God bless you, man. Live your life in part honor of those who are gone too soon, you're keeping them alive in memory. To be forgotten is like being left behind on the battlefield.

This is one of the heaviest interview's i've ever seen. Thank you both for sharing.

Wow. I “met” him through IG during the Afghanistan pullout trying to get out translators, allies, ANA etc. Such a great, great man. He NEVER gave up, literally I don’t think he slept for a solid two weeks. He helped SO many. I’m so glad to hear his full story here.

This man is an incredible American. Thank God he has been able to find meaning and purpose after these traumatic life changing experiences.

I couldn’t have more respect for this Devil Dog. As a fellow Marine I couldn’t be prouder. Semper Fi

Hogan was a damn good man. You wouldn’t remember me man, but we were the trackers attached to y’all in Sangin, patrolling the 605. They wouldn’t bring tracks to afghan due to the safer MRAPs so we just attached to y’all. I was with Baker the day he stepped on the IED that took his life after leaving OP Brannon. That day still haunts me. I was medivaced in October after my 3rd hit, but those 5 months with y’all are the proudest days of my life. Semper fi brother.

So I did my tour in Nangarhar province from August of 2010 to 2011 (101st), "The Surge." Some of the things he said confirmed my experiences as well, especially about the Iraq enemy being the JV squad and the Afghans being the Varsity. It was my first and only deployment, but most of our guys had multiple deployments, we had a Samoan guy on #7. About Two months in one of our section sergeants, on his 4th tour after three in Iraq, looked off into the distance with wide eyes and said to himself: "...I thought the Iraqis were bad..." I too at least initially, walked around with candy in my pockets for the kids...that all stopped. I remember one time in particular, our platoon was rolling between two hills (MRAPs) and there were some stones and garbage in the narrow road which caused us to slow down and move around them. As we did, some kids appeared at the top of one of the hills and bombarded us with large rocks when our dismounts got out to move the road blocks. I just remember thinking: "these little fuckers are practicing to be future Taliban, and they're practicing their ambushing skills." + I had some of the exact same experiences as this guy in terms of monitoring the kids. The kids would tell you everything you needed to know about the village. I am haunted still by what one of our terps told me: "What you are doing here will never work, you are too nice and my people only understand violence." What are we supposed to do? Kill you all? Our intel guys let us down, we never really understood that place or how complicated it was. Cultural relativism has no place there, if you think every culture is equally good and beautiful go to this poop-hole for a year, it will cure you. I would love to send all the hippies and lefties there for a year so they can gain a better understanding of how lucky we all are to not live there, or a place like that. Maybe then, they will have a little less loathing for their country. I now wake up every day and thank God for my good fortune. If there is a more complicated place on earth, I wouldn't know where that would be. What those people do to themselves is worse than whatever we did to them.

Hi, I’m Canadian 🇨🇦❤️🇺🇸 God Bless this man & God Bless Our Troops.

This interview left me speechless. I have so much respect for all those who have served especially ones who were deployed and fought. I’m enlisting in the corps, I want to be alongside these men fighting with them. Thank you for service for all marines.

I wasn’t a grunt, and my experience in Iraq wasn’t nearly as bad as the stories told here. It’s men like him, that make me even more proud of being a Marine. Semper Fi.

For all who served I thank you!

Every morsel of respect that I can offer goes to this man

SEMPER FIDELIS THOMAS thank you for words and your time spent I'm greatful for its gonna help me bear the weight of the issues still troubling me and boost my positive needs of pride of my marine crops values I've held on to for good in my life time it was the greatest time of my life

It’s crazy to hear the stories straight from a guy in the unit that relieved us in 2010. I still remember the day that 1stSgt Carlisle got wounded. Sangin was a hell of a fight.