Andrew Morris

Interviewer: I'll wait 'til we're rolling?

Assistant: We are rolling.

Interviewer: Okay wonderful, thank you. Okay so, my name is Evan Reibsome and today is November 3rd. It is 3:16 in the afternoon. And I am sitting down with Andrew Morris and he's agreed to be interviewed for the Veterans Empathy Project. And Andrew, as I was just mentioning to you, this interview basically there's three major parts. The first part will be a focus on your upbringing, you know where you're from, what growing up was like. Second part will be your military service, your military experience. And then the third part will be about your transition back to the civilian life.

Andrew: Okay.

Evan: And you know how the transitions going and anything else that you might, you know be able to say about that process. So it's a pretty open conversation

Andrew: Alright.

Evan: And I thought we could start by just, you could tell us where you're from and when you were born.

Andrew: Alright, I was born October 20th 1989. And born and raised around the area of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. So it's a rural suburb of 1:00Philadelphia, about an hour outside the city. Had a very extended family. Separate household, mother and father were split, but I had extended family there to help fill in the gaps, where there were gaps. So I have three aunts and a great aunt and my grandmother were all local in the area. So, I might've bounced around a bit, but I had the full family support there to really help out the network.

Evan: Um-hmm, um-hmm.

Andrew: Yeah so.

Evan: And you have siblings?

Andrew: It wasn't until much, much later in life. There's a large gap. So I have a 11 year old brother and a 12 year old sister. So I'm 27 myself, so there's a 15, 16 year gap there between the two of them.

Evan: Okay. So you said your parents split up but you had an extended family

Andrew: Yes.

Evan:growing up. So did both of your parents live in Potts, was it Pottsville?

Andrew: Pottstown.

Evan: Pottstown, yeah.

Andrew: Pottstown, so yeah. They both, they lived close enough to, I did weeks with my mother and weekends with my father. So there was still the communication there. There was still, I got to see both parents. I got to see both sides of the family. So it was a pretty average, normal American childhood growing up. Nothing really outlier that would you know, make my decision to join or anything any more relevant than anything else.

Evan: Um-hmm. So you said it's not like a standard childhood growing up. What were you like, you know as a young man, as a teenager? I mean what was school like? Were you in sports? Were you in activities?

Andrew: Lot of sports until about 16 and then I became very independent. Sorta, co-living on my own. So while my father was paying for a lease for a house that he wasn't really living in and then I sort of moved in and was paying all the other bills. So from the time I was 16 years old, I was working 60 hours a week, 40 hours a week on the clock, on the ticket. And then I did an internship at the same place I 3:00worked for 20 hours a week, through my school. So I did like a work study through high school. So that got me my 20 hours a week and then working full time got me my 40 hours a week. So I was pulling 60 hours a week my junior and senior year of high school and living on my own.

Evan: Wow.

Andrew: So it was, independence and freedom. And it was growing up just knowing that, hey you have to do this, you have to pay bills, like you have to be an adult.

Evan: And what kind of job was that?

Andrew: That was a TGI Friday's. I was working as a manager, like during my internship, like my I don't know, restaurant management skills. And then I was working as a server and bartender when I wasn't in the manager role. So it was tips, food industry, fast-paced, you know I don't know. A lot of memory skills, a lot of working with people. And I don't know, got my social skills up I guess.

Evan: Um-hmm.

Andrew: So be able to identify a problem, if there is a problem and find a way to fix it or you know fix it yourself or know who can fix it 4:00for you.

Evan: So you said like growing up, I mean you were active in sports or something like that, but then when you got to 16 approximately, you really took on this additional kind of more occupational burden.

Andrew: Yup.

Evan: Was that hard for you to balance, I mean school and that? That's quite a workload.

Andrew: It sort of came naturally. I've always been fast-paced. I've always been involved in more than just school. It just hasn't been school and family. So there's always been activities in there. I was, you know I did Boy Scouts for a little bit. I was always cross country or soccer or baseball. There was always more than just simple school, family or there was always another activity in there, another something to keep me active, keep me going. It was always bouncing around from one thing, to the next, to the next. So there was always a sense of drive. So (coughs) when it came to work it just, it was natural. School, work, home. Do what I have to do to get to the next 5:00point. And it was just a steady flow. It was a constant bouncing from one thing to the next, to the next and you just keep going until the day is done. And that's I don't know, that's my transition throughout my entire life. It's always go, go, go, go, go. Okay time to rest and that's just how, that's how I've been and how, I don't know, how it works.

Evan: When you were doing this, I mean working 40 hours and then doing a 20 hour intern, was your initial vision that you were going to pursue that career after high school?

Andrew: There was an interest in it or there was an interest in business, the business aspect of it. And you know, how to make money, but it was never the food industry. The food industry wasn't my interest, it was the whole business aspect of it. Of could I run a business by myself? Or could I be a manager of my own business? Or my own whatever I wanted to do in life? And so that was the interest of it. And the interest is always money, money, the root of all evil, is what I was really going for there. So I was making, I got my taste of the independence, like I had said, and independence comes with a price. So if you want to maintain that independence and then maintain that you 6:00know sense of individualism, you need to be able to afford the luxuries in life. So it was doing it for the money, so you could pay for the car, pay for the gas or go and do fun things, you know when you do have some time off.

Evan: Um-hmm, um-hmm.

Andrew: That's what it boiled down to, to me was I can do this so I could have my freedom and have my independence and be on my own.

Evan: Was that independence and that freedom that you're describing or that urge for that kind of independence, was that expected by your parents? In hindsight, do you think? Were they encouraging you to do this?

Andrew: I don't really think they were encouraging me for it. I mean, they allowed it to happen. And I'm sure if I wasn't able to do it on my own, they obviously would have stepped in and helped out. But it was very much of, that's sort of how I learn, like big overall life 7:00lessons is I'm, you know fed to the wolves and I come out, you know you come out a wolf. You get put in this situation and you rise to meet it. You rise to the occasion. You rise to the situation and you find a way to excel or succeed or do well or at least maintain a baseline of hey, this is the situation I have and I'm gonna go out and make it happen. And that got more enhanced when you join the military and their mindset. But growing up it was, as long as I was doing well and I wasn't failing out of school, I sort of, I was free-range parenting. It was as long as I wasn't into drugs or doing anything stupid or getting arrested or getting in trouble, I was allowed to do what I wanted. And living on my own, it was working for me. I wasn't getting into trouble and they sort of let me just do what I was doing. So it was good. It was free-range parenting, but it was done right.

Evan: Um-hmm. So what made you then, first initially you know think about joining the military? What put it on your radar, so to speak? Do 8:00you have family in the military? Would they encourage you at all?

Andrew: No, I wouldn't say that, I don't have family in the military, I had a great uncle that served in the Navy, but did not have a good experience, and then I had one of my cousins join around the same time I did, and once again, he had a negative experience in the Marines. It wasn't really encouraged, I was seen as an outsider for desiring that, but I was always told one of two things, like when you're growing up, you either go to college, or you join the military. You need to do something. You can't just sit at home and do nothing. It was a constant drive to go and do something. At the time, I didn't think I was smart enough to go to college and to get any sort of academic scholarship. That wasn't an option for me. I was smart, but I wasn't smart enough to get any sort of academic scholarships to go to school. 9:00So (coughs), I decided that I wanted to join the service and my extended family, not my immediate family, my extended family, my aunts and everyone convinced me not to join. I was actually promised up to $10,000 to not join the military and to go to college, we're gonna give you $10,000 to go to college. So I applied to Penn State, I applied to Kutztown, I applied to a few other state schools, and my acceptance letter came in from Kutztown and I remember my father's first words were, "No shit!" He was in disbelief that I actually got in, let alone that it was a state school and that I was accepted and ready to go. No one was prepared for me to go to school. Everyone thought that I would go right into the workforce or right into the military. So I went to Kutztown, the first semester I needed $500 and all those promises of money, of the $10,000 that I was promised were all pipe dreams. There was nothing there. So then it all came out of my pocket. I took on the student loans and all the personal debt to put myself through college, and it got to the point of my sophomore year, first 10:00semester of my sophomore year, where I was working harder, still at a TGI Friday's, serving and trying to do the management thing, and working 40 plus hours a week, but then still going to school and actually having to try academically and actually having to try at school before I realized that I was working harder to pay for it, and I was working harder to try to actually get the grades I needed to stay in. And that just led to a culminating event, where I was, I couldn't do it. I couldn't work to pay for it and work to be there. It wasn't a failure, it was just a realization that I needed help, so I went to plan B, the military, and that was the start of that. That was, it wasn't an irrational decision, but it was very quick transition for me getting in. It was, hey, this isn't working, I need to transition out. I need to do something else. I was probably the easiest recruit ever. I went in there, asked 'em what was leaving next, and signed my 11:00contract, and within a month, I was out the door and on basic training.

Evan: Let me, this is, all that's very interesting, I want to talk about specific parts of that. I just want to back up a little bit. Can you give me some idea on the dates here? So 1989 you were born, when did you graduate high school?

Andrew: I graduated in August of 2008.

Evan: Okay

Andrew: Attended Cookstown from 2008 to 2010 and about June, it was before June because I didn't quite finish, I didn't take the finals of the fall semester, or of the spring semester, in June. I didn't take the finals, I left before that, and I shipped out in June of 2010. I think July 20th is when I first swore in to the military.

Evan: And so the military, so you go to Kutzown in 2008, you work on that, but at the same time you're juggling kind of working in the 12:00restaurant industry still.

Andrew: Yeah.

Evan: That burden, 'cause you're working full time as a Kutztown student?

Andrew: Yeah, full time student, full time employed.

Evan: Okay.

Andrew: I know people do it, but it was, I don't know if it was my timing, or my time, it was my, I was immature, it was a lack of time management, it was a lack of really desire to be in school. I really didn't want, I wanted the education, 'cause that's what I was told I needed and that's what everyone tells, you need the degree, but I, me personally, as an individual, I didn't want it. So it was lack of drive, I guess, and distractions, you know, I've never been in a social environment like college before, so I was all over the place. I was out at parties and meeting new people and interesting people, and then, I just wasn't, there was no focus. Time management right out the window. If I wasn't at work, I was hanging out with friends and then, if I made it to class, if I made it to class, I would go to class, 13:00but most of the time I didn't even go to class. So I'm paying all this money, and I'm not actually using it.

Evan: Um-hmm.

Andrew: (coughs) That was the worst part.

Evan: So when you initially then think of, I'm gonna go in the military, what were you thinking at that time? Was it like, I'm gonna go in the military that's a different course in my life? Or, I'm gonna go in the military and that eventually will help me go back to college, I'll be able to pay for it?

Andrew: It wasn't to go, I don't think it was to go back at first, I thought I was gonna make a career out of the military, but the way I went into the military, it wasn't, I didn't gear myself, I didn't set myself up for success going in. So I didn't go and get a job or an MOS that I wanted, I just went for what was available and what was leaving. So I didn't set myself up for a career in the military, but I did, when I was signing up, I made sure I had the GI Bill. It wasn't the student loan repayment, 'cause I only owed $16,000 for my first time at Cookstown, and I mean, I could get $70,000 in the GI Bill, or they would've completely repaid all of my student debt, but it was 14:00only, it wasn't that much. So I could've repaid my student debt and then I'd still have the money when I got out. So I did set myself up for that, but the plan wasn't four years and done.

Andrew: The plan wasn't, I'm gonna do four years just to go back to school, 'cause at that time I left, I wasn't, I still didn't want school. I didn't want the education. I didn't want the degree. I just wanted to work and to be able to make the money to provide for myself, and the military was a career and an outlet to do that.

Evan: What, so you talked to a recruiter, like around the Kutztown area?

Andrew: Yeah, so it was actually out of Pottstown, because my family was in Pottstown. I was always back and forth because I worked in Potts Town. It was back and forth between Pottstown and Kutztown, after work one day I stopped by a recruiter and talked to him briefly. I said it was less than 30 days from the time I initially saw a recruiter, to the time they were taking me to the MEPS to go through the 15:00whole process to get enlisted.

Evan: And this was an army recruiter?

Andrew: Army recruiter, yup.

Evan: Was there ever any other branches that you were considering? Or was it automatically the army?

Andrew: The place I went to only had army, navy and marines. They didn't have an air force recruiter at that site. The navy guy was never there. All my friends that I have joined out of high school, they were all army. And I knew from them being in, not the fight but the brotherly fight between the marines and army, I was always bicker back and forth and had taken the side of the army, because everyone I knew was in the army. I didn't know at that point any of the marines. It was always army for me. That was the first door I went to. First guy I talked to. He got the contract, they didn't have to try with me, it was already done deal.

Evan: Was there any concern? 2010 is pretty far after 911, but I mean we're still engaged in the middle east. Was there concern at that 16:00moment that you were worried about maybe eventually being deployed?

Andrew: I wasn't really worried. That never came as a deterrent for me. I said right out of high school I would join. I would have been in more of the surge if I came in two years earlier. Probably would have deployed once or twice more if I had done that. Because it was more of a surge. I came in at the backend of the surge and really didn't get to see as much as I thought I was going to. It wasn't a letdown but it was my expectations were different from what I actually saw, and what I actually got to experience. Which was all good but it was different. I don't know, I was expecting what all my friends were telling me. Back to back deployments, you're deployed for 15 months, you go home, reset for a year and then you go back for another year. That's just how they were playing it, that's what I was expecting. And I 17:00got in and I didn't deploy for my first five years. I was like okay guys, anytime now, whenever you want. It wasn't a deterrent, it didn't really affect my decision. My decision was pretty much like hey I'm tired of working and not really benefiting from all the work I'm doing. I want my work to actually mean something, to show something and to allow me to progress. That was the outlet that I chose was the military, in the army and go be.

Evan: When you say that the expectation was kinda a multi fast paced kind of multi deployment. 15 month deployment, reset, re-deploy. You said that was an expectation, was that also an appealing aspect of it? Did the idea of being in combat? Was that something--

Andrew: I think I was a little tired of the whole situation of going to college. It was the idea of change and then getting away, escaping. 18:00I've been working at Fridays and just working and dealing with family and then trying to go to school. I needed to get away from all that. I was tired of it. I was a little disappointed that I needed that money and the money wasn't there, so I did go into debt. If the money was there, then maybe I wouldn't have worked as hard, and I would have been able to go school. It was a letdown for my family, that they weren't able to support me. And that I needed to support myself. So it was a realization, it was a letdown and then it was a need for change. I needed change in my life. So I think the change was the biggest hey I can pick up and go and do whatever I wanna do, wherever I wanna do it. That was the irrational, hey I need change, I need it now. That's why I chose what I chose and how I got in as fast as I did. It was the desire for change and the desire to not be stuck there anymore. Because I did feel stuck. I felt stuck between, well I could either stop working and go into more debt? Or I can work more and have less debt but not go to school and I might fail out. I felt stuck, 19:00it was an outlet, I took it and I ran with it.

Evan: So you go to the recruiter. You're like the perfect recruit. You show up there and you really--

Andrew: They didn't have to find me, they didn't have to send me any emails, no phone calls, I showed up. I said what's leaving? And the only thing I was really interested in 'cause it was, I was an adrenaline junkie when I was a kid. It was always fast cars and anything to get the heart racing. I wanted to jump out of airplanes. So what was airborne qualified that was leaving? And they didn't have, I was looking at small arms repair and I was looking at a few other things. And they only thing they really had was an 18 x-ray contract, which is like the special forces, it was a new special forces pipeline. Instead of being in infantry men and going to selection, it was like a pipeline of, you go to OSUT, which is the one station unit training to be an infantry man. You go to airborne school, right from airborne 20:00school, you go to selection, you don't even go to a unit, you have no experience. And then from selection you go all the way through the course. You do your language, you do all your specialty training, and at the end of two, two and a half years, you're special forces, x-ray, whatever you're a delta, whatever you're specialty is within the special forces community, you're fully trained. You have no military experience but you're fully trained, and you have all your training within two years. So that's the initial contract I signed and the contract because of the two years of training that you were gonna be in constant school. It was a six year contract. So my first contract was for six years. I didn't go through the entire contract. I didn't go through the special forces pipeline. Right after airborne school, after I got what I wanted, I got the, hey you can certify jump out of airplanes now. I voluntarily withdrew from that. So that just put me regular infantry men in airborne unit. So, immediately you go to Alaska or you go to Fort Bragg. And Fort Bragg's where I ended up 21:00and Fort Bragg's where I stayed. For my six years I did all of my time at Fort Bragg and got all my experience there.

Evan: This is the first I ever heard of this kind of pipeline. This was 18 x-ray contract?

Andrew: Your 18 x-rays, you have your 18 deltas which are like your weapons quality. 18 charlies, your metas, whatever the abbreviations are. So your 18 tiers is your special forces series. And whatever the letter identifier is your specialty of whether your a medic or an engineer or weapons quad or whatever your specialty within the specialty forces community was. So the special forces community didn't like the idea, 'cause like I said, they like more mature individuals and like people that actually have real life training and they experience to back it up. So they didn't the idea of us young kids that can come straight off the street. Straight out a recruiters station, go 22:00through two years of training and then they throw us at a team thinking we know something, but we really didn't. We just knew the textbook answer but we didn't know the actual real life application.

Evan: Do you get a sense is that because of special forces, there's such a demand on special forces. Are they trying to increase the size of those ranks? That is a different strategy.

Andrew: Well we're not fighting conventional wars anymore. There is a larger demand for it, but I think the recruiters were selling it wrong. Special forces isn't guys kicking down doors. They're not kill teams like everyone imagines. They're more of teachers, they're going and teaching the indigenous population, how to fight for themselves. They're teaching the indigenous population gorilla warfare. They're teachers, they're not guys that are raiding ISIS headquarters and kicking down doors and shooting people in the face. That's not their job, that's not what they do. I think they got a lot of recruits in this program by saying that. By saying hey you're gonna be the biggest Billy 23:00badass this side of the military service, and then by the end of the two years, they're like oh, you're gonna go teach this tribe how to defend themselves. I feel like they were setting guys up for failure, by telling them the wrong thing. I mean it's a good program, but it wasn't for me. So I didn't go through all the way. I got what I wanted out of it, the incentive out of it and bowed out and took what I had.

Evan: This two year training program, approximately two years. The first section you still go to like a base training?

Andrew: So it's still Fort Benning, Georgia. You'll go through infantry basic training. It's still the same thing infantry guys go through, you go through. It's one station unit training, they had it separated into our own platoon of 18 x-ray, babies. It's what they called us. 24:00Then after that it's straight from the day you graduate, you get your one day pass to go eat as much food as you want, and go experience freedom for a day. Then it's right into airborne school. So they waste no time. From airborne school you graduate, you get once again, another one or two day pass, get to see families, and then you go straight to selection, or there's a selection hold class, where it's nothing but working out and getting prepared for selection. They go through the whole selection process.

Evan I wanna talk about that. That's something that's so fascinating and outside of the realm of most peoples experience. I just want to take a moment though, when you talk about basic training itself. How long is that?

Andrew: Once issue unit training was 42 week I wanna say? It wasn't, no that might be a little long. I can't remember it, I can't even put a weeks on it. I think it might have been four months. It wasn't 42 weeks, about four months. All I remember is phases and we didn't really 25:00have phases. It was just everyday, the other platoons, the other groups didn't get treated, they got treated differently that we did. I know a lot of peoples basic's experience is different. We got smoked and we got harassed every single day, up until the day of graduation. Every single day. There was sleep deprivation, there was unnecessary just craziness, just to us though. Other platoons and other groups got to experience freedoms, got to use phones, got to go hang out and do normal team building activities. Meanwhile, we're climbing ropes and doing burpees and just pushing the envelope on how far you can break someone down and how much someone can physically take before they quit. So average our PTAPFT maximum scores are 300 before you go do the intense scale. Our group average for our platoon was a 298. I can't 26:00say it was wrong what they did or how they worked with us. But it worked. I was probably the best physical condition I've ever been in, in my life. I was an absolute beast and I felt like I was invincible, you can smoke me all day and I'd sit there and laugh at you and do whatever you wanted me to do, because you couldn't break me down any further. I was broken down and building back up by the time they were done with me. It was an amazing transformation of myself, and it pushed me to limits they didn't know I could surpass, it was an amazing experience. And I took a lot from it. I can't say it was wrong, I think they know what they're doing and they did it well. 'Cause we were pretty good shape by the time we were done with it.

Evan: Was that your expectation going into basic training? Nobody hears stories about basic training, right?

Andrew: I think I have an old school view of it. I was expecting, at this time the military was getting more sensitive, at the time I went 27:00in. So I was expecting to get hit more, more abusive, more like a right of entry into it. They were more politically correct. There was not right of entry, there wasn't that fragrant abuse that I was thinking. Like I said, I was fully expecting to get messed up. I was expecting to get smacked upside the head or punched in the face. The only time we got physical combat was when we were actually doing hand to hand combat training, and you had to close the distance and restrain someone. The entire time the drill instructor or whoever the trainer was, was trying to knock you out. That was the experience I was expecting throughout the entire process, is that this is a hardening experience. I was expecting more physical harm to myself but it wasn't like that at all. I mean, besides just exercising and making us exhausted, it wasn't as derogatory as I was expecting it to be. Or as all the movies and TV tells you it's gonna be. It's not like Full Metal Jacket, 28:00it's not like that.

Evan: We're there parts of it that you found enjoyable at the end? I mean, cause there's certain stages. You talk about physical combat, there's a gas chamber, there's rifle range. It's all kinds of different skills that you're learning.

Andrew: We had, had this discussion before about in the military, when you're going through something and you're actually in the stuff doing it. You're like aw this sucks, this is no fun. You're having no fun, you're just miserable. You're exhausted, you're tired, whatever. Hindsight, it was awesome. Looking back at it, and that's every military experience you'll ever have. When you're doing it, when you're sweating, when you're sucking on CS gas or whatever it is. It's no fun, it's absolutely no fun. Looking back at it you're like wow that was awesome! I can't believe I did that. And I'm not sure what it is about the experience, but yes. Looking back at it, it was fun. I think one of my fondest memories, and I don't know why this is one of my fondest memories. But I ate a white chocolate raspberry MRE cookie. We were 29:00in the middle of eating lunch and someone screwed up, someone said something stupid, and so we started getting smoked. I remember running past these porta-potties over and over, we're on a range somewhere and I'm just doing laps around these mid-day hot summer porta-potties smell. I remember puking up this white raspberry cookie, but laughing at the same time. We were just tired and exhausted and I was like I just enjoyed that cookie and now I'm never gonna enjoy that cookie again. I was laughing to myself while I was puking this cookie up. It was fun, looking back during it, I was like, wow that sucks. But looking back at it I was like, wow that was awesome. I'm never gonna have a time like that or experience like that again in my life. I definitely think times were fun, like when are you gonna get to shoot a 50 cal. With the amount of ammunition that we had to train with it. Or to actually build the bond and the network, the brotherhood we had between, because we're all going through the same thing. There was 42 of us, so of all 42 actual people we became pretty close. I mean 30:00there were clicks within the group. There was more of a jock group, more of a conservative side of it. We all as a group became close. We had to cover for each other, we had to get each others backs, because one guy screwed up, it was mass punishment. You were gonna get punished no matter what. So you need to be accountable not just for yourself, but for someone else. And realize that even if you could identify a weak link it didn't matter if there was a weak link. You had to support and pick up that weak link or it was just gluttonous punishment for everyone.

Evan: So this is approximately four months intense training, that's basic training and then--

Andrew: It's basic training, AIT all in one. You wake up one morning and boom, it's AIT. You can't tell the difference. Like I said, a lot 31:00of times people experience military. They go into the military it's basic training, which is the hard part. Sleep deprivation or it's not as easy for 'em as others and they make you do the physical training, and then they transition to maybe a different base to do AIT. And it's more of a college atmosphere where you're learning how to do your job, you're learning how to work with computers, you're learning how to be a medical professional, or whatever the case may be. Our AIT was how to shoot, move and communicate as a team. So that was more physical training and more range time. That's just how that was, there was no college atmosphere we didn't sit down and take notes. We we're in the field, setting up an ambush. That's just how we trained.

Evan: And then after that, that takes place all at Bragg?

Andrew: That was all at Benning.

Evan: Fort Benning?

Andrew: Fort Benning, Georgia.

Evan: What time of year were you there? You said in the summer.

Andrew: So it was July 20th when I swore in. So it was all of July, all of August and October, I think it was beginning of November, is 32:00when we got to, beginning of November? July, August, September, October, it was beginning of November. I wanna say the first second week of November is when we got to airborne school. So we were in an airborne hold for a 24, 48 hour period. Where we had graduated, we were officially graduated from out OSUT, which is basic training AIT. We were infantry men, but that was it. So we had a day or two, where we were just waiting in a trailer barracks and then our buses came, we hopped on buses and it's still on Fort Benning. So we drove to the other side of base to airborne school. We moved to different barracks and that was our new home, it was airborne school day one. It was three parts of training very, very quickly.

Evan: All with the same?

Andrew: All the same groups, same guy, same group. So they just moved us, it's a pipeline. They just shove you through as fast as they can. 33:00Attrition rate is pretty high, once you get past airborne school, I think selection. I know attrition's high, I want to say half, from my individual class. The first group of 42 people. only six made it all the way though. Airborne school only got a couple of us. It was pretty much from exhaustion. You have to take a PT test to get into the school, and guys were just exhausted or, I'm not sure if they were drunk, whatever reason they failed the test. So they just went to a regular infantry unit. They were still infantry men and they graduated as infantry men but they didn't make it any further. Guys who went to airborne school and didn't go to selection and either get injured or fall out of the sectioning process, they're a regular infantry men paratroopers. They go to the 82nd or Alaska. And guys, as they get further, as they progress further sometimes you can repeat cycles. If you don't pass selection the first time, you can try and get selected 34:00again. Or say you get selected first and then you take language, 'cause you have to have a secondary language, depending what group you go to. If you fail your language, then you have to take your language again, or you have to take a different language.

Evan: How long was airborne?

Andrew: Airborne's not that long at all. Three weeks? I think it's three weeks. You have your ground week, then you have power week and jump week. It's three or four weeks. It's just physical training, and that was more of the college atmosphere where there's a classroom, they explain how things are gonna happen. And power week you go through the dry motions of hey this is how you hold your body position when you impact the ground. They have swing line trainers, where you're hooked up to ropes and then they softly lay you into the ground and you have to go through the body positions of how you're gonna land. And then the following week is jump week. Where you have to jump five times out of a high performance aircraft, and after your fifth jump you're graduated, you're good to go, you're airborne qualified, and you can 35:00go on to the next stage.

Evan: So is that a C130? What kind of plane--

Andrew: C16, C130. I've also jumped out of Sherpa's and Chinook and that's it.

Evan: And how high are you? What's the elevation that you jump--

Andrew: It all depends on training. For the actual airborne school, they had us pretty high. Anywhere from 13 I wanna say it was 1,300 feet. Normal combat equipment jumps, if I was doing a training for a combat jump. It'd be 800 feet and that gives you three seconds to pull your reserves. So if your main parachute doesn't open, and you have reserve on your front side, to pull your reserve. If an actual combat jump like World War two combat jump. It's 500 feet, you have no reserve. And that was your main opens, you hit the ground, you move out. I mean there was some jumps we did, like the Sherpa jump I did was 1,800 feet and it all depends on the day, on the weather, if there's cloud 36:00coverage. It's not halo jumps, we don't open our own shoots. All static line jumps. You're hooked up to the plane, as soon as you fall, as soon as you leave the plane, your parachutes automatically deploy and you float safely to the ground.

Evan: So the big string of people with the, I always picture the movies--

Andrew: Exactly like it is in the movies. So you're hooked up to a line, as soon as you fall, I think it's 8 feet away from the plane, your parachute badge deployed, your parachute opens, you have your, what are they called. Spreaders? Spreads the parachute actually, inflates all the way. Then you just fall. So jumping, I always explain jumping as three seconds of violence, about 18 seconds of a blissful, calm, awkward, peaceful, no noise, no nothing, then followed by another three seconds of violence. So you jump out of a plane, going at 120 knots, just the force from jumping into the wind. It's violent, you're twisting, you're turning, suddenly your shoot opens and you can hear 37:00the engines of the plane as they fly away, but it's eerie and silent 'cause you can't hear anything else. You don't hear people screaming, you don't hear any other noise, there's no traffic, there's nothing else. And then you impact the ground. It's sorta like banana movement, where as soon as your feet hit, you sort of tuck and roll, you spend that energy of your body coming to the ground. It can get, I've hit, bounced and hit again. It's not always fun but its three seconds of violence, the awkward, calm, peaceful, oh I'm falling into the ground and then another three seconds of violence, as you impact

Evan: Was that something that was, I mean I'm sure a variety of emotions and feelings, but were you scared? Were you excited?

Andrew: The only fear I had was getting hurt and not being able to finish. 'cause it's what I've always wanted to do. It was feeding my adrenaline junkie high that I had as a teenager and as a young adult. It's such an adrenaline rush, get your blood pumpin'. Like I said, my 38:00only fear was the first and fourth jump. 'cause if you get hurt on the first jump, you're gonna recycle. If you get hurt on the fourth jump, then you can't jump your fifth jump. I didn't care if I got hit in the fifth jump, I graduated at that point. As soon as I hit the ground I was a graduate. The first and fourth were the ones I was most, not nervous about, but I didn't want to get hurt on those.

Evan: A certain percentage do get hurt, right?

Andrew: You can twist ankles, hurt your back. People do get hurt but as long as you do the right thing, do as your told, keep your chin on chest, feet and knees together, you do everything you were taught to the weeks prior, then you're not gonna have any issues. I've had 26 jumps out of a high performance aircraft, and I think, I didn't get hurt, hurt but I landed wrong once and bruised my tailbone. And that's 'cause I knew what I was doing and I tried to switch what I was doing when it was way too late, and instead of landing on my side, I went 39:00feet, ass, head. And I hurt my butt a little bit, I knew what I'd done wrong as soon as I did it. So just follow the training and trust in your training, trust in the equipment and it all works out.

Evan: So this is all now, you're pretty late into, this is like fall of 2010 by the time you're done with jump school or winter of 2010, sometime within that time.

Andrew: So late November, I didn't get to the 82nd to my unit. As soon as I graduated that's when I put my withdrawal in from the 18 x-ray program. As soon as I was airborne qualified, alright guys thanks a lot, I'm done here. I got my orders from airborne school to go to the 82nd. So I got to the 82nd, I wanna say the first week in December of 2010. And that's when I signed into my unit and started there at Burberry combat team, in the 82nd airborne division.

Evan: And where is 82nd airborne now?

Andrew: Fort Brag. So that was the first time, base had been my entire training experience was Fort Benning and then we took a bus from Fort Benning to Fort Bragg and that was my first, first day on Bragg was going to 82nd.

Evan: And at this point you're private? Private first class?

Andrew: Private first class. The recruiters were doing some weird voodoo magic where if you recruited two friends, you got an automatic promotion of private first class. So if they had a group of three dudes commin' in, the first guy was friends with guy two and guy three, guy two is friends with guy one and guy three, and they just swapped our names around. We didn't actually know each other, we weren't friends, but to help us out, that's what they did for us. So I got to 82nd as a private first class.

Evan: What was that like? That transition, so you were in a high training scenario, where your basic training advanced individuals training, then jump school, then you're finally at your unit.

Andrew: That was probably the nervous I've ever been. 'Cause once again you're expecting Full Metal Jacket, you're expecting people to be 41:00yelling at you 24/7. Partly it was that, but it was a lot more laid back. It was a lot more calm. It wasn't the high fast paced that I'd been going through for the last four or five months. It wasn't that at all. It was very much hurry up and wait. So we're gonna get over here, we're gonna sit here. Okay we're done sitting here, we're gonna get over here and do this. It was a lot slower paced, as a junior enlisted, as a bottom level grunt, it was a lot slower paced. And as I progressed through the ranks, it gets a lot more fast paced. There's like a weird void, where you're a lower enlisted guy, where nothing matters to you and you have no responsibility, it's so slow and so mundane. And you feel like there's no purpose to it. But once you get any sort of leadership, and you're responsible and you're trusted with something. It won't stop, it doesn't stop and it's constant go, go, go, go, go. It's like a night and day difference between your 42:00lower enlisted and the guys doing the grunt work and the guys making everything possible for guys to do the grunt work. It's completely different. I got to experience both. The day and the night part of that as well, so that was interesting.

Evan: So you're there for approximately six years, or five years, five and a half left on your contract. Do you get to go home at all? Do you get a break at all during this time?

Andrew: So when I first got to the 82nd, we had talked before I was on what was called the GRF or Global Reaction Force. So we had a two hour circle around Fort Bragg, where you couldn't leave that area. You needed to be on an emergency pass or emergency leave to go home. When I talked to other people about, and what people were, I'm not sure if it's okay or not. But they were saying to sneak home. And I had 43:00done that for my fathers reception for his wedding. My father got married when I was in airborne school, and he had a reception, and it was like a day or two after we graduated. So instead of taking a bus, I flew home and then drove back to Bragg. It was just that day to go home to the reception. But everyone's sayin' oh you can sneak home for four day weekend, just don't get caught. You can do this but don't get caught. That's my impression of leave and going to see family, is you can do it, just don't get caught. Until I got older and wiser and more diverse with actual how to fill out a leave form, and they can't deny you leave or they can't keep you here for no reason. That was my first, I wanna say first year, year and a half. I didn't go home that often, I didn't take leave 'cause I didn't think I was allowed. I didn't know you could fill out a leave form and if you actually have a reason or there's enough people behind and you're the only person putting in a leave form for a certain weekend or weekday, they can't really say no. They have no reason too. I mean, Private First Class 44:00Morris was not the force that was winning the fight in Iraq or Afghanistan, it wasn't me, I'm not the guy.

Evan: They don't know that?

Andrew: Looking back, I had a lack of leadership when I first got there. As a young enlisted solider there was a complete lack of leadership. Which made me want to be a better leader. Once I got the knowledge, once I found out, hey this is how this works. I would want to spread that around. 'cause I didn't want someone coming in like me. I got dumped off in a barracks room, no idea where there was a Walmart or a commissary, I didn't have sheets on my bed. They just oh heres your key, there you go. No sheets, I didn't have a shower curtain. There was nothing. I'm taking a taxi and the taxi's in Fort Bragg were ridiculous. Charging you $20 to go to the commissary and back. And it's a four mile drive. But they knew I didn't know any better, they knew. So they would charge me 20 bucks to go to and from to 45:00get a shower curtain and sheets and stuff. When now, when I grew up I became that leader. I got new soldiers, it was my priority, it was my job of the day to make sure they had what they needed for the next day. I would take them out and make sure, they had food or they had a shower curtain, they had sheets 'cause no one was gonna go through what I went through. That's unacceptable. But it wasn't until I got the knowledge, that I made that conscious decision, I'm not gonna be that way.

Evan: How long did that take? You talk about you got there as a PFC and kinda you were dumped off on your own, and then you said it a couple of times. As you were there for a little bit longer, you matured, kinda learned a little bit of the ways.

Andrew: I would say about a year, year and a half. I picked up my specialist in, I wanna say a little less than a year. That was they gray area, the slight transition from hey you're not completely worthless, you're a little useful, we trust you with a little bit. They might've 46:00trust me with a key to a truck or something. But that was my key and I better not lose that thing. Whatever responsibility I can tooth and claw get from them, like I said, before my life I was so responsible and I was living on my own, and now once again I'm treated like an inmate, they dump me off in a room and I don't even have sheets. I'm like what the hell is this? I had no car, no way to get around. So it took a year to get my specialist, I got my own vehicle down there. I was more mobile, I was talking to more people and learning how things worked. It was just getting used to my environment, my surroundings, getting used to the base, getting used to how my unit was organized and how it worked. Who to go to, to talk to when you had an issue or a problem. Sometimes different problems are different people. If I have a problem with the maintenance of the building, there was a facility guy that I go to. But if i had a problem with food and how the defects, not opened a certain time, there's another guy I had to go to, to talk to. It was knowing who to go to for what your needs were. 47:00Once I figured that part out. It was all smooth sailing from there.

Evan: While you're at Bragg, the day to day kind of life in the military. Is that a nine to five job? Or not? 'cause you talked about you're on this once force that kind of restricts you of movements. Is it high paced, lots of training?

Andrew: It was more of a nine to five. Like I said, it was training, it's all a knee jerk reaction. So, it's not always training. Sometimes you're doing something stupid 'cause they need warm bodies to go unload a truck or go, I had to take old desk tool land fillers and throw them in the landfill. There's always something, it's never the same. It's never regime like school was, it wasn't regime like anything else. You never know on a day to day what you're going to do. Unless you have a specific, for me it was that way. Unless you have a 48:00specific job where you're a medic and everyday you're gonna go run your AIDS station or whatever the deal is, or you're a tech guy and you're gonna go fix a computer everyday. Unless you have a specific job, we were instrument. We can't go and shoot every single day, we can't go and deploy, we can't go and jump out of a plane every single day. Every single day was different. Like I said, you're gonna go do this now, then we go and complete that task. And then you move on. That gave me the drive that I needed, 'cause that's what I was used to. Hey go do this, next. Go do this, next. Go do this, and that gave me the drive that I had in my life previously and what I was used to. It was mission oriented and mission based, and that's what I had done before. I didn't realize I was doing it before, but that's what I had done before. I was mission oriented, I'm gonna do this, this, this and this. And as I got more responsibility and given more responsibility it became a lot faster paced. I went to being in charge of one truck, to being in charge of the entire fleet of 12 vehicles, four 49:00generators and 1.2 million dollar tin. It was literally night and day. I went from one truck to heres a fleet of vehicles you have to maintain. It was like uhhh okay. And I just picked up and ran with it. Than I gave my one key to one guy and then another key to another guy, made them responsible for their portion, their sequin. So I was responsible for the big picture. And I had to show them how to take care of that one truck 'cause I took care of that one truck. But then I had to make sure everyone was taking care of their piece of the puzzle. I feel like I was always a little bit more reserved as a kid growing up, but that's when I really broke out of my shell and got that leadership incentive in me. Is that, hey. I didn't fuck this up, so you're not gonna fuck this up, and I'm gonna tell you how not to fuck it up. That's where my leadership came. I'm gonna show you how I do it, I'm gonna show you the right way to do it, and then I'm gonna 50:00watch you do it. It's a three step process, and that's what I adopted, that's what I went with. I think I got a lot of respect from my peers doing that, that way. 'Cause they knew I wouldn't ask them to do anything, that I had not already done. 'Cause I'm gonna show you how it's done. I'm gonna do it, you're gonna watch and you're gonna see how it's done. So they knew there was nothing that I would ask them, that I couldn't physically show them how to do. So when it was something simple or mundane, and they knew how to do it, they would just go and do it 'cause they knew I already done it, they had that respect. That's where the leadership came from and that was, I think in two years, two and a half years. I picked up my striped shirt, sergeant. So I got E5 in two and a half years. That's when the shitstorm came, where it was night and day. I was constantly held responsible for so much more than just a simple key and I would just go and attack 51:00everything I could to get it done.

Evan: So part of this was training, and part of this was learn as you go. You developed your own leadership style.

Andrew: When I first came in I didn't have this leadership. I didn't have the leadership there. I didn't have someone to dream after like oh, I wanna be like him when I get older, when I grow up in the ranks. I want to be like him, I didn't have that. It was learn as you go. I don't want to be like that and I'm going to do this. I crafted my own style which helped me greatly.

Evan: So two and a half years in, this is then approximately, let's say 2012? 2013?

Andrew: Yeah November 1st 2012 I wanna say. Sounds about right.

Evan: So then in 2012 you been in for a couple years, you're an E5 at this point, approximately this time frame. Were you ever deployed?

Andrew: So our deployment didn't come till later. We were on GRF for a while, then the unit that's suppose to take off GRF, they took it for a few days and then got their notice to deploy. So they deployed and we took it right back. 'Cause we were the most ready unit. So we were on GRF for awhile. Which we never got a call. I think the battalions from our brigade deployed. But our brigade as a whole didn't deploy. It wasn't until we got off of GRF for good, after the two year mark. That we fell on the patch chart, we only deployed 1,500 people. So it was a battalion plus. We didn't deploy as a whole unit. I had actually gone to the division headquarters to work as a barred 53:00military man power. To work up there in the headquarters in their operation center. I was working at division, I was trying to work back towards deals, 'cause the division life was awesome. It was a higher headquarters, they didn't do anything, I didn't have anyone yelling at me, I had responsibility but I was trusted to do with what I had to do. I didn't have four different people looking over me, like asking me when it was gonna get done. I was working every back door deal I could to stay at division. I remember it was, I wanna say it was November again. November 2014, I tried to make all the moves to stay in division, and I found out right around thanksgiving time that I was going back to third brigade. That I was going back to the brigade element. And I was pissed, like why are they bringing me back here? They have no need for me there, I'm not doing anything good there. The day I got back I'm all grumpy and butthurt and upset. They're like, pick the 54:00two guys you want to take with you, 'cause you're deploying in February. I found out, I got back Thanksgiving leave, I got back later November, early December, they're like pick two guys. You're leaving in late January. We had less than 60 days to get all of our equipment together, to get all of our, we weren't ready, for the first time in my entire time, we weren't actually ready and it was a shit show. Because it was only a part of the great brigade deploying, people separated, the unit separated. The people that weren't deploying didn't care. And the people that were deploying cared too much. 'cause I have to get my stuff ready, I have to get all my equipment ready, I have to make sure the two soldiers that I picked out were medically cleared and good to go. That I was medically cleared and good to go. And meanwhile I'm trying to rely on other people to help me out, get the equipment ready and packed into containers. They're like oh I'm gonna 55:00go home really 'cause I'm not leaving, so it's not my problem. That was one of my biggest frustrations, is because we didn't deploy as a unit, it was only the people that were leaving, actually cared about leaving. This was our life for the next 10 months. We had to do it. We made it by, by the skin of our teeth. We didn't pack enough, you can never pack enough for deployment, you never know what you're gonna do. But we got what we thought we needed, and we got in the country and it was, we got into Kuwait late January, it was late January cause the Superbowl 2015 was when I left from Kuwait to Iraq. That was Superbowl night happened, the next morning we woke up and got on a plane and left. We got into Iraq and that's when all shit hit the fan, I thought I was used to a high paced work environment. I knew nothing, I knew 56:00nothing but I was about to learn. We picked it up and we went from there. It was a 10 month deployment and it was probably the best time of my life. Situations I never would have ever imagined myself being in, came to life and it changed me as a person, not a bad changing, it made me more self aware. It taught me I could do anything if just put my mind into it. I realized the resources I have around me and I go and I find the right people to talk too, and the right people that have the right knowledge. I may not be the smartest man in the room, but if I know how to communicate with the smartest man in the room with the subject, I'm just as effective as he is. That's what it taught me, it was a good time.

Evan: You flew into Kuwait and then you flew from Kuwait to Baghdad International Airport. Then where did you go from there, where's your base in Iraq?

Andrew: So we were right next to BOIP, the actual civilian airport is one side of the airfield and we were on the other side of the 57:00airfield. From there, my main job in the military was setting up operation centers. Our brigade headquarters was at the BDSC, Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, which was right across from BOIP. From there we were in Taji, we were in Pasmaya and we were in Erbil. We go out there and make sure they have all the life support they needed, we would teach them out there, fly out there and made sure they had food, they had water, they had communications. We do radio chats, then we go to the next place. Food, water, communications, radio chats and then we go to Erbil and we check in with everyone. We rotated around a lot so, I did say I was based out of the BCSD and that's where I spent majority of my time. I did get to experience the other bases and check on them, make sure they didn't need any support, as a brigade element we needed to check on our battalions and we had a battalion mine at each one of the places. So we would have to check on them and 58:00make sure they had everything they needed, if they needed anything I would have to go back and bed barrow steel and find it and get it to them. That was my mission.

Evan: In the battle against ISIS or ISOL. Let's do the enemies at this moment.

Andrew: So our units in Taji. Pasmaya or Erbil we're training the Iraq Army. It was just like operations back home, we were training, instead of training us, instead of training a battalion, it was a battalion headquarters training the Iraq actual soldiers. We still had all the officers there, all the planning people, and were still trying to coordinate ammo and coordinate how to get them food and how to get them water, where are we gonna train 'cause there's no land to train, they don't have ranges set up. What area can we shoot in? How far can we shoot before we're running into another village or another town? And trying to find that land for them, trying to make sure it's 59:00secure and set up targets, and what are we gonna use as targets? how are we gonna get money for this? That was the constant day to day fight. But at my end of it was also securing our forces. So I need to keep count of who's in Taji? Who's in Pasmaya? Who's in Erbil? And keep a count of that in case there is an attack, 'cause that was our greatest threat, an insider attack. So if there was an attack in Taji, how do we get our guys out? And how do we know who's there? And how can we provide them support they need to defend themselves? The roles of engagement were very constrict with the political polices in place. So we were at one point told, we were not allowed to engage the enemy unless we have been engaged upon and taken casualties. So it's not that we had to get shot at, but we had to get shot at and someone had to actually sustain an injury, for us to return fire. If not, we just had to duct and keep driving. That's just how that one went.

Evan: So in a round about way, you end up working someone, I'm assuming along side special forces, you talked earlier about how special forces, that's there job in some ways to train indigenous populations.

Andrew: And that was the problem in Iraq. We were doing exactly what special forces was suppose to do, only it was such a large scale element. The special forces group is training a tribe of people or a village, or a local Shia Militias group. They don't have enough people to train an entire brigade of Iraqi army soldiers, you can't train 100 plus people. A teams what, seven dudes? How is seven dudes suppose to train 100, it just doesn't, we were brought in, in that capacity to train the traditional Iraqi Army. Now the SF groups were still there, they were based out of the same base we were, they were at the BDSC and they were training the Iraqi Special Forces. They were training the Iraqi Special Forces to do that, you had the Canadian Special Forces there and the Australian Special Forces and every country 61:00had their stake. They wanted to train their own force, which is great. But we had the actual Iraqi army training them and generic army concepts and ideals. How to move as a force, how to shoot, move and communicate, and how to not get killed by simple stuff like moving to new cover, they thought that one concrete pillar was gonna hold up forever, guess what bro, you're wrong. It's not gonna hold up forever, one RPG and you need to move. It was training them and working through the logistics of how to train them, when their logistics system has been shot. Ours was not functioning when we got there, we got it functioning by the time we left, but when we first got there, logistics was a nightmare. Just getting normal supplies was, I couldn't get tape or pens or pencils. How are we suppose to get bullets?

Evan: At this point, I know it's a fluid environment that you're dealing with, but is ISIS in a location? Are you able to understand where ISIS is at? Most knows part of it, but are they more diverse? Are they harder to pin down where they're at?

Andrew: That gets into our policies and our rules of engagement, they have territories, we knew where they were. A lot of times, we talked about this earlier about developing strick package, if we found ISIS headquarters, we would have to get a pattern of life for that area, we would have to develop where the actual headquarters was and who else was living in that area? Any civilian considerations or casualties in the area, and we had develop a pattern of life of when they went to work, when they were home, if there were children in the area, what would be the best date and time to strike that target? Where we would kill as few civilians as we possible could. That would be a week long process. By that time the headquarters could of up and left by then. Or if it's still there we can't target it because that might be a 63:00school or a pre-school or some sort of large community event. There's never a low enough number of civilians in there that we can strick that target. The ISIS was very good at strategically placing their headquarters and their high value targets next to areas that we as Americans would not target, and we couldn't target. They were good about that but anytime they would amass for any sort of assault, we were on point. We knew if they were gonna amass to attack a village, and we saw vehicles amassing in a certain area, it was done, we would absolutely strike that area, strike that target, eliminate that target within minutes. The strikes that was actually our division was deployed halfway through our deployment as a third brigade, our 82nd division headquarters deployed to take over the entire strike cell and 64:00all of Baghdad. They were in Baghdad while we were right next door in the support center near the airport near BOIP. They were doing all the strikes and they calculating all that. They would call me to make sure I didn't have any forces in the area, if it was too close to Taji, Pasmaya, or Erbil. It was just keeping that, our front line trace of our friendly forces and then also the green line trace of all Iraqi friendly forces. Do we have Iraqi elements training area. Is that why there's small arms fire coming from this area because we had Iraqi army guys training out there, maybe they need to stop because now they have Shia Militias groups that are friendly, that are now shooting at our Iraqi trainees because they're too close to each other when they're shooting. It was constant battles for land and nightmares like that.

Evan: That sounds like a complex battle environment. Do you I don't know if you can comment upon this, do you have an opinion on it? Or 65:00what your thoughts are. Is it an effective strategy? Can you say is the current strategy against ISIS working in your mind?

Andrew: It's a cultural, the problem with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army is the cultural thing. We're trying to make them fight like us, they're not us. They don't care about Iraq as a whole. You have the Kerds up in Kurdistan that don't want to fight for the rest of Iraq, they want to fight for Kurdistan. And then you have different Shia Militias groups that want to fight for their tribe, or their region but they don't want to fight for the whole of Iraq. There's no patriotism of Iraq. So you can train these guys to fight, you can train them to take another life. That's not the hard part, you can train them to do it. Just shoot, move and communicate as a unit. But, what they choose to defend and what they choose to attack. Is on them. There's not a clear concise, you need to come together. When I went through basic training. We knew we had to take care of each other. We have that sense of patriotism that we were a unit, we were a whole, 66:00they don't have that. I mean, two or three guys might be there little team because they came from the same village, or the same area of town, but they're not gonna get along with some of the other guys because they're Shia or they're Soony's or they're of this political affiliation, there that. They have zero unity and zero pride in Iraq as a whole. So can it? If they had that unity, it could work, yes. But until that happens, until they come together, I mean we can train them to kill each other, I mean that's what we're doing. We can do that all day. But we can't train them to come together as a country.

Evan: Well certainly that's been the ongoing problem it seems, the violence, the divisions that the army continuing collapse. They put so much time and money into individuals like yourself, training these forces and they just crumble eventually.

Andrew: We're training them to fight for America. We become soldiers, we become patriots, we take an oath. An oath to defend this country. 67:00We're just training them to kill. They don't take an oath, they don't care. I think that's the biggest difference, is that I'm an american solider, their a solider. And they can be a solider for whoever they want to be a solider for. That's an upside and a downside, can you control it? No. Sometimes you're training the enemy, 'cause sometimes they'll come and they'll get all the training, they'll get their weapon, they'll get their army issued gear, and then you'll never see them again. They disappear. They go back to their tribe, or sometimes they go back to ISIS. Like alright cool, I got this new AK and this shiny new Iraqi Army uniform, and that's an insider threat because they don't censor who they allow in the Iraqi Army. It is what it is.

Evan: You were there for 10 months?

Andrew: Yes.

Evan: So that's from like approximately January--

Andrew: Like January to mid to late October.

Evan: This is really recent. This is 2015, you come home, when do you get out of the military?

Andrew: I come home October 2015 and then I get out, once again July 2016. So I'm home for nine months, if that. I got home and sort of got a more laid back job. I was working in the command group as a secretary and as a driver and taking care of my brigade major at the time. We had a good working relationship, he sorta was like a father figure. He looked over me to make sure people didn't mess with me and I wasn't at that same high paced work environment as I was transitioning out. As soon as I got back I had a few months of messing around, reintegrating back into the unit, and then a month or two of decent training before I was already putting in the towel and waving the white 69:00flag to get out. There was a little pressure for me to stay in, but at the end of the day they couldn't offer me the career I needed and like I said, when I first got in, I didn't set myself up with a career, I didn't give myself specialty. I wasn't going to be a medic, I wasn't going to be an IT guy, I wasn't going to go and work in human resources. I was just an infantry man, and it's extremely difficult to make a career out of that because what's next? What's you're career transfer into on the civilian side? If you spend 20 years as an infantry man, you've made a career out of it, but now you're a mid-tier manager in an industrial realm. You're nothing, I can get that same experience elsewhere. That was my deciding factor and the fact that I wasn't happy with the american society in our political culture that america was transitioning in to. I'll fight for a lot of things but, right now Americas probably not high on that list right now. I needed 70:00a reinforcement of my patriotism 'cause it was lacking after 10 months in Iraq, I was no longer the strong patriot that I was when I left. I was a little war weary and worn out.

Evan: So you depart from the military and what have you been doing since? This was only a few months ago, really recent.

Andrew: I tried to take a little time for myself, 'cause like I said I'm so used to fast paced go, go, go, go, go. I just wanted to relax for a little bit. Didn't really work cause I need that in my life, I need that go, go, go, go, go. So I got a job doing construction. I got out in July, end of July I got a job doing roadside construction, doing water main pumps. I was only there for a month, I didn't need a 71:00job. I was still getting paychecks from the military 'cause I was on paid terminal leave. So while I was getting paid from the military, I was also collecting, this job just to keep me busy during the day, kept me physically active. 'Cause one thing they told me getting out was "oh you're gonna blow up, you're gonna get super fat, you're not gonna workout anymore." and I was determined that I was not going to get super fat and I wasn't going to eat everything in site. So I got the job to keep me physically active. Bought a kayak, I went kayaking every weekend. Hiking, just on adventures. I took a little time for myself to relax. Before I even left to get out, I was already accepted into Kutztown University to return to finish my degree. A month before school started in August. We were talking in early September? July, 72:00August, worked all of August. So I wanna say early September, I took a month off. I didn't do anything. I drove around, I adventured, I tried to relax, I tried to calm down, I tried to slow my pace of life down a little bit. And then I found an apartment and moved up to Kutztown University. Where I was going there now to finish my degree and it transitions, the slowing down, the coming to an abrupt stop is, it's been challenging, it's difficult. Cause I'm used to seeking more and having mission oriented goals. Like I'm gonna do this, so I can do this, so I can do this. Now all my goals I have, now everything I have sitting in front of me, it's more long term. I have to complete this semester. Or I have to complete this degree in two years. I don't have the day to day, hey you need to go out and do this, you need to complete this right now, so you can go and do this. I don't have the day to day missions. The day to day drive to achieve to see the bigger 73:00picture, but I know the bigger pictures there. So it's my internal struggle to slow down a little bit, realize the goals are a little bit further out and pace myself so I'm not frantically running around, trying to find something to do. Personal hobbies, personal goals, play very big into this. You can't just get out and have nothing 'cause you'll drive yourself crazy. I volunteer with dogs, I have a jeep and I love driving my jeep going off-roading. Having those interest and those hobbies will divert that energy that you have to complete your next mission. Safely divert that in the right direction. That's been key for me.

Evan: And you said you work with dogs?

Andrew: Yes, I work with German Shepard's at a German Shepard rescue. Travel all over the state and tri-state area to rescue dogs, bring them back to the rescue. You get them happy, healthy, trained and get them on to new families. That sort of takes up a lot of the free time I have. Also I can work with that and different veteran organizations that are looking for rescued dogs, that they can turn into behavioral 74:00support dogs or therapy dogs. So I can coordinate the veteran effort with my personal hobbies, so that's been nice.

Evan: And do you think Kutztown is gonna play a factor in that? You talk about you work with dogs, you're gonna be working with veterans, is Kutztown gonna be able to do that? The degree?

Andrew: We talked about this prior but Kutztown, like I said. Has probably been my one mistake in getting out and coming back. Because Kutztown was what I was doing when I left. With everything I've been through, with all the changes I had in my life. I am not the same person I was when I left. I may present the same physical appearance, but very much different. So going back to try and relive the life that I was living was probably my mistake getting out. I've had to redo it over, I would get accepted to a different school, I would start 75:00out different, and just transfer credits and start a new life with the new me. Right now I'm trying to fit in to the old life, and the old me, and the old way I was at Kutztown. My old friends, and old family. And its just not working cause, I think the one line I said before, I'm a shadow of the man I once was. I'm still there but it's not the same. So that was been my biggest, not set back but my biggest struggle is going back to the same place I was, doing the same things I was doing, but I'm not the same. I would have done that differently, but I'm here now. The missions there, get the degree, finish out the semesters, excel well, start looking at starting your own small business, work with dogs, do whatever you're gonna do. You're here now, I'm not going back to the army to restart my career again, aint got the time to invest right now. So I need to finish the degree while I can and move on to the next chapter of my life.

Evan: Well, Andrew, I think that's as good of a spot to stop as any. Is there anything that we didn't discuss that you want to? Anything you want to add?

Andrew: I think that's about it.

Evan: Okay. Well I want to thank you so much for coming in, I really appreciate it. It was such a wonderful interview, thank you for sharing your time. Sharing your story.