Colin Keefe

John: It is the evening of January ninth, 2014. I'm at the Digital Media Studio at Lehigh University with Stephen Licheck. I'm John Pettigrew, and I'm interviewing Colin Keefe. It's a real pleasure to be speaking with you again, Colin.

Colin: Thank you.

John: I've spoke with Colin many, many times informally very much off record and off tape. Colin is a former student of mine, and we've kept in touch over the years. Because we've spoken many times in interview form, and we have transcripts of those three interviews, I'm going to summarize and sort of expedite that part of the normal trajectory of these interviews so we can go to further detail about Colin's 1:00experience in the Iraq War and the US Marine Corps. And as he put, we'll examine perhaps how his thoughts and memories of that experience have evolved over the decade or so since he was in service and deployed. Colin Keefe was born in Stanford, California, moved to Greenwich Village briefly, and then was raised in Westchester County, New York. And after a career as a high school track person ended up coming to Lehigh University. And then left Lehigh University and joined the US Marine Corps. Years right now do not need to be exact. It'd be enough 2:00to say that by September 2003, that is September 11, 2001. Colin had been in the US Marine Corps for a number of years, was a Sergeant.

Colin: I was a corporal.

John: A corporal at that time.

Colin: Squad leader.

John: A squad leader, and would be deployed to Kuwait for Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003.

Colin: By then, I was a Sergeant.

John: And by then he was a Sergeant. Again, just a little bit of context about this conversation. Colin fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom 3:00which we'll cover, and was then discharged from the United States Marine Corps in the summer of 2003 just months after that very successful invasion and operation. And of all things, he landed back at Lehigh University in August 2004--

Colin: August 2003 actually.

John: August 2003, I just can't believe it was that quick.

Colin: It was immediate.

John: Just a matter of a few months after being in the middle of this military operation where he eventually started to become a history major and enrolled in my course United States History since 1939. I was very aware of the Iraq war and was perhaps expressing my critical 4:00views of that war more than I might have approached more historical topics, and Colin on the first day of class very politely but forthrightly approached me after class introduced himself and said that he would be respectfully disagreeing with some of my points over the course of the semester. And it's been a really productive relationship from that point. Colin did a wonderful job, work in history, graduated with honors, history from Lehigh University, and then went to Georgetown Law School where he received his JD. He has worked in New York City as an attorney and has now moved with his wife and two young children to Center Valley Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley area 5:00generally. I'm gonna now have you start to talk, Colin. Again, thanks so much for joining again.

Colin: Absolutely, happy to be here.

John: Actually have you had occasion to be back to Lehigh for anything I mean since you moved to the area?

Colin: Yeah, a couple of times. We go to tail gates. We took a wonderful walk around here with our son, Chase, in the fall with the leaves. You know I do a couple of alumni events and this some time. There's a Lehigh Lawyers association that does stuff. It's more networking stuff, handout some business cards. But you know that sort of thing. You know I still have a lot of friends that my wife and graduated with. And you know there's some around here and the valley generally. So I make it back here occasionally. I haven't been too involved with 6:00any sort of official Lehigh events. Well actually no, there is a Veterans Day lunch that I've been to the last couple of years although I don't know if I'm gonna go next year. I am the only person of my generation who attends that, and it's a little I don't know.

John: So you're the only person, veteran of the Iraq or Afghanistan Wars who's attending that? That's interesting.

Colin: There might be a veteran, but I'm the only person under 50 who attends it. (laughing) There might be someone who was a colonel in those wars, but there's no contemporary of mine who was a relatively junior enlisted at the time.

John: And I imagine you hear from Lehigh University when they ask you for money.

Colin: I give money to the track team, I do. No, Lehigh was very good to me. I'll probably give more to them over the years. Georgetown got 7:00enough of my money.

John: I imagine.

Colin: But Lehigh helped me out with some scholarships and stuff. I'm grateful for that. So I'm sure I'll be giving back, neither here nor there.

John: So as we were speaking before starting this video tape, you talked about how your thoughts about the Iraq War and your service in that war may have evolved over the past 10 years. And before we get into some specifics of your service, do you want to characterize in general terms how it may have evolved?

Colin: Sure. It is important to me for I think relatively obvious reasons that my service there meant something, accomplished something, 8:00was ultimately in service of the greater good. And how that greater good is defined is I guess questionable. I think it's at least partly the greater good of the Iraqi people not only America. But the greater amorphous good of all people. Well we might as well go hole hog as long as we're interviewing. My thoughts and struggles with my service over the years have almost nothing to do with any personal danger I was in or harm that may have come to Americans. It all revolves around my killing of Iraqis. I try not to think about it much, but that is 9:00what the portion of the experience that affects me far more deeply than any other. And it would make it very much more difficult to live with if I had killed those people for no reason. And I don't know if I talked about this. There's one incident in particular for which I actually received a medal where we were ambushed on the outskirts of Baghdad. And there was a teenager who was firing at us, and I ended up 10:00killing him. And then his brother was there. And after we had taken the bodies out of this culvert they were in, his brother was very emotional about seeing his younger brother. And so that incident sticks with me. And if that was not in service of some larger purpose, it would be much more difficult to live with. So I tend to try and hope that it was in service of a larger good. And even 10 years later, that fact is very much in doubt. You know I don't know that it can be determined one way or another yet. You know and maybe that's just me deluding myself. I don't know. But with the Arab Spring, with Syria, and just the disaster there. I mean there was a development three days 11:00ago we found out that Fallujah had been retaken. You know there's developments literally up to the minute. There's probably people fighting in Fallujah right now as the government tries to retake it. On the 10th anniversary of the invasion I had some conversations about this. And at that point, I think my conclusion at least initially was that it is at least possible I think probable that had we not invaded Iraq 12:00would right now be tearing itself to pieces in a manner very similar to Syria. That the Sunni minority and the Shiite majority and the tensions there would inevitably as Saddam aged and Iran's influence grew have led to conflict, and a conflict that would not have been too dissimilar from Syria's. Iran jumps in for the Shiites, Al Qaeda jumps in for the Sunnis and foreigners flood the region. And soon they're killing each other just as bad as it was in the Iraqi civil war five, eight years ago. Maybe our invasion and subsequent occupation bore some of the brunt of that for the Iraqi people. Maybe our presence there did in fact take some of the blow of what was an inevitable 13:00conflict, maybe it didn't. But it's nice to think that.

John: That is a really smart, informed, and yeah, felt point to make. A critic might ask in turn why young American men primarily taking those blows for this division within Persian Gulf world between Sunnis and Shia that has been of course there for millennia.

Colin: Yeah I mean. I actually don't care as much about that part. I mean I think in retrospect, you know it's not a decision that should've been made. I don't know that's something that can really be argued at this point. We didn't find weapons of mass destruction. I don't know that there's really a plausible argument to be made that it was in American best interest in the long run. But I actually don't care as much about that. I didn't kill any Americans. And in fact, a really rather small number of Americans died in comparison to what was inflicted on Iraq itself. I mean God I'm sure we killed far more people in the invasion alone than Americans died in the entire war. So 15:00that part doesn't concern me as much frankly. I am more concerned with the notion that the people I killed who were ultimately just defending their homes. That that act was justified is a weird word but not evil I guess is the best expression to use.

John: And for a reason.

Colin: Yes, that there was some, ultimately it was not in vain. It wasn't just entirely senseless violence.

John: Okay. In rereading this wonderful set of transcripts from our interviews, and I don't believe I said in the introduction. I spoke 16:00with Colin on three separate occasions in the winter of 2005, 2006 when he was still a student here at Lehigh University. And as this transcript will be made available for the Veterans FP Project, a lot of its details of course will be found. One of the many really moving parts of those interviews and your recounting of your experience in Iraq comes during the first day of the invasion itself. That is literally when you cross the line with your unit onto the soil of Iraq. I'm wondering if you could sort of set that scene for me as you 17:00remember it now in as much detail as you care to provide. Time of day or night, who you were with, what kind of unit you were with, your feelings, and how you see it, how you remember it now.

Colin: It was about two a.m. There is this giant, we called it a berm, but that's not really the word 'cause it's 80 feet high, and 100 feet wide. It's this giant sand mountain that extends the length of the border between Iraq and Kuwait or at least did back then.

John: Man made.

Colin: Man made, and landmines all around it on both sides as well. It's this giant fortification. So we had been sort of holding position just on the Kuwaiti side of that for a couple days while awaiting final word to invade. There was conflict in the UN and all that at the time. We weren't as wired into it as I'm sure the rest of the world was. So better accounts of that could probably be received elsewhere. But you know I remember there was that morning. I think they started the bombing campaign which only lasted like a day or something like that. And so we knew we would be going that night sort of the morning before, and we got all our gear and whatnot ready although it pretty 19:00much already was and got some sleep. And then about two a.m. they blew a giant hole in this sand berm, and we crossed the border. We were the second Marine battalion into Iraq as I recall. The Army was doing something off in the desert to the west, but I'm not sure what the timing was on that. They were in like the desert, desert where there was no opposition anyway. So they were just sort of driving. We were charged with taking, and we refer to them as the GOSPs, gas, oil separator plants. There were a whole bunch of them, six or so. We were I think charged with taking numbers five and six as I recall. And so, forget which battalion it was head of us, they went in and then hung a 20:00right and went northeast to a set of refineries there. And then we went sort of straight north, maybe a little bit northeast as I recall timing to get to the GOSP at dawn. So we crossed at about two a.m. It was about a four hour drive through the desert up there. We were all pretty keyed up. There was a lot of artillery going on, and planes were still whipping overhead to bomb things and whatnot. We actually shot a couple of old abandoned tank hulks. There were relics from the '91 war all over the place, old tanks. And we had night vision, thermal sensing equipment, and they retain the heat from the desert day, and then glow with that heat throughout the night. They give it 21:00off. So you can actually pick up, there's a tank that is hotter than everything else around it. So you can actually pick it up on your thermal. So this being our first time in actual combat, we thought it might've been an old tank, but we shot one just to make sure.

John: Quick interjection about the technology involved. The night vision thermals are to be distinguished from night vision goggles that an individual wears.

Colin: Yeah, so let me give a little more background. So I was in what's called a combined anti armor attack team. We rode around in Hummers which were not nearly as technologically advanced as the MRAPs they have now. They had no armor, now shielding. They were rickety old things from the '80s. I was a very accomplished with the Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher which is, it is what it sounds like. It 22:00shoots grenades, 40 millimeter grenades like a machine gun with a range of about three quarters of a mile. And so I was a gunner on that. In my vehicle was Sergeant Ehlert commanding the vehicle, then there was Private Mada and Corporal Furst. Furst was a Javelin gunner. And what the Javelin is is a missile that is fired, they use all the time now, but they were new then. It's an antitank missile that you lock onto a target through your little sight, and it sort of flies up in the air, and then comes down on top of it. And so we had those. And we 23:00also had vehicles with TOW systems on it which are wire guided missiles And both the Javelin and the TOW systems, the antitank missiles had thermal imagery capability. So we could see the thermals. The rest of us just had night vision goggles which take in ambient light and amplify it so you can see better. But they still rely on ambient light. It's regular vision only better in the dark. The thermal is a whole other thing. So anyway, so I was up in the turret, as I was throughout the war. So I'm standing with my entire upper body sticking out of the hummer. Nowadays, they have the little shield things that wrap around, but I didn't have that. I didn't even have a little metal shield on the front of my gun like the Army had at the time. I had nothing. I was just naked to the breeze.

John: The Marines.

Colin: That's how we roll, or at least we did back then. Then they realized that was stupid and gave them good vehicles. You know so I was 24:00sort of sticking out the top with my machine gun mounted on the top of the Hummer. And a bunch of grenades up there with me up there to shoot out of it. And that was pretty much that. So anyway, so we're driving through the desert, and they picked up a couple of the tanks in the thermals and shot them. Then we realized they were nothing. It was all actually rather well timed. We got to the gas, oil separator plant around dawn. It was defended, but not with any gumption. There were Iraqi regular army there, and they shot some token rounds at us, and then either surrendered for fled. You know which all seemed very exciting at the time, but in comparison to later conflicts, it was 25:00nothing. It was quite a scene though. It's this giant oil refinery, and there're these pipes going everywhere. And there had been enough shots fired that when you shoot a hole in one of these pipelines, often times it will start gushing flame 'cause it will have natural gas in it or whatever. And the round hitting the metal, punches a hole in it and ignites a spark. And so suddenly, you have this flame spout coming out of this pipe. And then it gives off all this black smoke. So it was better than any movie you've seen just with the scene of the giant refinery in the background and the spurting flame, and the Iraqis fleeing in their pickup trucks, and you know we're sweeping across the desert in our vehicles. It was all very dramatic. But so we rounded up a bunch of Iraqi regular army guys. I'm sure some of them fled 26:00successfully. We didn't really care that much. You know we rounded up the rest of them and called it a day. That was pretty much it for the first day.

John: If I could read an excerpt from the December 2005 interview with you talking about that first day in more personal, emotional terms about how you remembered it then which was approximately eight years ago. But, I don't know. I just wasn't that scared most of the time. I guess I had a lot of adrenaline going, and a lot of it seemed, and as weird as this sounds, almost fun. You know I mean it's adrenaline. It's pitting your skill against another guy. It's hard to explain I guess. There were certainly times when I was scared. I can think of a 27:00couple of times when I was really scared, but for the most part, no. I was just doing my job, keeping my eyes open, looking around, and just waiting to shoot things before they shot me. I was pretty confident in my ability to shoot each man before he had shot me. So that probably contributed to it. Does that still ring pretty true?

Colin: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you know as I mentioned earlier, I don't think about the personal danger I was in that much. I really wasn't that scared most of the time. You know like I said, there were certainly a couple of times when I was pretty freaked out. You know and I think I know that in retrospect that the stress was sort of slowly building. And so by the end of you know sort of the time in active 28:00combat, I think I was kind of rung out. But you know that's stress. That's different than fear. I don't really remember being scared all that often. It was exciting. You know there's not really another good word for it. You know there is no more difficult or demanding endeavor than war. And there's no more fundamental test of your abilities. So yeah, I think that absolutely still rings true.

John: And you've been training for this for years?

Colin: Yeah, I mean by that point I had been in the Marine Corps for more than four years. I was involuntary extended to go to Iraq even 29:00though I would've done that anyway. Although I actually got like 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 bucks actually years later. Obama and Congress passed a law saying that we got sort of extra pay if you were in extra time.

John: Stop, loss.

Colin: Yeah so everyone who was stopped lost got some amount of extra pay like 500 bucks a month they were in extra.

John: You just got a check in the mail?

Colin: Just got a check in the mail. I called up some Marine at a desk in Kansas, and he was like, "Oh yeah we got you on our list. "I'll send you a check." Yeah. Hey, I wasn't complaining.

John: Celebrate.

Colin: Yeah, no I mean it was great. But yeah, no. I think that's absolutely still true. You know to this day, I don't think about being scared really ever.

John: I wonder why that is psychologically. I mean you've been through it. There's very few human beings who've been through what you 30:00describe, and yet it's one of the most discussed, examined points of human behavior in all of literature, combat and that experience, what it looks like, what it feels like. There is this point that people make from you know antiquity to the Iraq War that sometimes the good soldiers sort of lose a sense of their self. That you're not worrying about taking a bullet so much as just, in cliche, in the moment. Right, that you're a part of unit, you're working your weapon, do you sort of lose yourself in a sense? Your physical autonomy and safety 31:00is not the first thing on your mind?

Colin: Yeah, I don't... I'm gonna go off on a tangent a little bit, but it relates. Since I've had children, I have been more scared about them and what happens to them than I mean a hundred times more scared about what happens to my kids than anything I was ever concerned with during the war. You know there've been a couple incidents. My son fell off a bench at Dougherty Park and had to get just four staple in the back of his head. It was one of these childhood things that in retrospect is nothing. But you know I was mortified at the time. You know my 32:00wife when she was pregnant with our second child, oh God I forget what the, she had, it was a hematoma, and I forget the first word. But basically, she had a pocket of blood inside her uterus, and then some of that blood spontaneously leaked out. Like a lot of blood came out, and we of course thought that it was a miscarriage. I mean there was a lot of blood. I don't see how we could have come to any other conclusion. They should publicize that these things happen so you don't freak out. But we freaked out. And I mean I was far more worried about that than anything I've been about myself. You know and it's because I have a much deeper emotional connection to my children than I've ever had to anything. To the point where I'm not sure I've really ever cared about anything else. The emotion I have for my children 33:00is so different than any emotion I have for anything else in my life that I'm not sure I actually really cared about anything before. You know and I think that includes myself. You know and I think that includes just everything else you know in my life. So I'm not sure how much I thought I had to lose at the time. You know and I don't think I thought about it that deeply. You know I cared about things. I didn't want to be a screw up. I didn't want to let my buddies down and all that. But you know it wasn't to the same degree where I would get scared like that of losing something. You know and I mean I wasn't particularly scared of physical pain or injury. Just you know that's 34:00not something, the Marines are good at putting you through enough pain and misery beforehand that you learn to deal with it. So I think that might have something to do with. You're young. I was 22 years old, 23 years old. I don't know, I think that might have something to do with it.

John: It's fascinating. I mean there's a certain socio-biological logic to why the military puts 18 to 22 year old young men in the front lines to invade countries or to defend their own country. I mean yes, they are generally the most physically fit and capable in military 35:00warrior terms. But again, in this sort of evolutionary sense, they're fairly expendable. And they're fairly, relatively without much to lose as you say perfectly. Mid 30s and a father and the like, you gonna stick your neck out, you're gonna stick your whole half of your torso up a Humvee manning a Mk 19?

Colin: Yeah, now I would worry, again, not for myself, but if I were not there to care for my kids, what would happen to them? And that would terrify me.

John: And the military doesn't want that.

Colin: No. So you know I would have a totally different perspective on it now just 'cause I need to be there for my kids. So I think that that has a lot to do with it.

John: You describe in a later part of the push to Baghdad going to a small town just south of Baghdad into yet another ambush. This one 36:00perhaps more effective or better planned. There's a particular sniper in a building several stories above you getting a bead on you with one or two bullets brushing by your body, your head. Do you remember that?

Colin: Sure, I hadn't thought about it in a few years, but that was the day before the incident I described earlier. By then, we were in pretty intense fighting everyday as we pushed towards Baghdad. Yeah, sure, sure, now I do.

John: And even then, there wasn't this fear as you described it eight years ago. I mean maybe it was oh shit that was a bullet or whatever. But you didn't get down, you didn't go for cover or run.

Colin: No, I tried to shoot him first.

John: Yes, which you effectively did. Do you recall how that particular encounter ended?

Colin: Yeah sure. It was one of the first couple of days of April. I forget what side of the Tigris we were on. We were either about to cross the Tigris, or we had already crossed the Tigris. And there was this town that had been completely abandoned by civilians and was occupied by some, and at that point, there was a sort of weird mishmash as we refer to them as Saddam Fedayeen which were sort of 38:00Jihadists, a bunch of them were terrorists, and others were just sort of punk kids from Syria or wherever else or Iraq itself, and they were all sort of mixed up into this group. And they were all sort of integrated in with Republican Guard elements.

John: Did they tend to wear black pajamas?

Colin: Yeah, these are the black pajama guys. And they were all sort of mixed up with the Republican Guard. And so there were these elements of that in this town. And we were on the right side of the highway, and most of the dismounted troops of the battalion were on the left, and they were sort of sweeping up. And the sniper started shooting at us. And you can't actually feel a bullet brush by your head so 39:00much.

John: You didn't put it that way exactly.

Colin: It sounds different when it's coming straight at you. Because the sound from the muzzle instead of being dispersed is actually coming right down the muzzle right at you. And you can tell when they're shooting dead at you. And it's gotta a different crack to it. We could tell he was in the top story of this sort of row of houses all together like condos so to speak. And you know we couldn't find him for awhile. We were trying to get clearance to fire 'cause the way we were oriented, we were out to the right, and they were in these set 40:00of houses up. And then the rest of the troops were still coming up. So we were here, he was here, and the rest of the troops were here. And we didn't know how far they'd come up. And so before we engaged with the heavy weapons, we were trying to get clearance to fire. Now we eventually, and I forget either got clearance or just decided to shoot, one of the two. So as I recall, myself and a 50 caliber machine gunner just sort of demolished the top row of this set of condos. I mean he could've gotten out the back I guess but it seems unlikely. If he had a ladder or something out the back window, snipers do that. But I don't know. He didn't shoot at us anymore so that was good enough. (laughing)

John: When you talk about combat being fun in a way for lack of a better word perhaps, is it fun to shoot a Mk 19?

Colin: Sure, sure. It's a blast absolutely.

John: Would you like to do it now if you had an opportunity out in some abandoned town or some place, some old site. Is it something you'd like to feel again or have you had enough?

Colin: Yeah, no.

John: It's not something you want to go back to?

Colin: It is certainly fun. I don't know that I need to go down that road again.

John: It's really a powerful thing to have.

Colin: A 50 caliber machine gun or a Mk 19 are massively powerful pieces of weaponry. You know I mean they're mounted to the hood of the vehicle or on this giant tripod on the ground. But there's still this tremendous amount of power and kick coming through them. You know 42:00heavy machine gunners tend to be big, strong guys 'cause you have to you know be able to hold it steady and hold it on target. And then you have to actually carry the thing from point A to point B.

John: It jams at times.

Colin: Yeah, it'll jam at times. There's certainly an art to it. You know you have to know how to keep it up and running, how to fix it, and there's a certain amount of finesse both to actually making, certainly with the Mk 19, to making it actually work 'cause it tends to jam a lot, the Mk 19 does. The 50 cal is indestructible, never jams. But the Mk 19 does jam a lot. And you know then to actually shooting it, you know especially with the Mark you know it shoots grenades, it's explosive. There's a different way you employ it than certainly when you're fighting dismounted troops. You know I got pretty good at sort of dropping a line of Mk 19 rounds in a trench line for example. 43:00You know and sort of obliterating an entire stretch of trench in one burst. So there's sort of some different things you can do with it.

John: And you've mentioned hitting an individual with a round directly but also it creates a fair amount of shrapnel burst. So that in addition to sort of leveling things, it would kill people who are close by from the shrapnel.

Colin: Yeah absolutely. Yeah so you want to aim at the ground where you're trying to shoot. You know you want to get that burst rather than just having it whiz right by them. So yeah, it's sort of a different thing. You know I mean it's A, extremely powerful, and it's something I was very good at. And you know everyone likes to do things they're good at. You know that's sort of basic to human nature. So you know 44:00for both those reasons, yeah I enjoyed it very much. It's now a skill that is entirely wasted in my current life.

John: Happily so perhaps. But again, something that is so distinct and just so unique to a few people. The key engagement that you described earlier and referred to when you killed the brother of a person who was quite upset of course by that. That was driving into another ambush again going north towards Baghdad, ambushed by more Fedayeen troops, irregulars if you want to call them that. This is how 45:00you described a climax of that fire fight as you described it some eight years ago. Basically they jumped out, and we went around and flanked to the right, and I could see them. They're dragging a body or somebody up the tunnel that I hit. And another guy sees me, and kind of I see him. And the dust clears all of a sudden, and he sees me, and I see him. And he pulled his rifle up, and I bring my machine gun around, and we both just start shooting at each other. I get him before he gets me. And so I don't think I killed him. I think I just wounded him. He runs back up the tunnel, and then we go around one more, and I just start shooting grenades just right up the tunnel just hooked up the whole length of tunnel, and I'm just lighting it up. And then these two guys get up to the top, and they start chucking frag 46:00grenades down there. So that's not doing anybody any good. And at this point, India Company realizes they're being shot from behind. Well so they turn around and start shooting back towards the tunnel. Well unfortunately, I'm over here. So you know we're laying down on the ground, and I screaming in the radio telling them to stop. But I'm like India Company cease fire, cease fire. We got them. You know you've got friendlies over here. There's out own bullets are zipping over my head, and then my lieutenant hears us on the radio and starts coming back, and he's about to come into the crossfire. So I have to find the right freakin' channel on the radio as I'm getting shot at to tell him to stop before he drives right into the crossfire. It was a whole mess.

Colin: That sounds accurate.

John: Don't want to add or subtract anything from how you remember it now? That's a rather detailed account of who knows how many seconds, 47:00not many.

Colin: Yeah, like a minute.

John: A minute if that.

Colin: Yeah no, that's about right. You know coming into it we were. So this is after the sniper incident, after some other you know pretty intense battles. You know we're getting pretty close to Baghdad at this point. We're coming up the highway. You know the engagement overall wasn't an ambush so much at that point because you know basically there was resistance at every step of the way at this point. And so they actually had a whole training compound there. I don't really know what it was, but it was a base, training compound whatever it was. But it had barbed wire fence, these buildings and whatnot. And you know, there were a good battalion worth of them there, and they were there. 48:00They were gonna defend that stretch of highway. Those were I think the most determined individuals we fought with. So there had actually been a tank unit out in front of us, and they had sort of blown through and taken pretty heavy casualties doing that. But they were still driving to Baghdad. And so we came in on their heels. I mean they has literally just driven straight up the highway and gone through sort of shooting off to the sides as they went. So there was still this whole mass of now this sort of stirred up hornets nest worth of 800 terrorist irregular guys. But a bunch of them were Syrian 'cause they had Syrian passports still on them. And so we ran smack into this and 49:00hit it pretty hard. The CAAT team and our mixed in our tanks we had assigned to our battalion. We had four tanks assigned to our battalion. We were on the main road. There was a company, India Company out to the left pushing through this grass that was all full of trench lines and defended. And then there were two companies trying to take the compound itself. I was initially on the road firing over the heads of the dismounted infantry going into the compound. I was firing over their heads firing in support of them trying to take the compound. And so you know we're just sort of pushing up the road incrementally as they go up. And I'm just sort of lighting up anyone I see in the compound over there. And then you know Iraq is full of canals. Everything is a canal. There's agriculture, but there's not much water. It all comes from the Tigris and the Euphrates down canals, but they pass under the roads. Where these guys came out of, it was like seven, 50:00eight of them, was this tunnel under the road for a canal. So they popped right up, and they're literally 20, 25 feet in front of us. And they just start blazing away with AK 47s. And of course, they can't shoot 'cause none of them can shoot. So they miss us even from that range just pointing straight at us from 25 feet away, and they miss us. And so you know the driver sort of instinctively does a 360, and we drive back about only like 10, 15 feet. Which was actually a good thing because a Mk 19 round theoretically, and I don't know if this is actually true. Theoretically a Mk 19 round will not explode before it's gone a certain number of revolutions in the air. You know the barrel of a Mk 19 is rifled, and the rounds spin as they go. Theoretically it's supposed to spin three times before it explodes so that it 51:00doesn't explode right in front of you and blow you up too. And so I think we would've been inside the range which my rounds would've exploded had we not backed up a little bit. But anyway, he backs it up, and then we immediately stop. And at that point, the back of the Humvee is better armored than the front. It's just the hatch there. So I spin my turret around, and I blaze away at the guys there in the tunnel. At this point, this is like right on the road. So there's friendlies all over the place. I was pretty accurate with it. I didn't get an friendlies and so I shot right there. But it kicks up this huge cloud of dust. So everything's sort of obscured. And then the Ehlert and Furst get out and start crawling towards the opening in the middle to drop the grenades in like we said. And the drive Mada and I flank 52:00around to the right, and then that's where we get into the part where sort of the dust clears, and the dust from my earlier rounds clear. And so they're dragging a couple guys I had hit earlier back up the tunnel. And like I said, we just sort of looked at each other, and I managed to, actually he was, I was aiming at which I probably could've taken a month, and he still wouldn't hit me 'cause they couldn't shoot. You know after that, the description you read is pretty accurate. It's probably better than I recall it now. You know and then I don't have a real good recollection of what happened immediately after that. The next thing I recall I was still in the vehicle but some 53:00guys had gotten out. I was still behind the gun, but some guys had gotten out. And there were these eight or so guys, and they were all dead but one, the one guy. And they dragged him up and they sort of got him collected off to the side of the road. We were sitting there next to them, and I'm smoking a cigarette. You know and then I have some vivid memories, and then the guy's brother is there. There was a guy who had been wounded but wasn't dead yet, and he just sort of was making quite a bit of noise, and then he eventually just died right there. And, that's about that on that. But that's certainly my least pleasant memory of the Iraq War.

John: Another unpleasant one if I'm recalling correctly, we're clearly not going in chronological orders here, is I believe a couple days 54:00before after you'd gone through the oil fields on your way north, and there is a blinding sandstorm. Do you want to not necessarily recount everything about it, but is that still itself a vivid memory?

Colin: Sure, sure, sure. That was our first really sort of hardcore engagement. You know we'd taken the gas, oil separator plant down south, and then we'd just been driving for like four or five days. We'd gone a long way into the country. And we'd seen some guys here and there and fired a couple shots, and they'd fire a couple shots at us. But it hadn't been any sort of protracted thing. You know and so then 55:00we get into this big engagement, and I probably described it well last time. You know I certainly remember driving up the trench line in my Hummer shooting things with the Mk 19 which was probably relatively unprecedented in the annals of warfare. Actually driving the Hummer through the trench line shooting it up with a Mk 19. Yeah, you know I mean I certainly you know I remember how dark it was. It was just black, black, black, black. Just the absolute blackest black dark there could be.

John: Night vision goggles aren't gonna work in that.

Colin: No, they picked up no ambient light. I mean you literally could not see your hand in front of your face. We were blind in the I do not have working vision sense of the word like blind person blind.

John: And you know that there are Fedayeen around you.

Colin: Yeah.

John: Though presumably they're blinded by it as well.

Colin: Yeah, no one can see anything. My battalion, I know from second hand stories, was involved in a rather unfortunate incident where, extremely unfortunate incident, where some of the Fedayeen types had brought some little girls out and were using them as human shields so to speak. And I know that in sort of the exchange of random gunfire that those little girls were hit. And they were there. And there's accounts of them. They were apparently just sort of screaming and crying in the darkness for quite some time, but no one could get to them or help them 'cause you couldn't see anything. I didn't experience that first hand, but that sounds pretty awful. That was on sort of the 57:00other side of the formation from me. No, I just sort of sat there in the dark. You know I wasn't that scared. I think my most vivid memory is there was a guy who I had really liked named Sergeant McCullough who was a section leader. He was in charge of a bunch of us. And a guy I really respected, one of my best friends, and he just lost his shit. You know I don't want to bad mouth the guy, so I probably shouldn't. He's a great guy, but he was freakin' out. You know and I didn't quite understand why at the time. There were other people, I mean it was horrifying. I mean now in retrospect. I mean we'd just been in this huge fight. Doc Johnson had been killed you know? God, what the hell 58:00was his name? Anyway, another friend of ours we thought was dead. And you know he ended up living, but a Hummer of ours had been blown to bits by an RPG. And you know we'd just fought this huge engagement. But it didn't affect me that bad, but there were a few guys that were just absolutely freaking out.

John: And there's no, at least in the case of McCullough, there's nothing about him beforehand that would've

Colin: No, nothing.

John: predicted that he would've acted that way in this situation.

Colin: No, no, no. No, I wouldn't have thought so at all. And I remember being surprised by it and not knowing what to do about it. I didn't do anything about it. I didn't know what to do about it. But I remember not having any of those emotions myself at all. I just kind 59:00of sat there waiting to see again.

John: And the more we talk--

Colin: Now, tying into what we had said earlier, he had kids. So maybe there's something to this whole theory. He was married and had a couple little kids.

John: No, the theory is sound I think. Can we pull back a little bit recognizing we haven't come close to talking about all of your combat experience. I'm trying to get a sense of what you think and what others think about who should be doing this in the future. You're a Lehigh 60:00history graduate, a historian of the United States. That is you have a clearly good working understanding of it. And with that understanding, I think we could agree that this country will go to war. It's a really safe best, isn't it? It seems to be what the United States does. Who should bear the brunt of military service in those wars to be?

Colin: I guess it depends on how longterm we're looking. In the longterm, and I don't mean this facetiously, robots, you know drones. But I 61:00think you know in the longterm, and not even that longterm, but you know 50 years, I can't imagine it won't be autonomous machines you know with some level of remote control. But I actually imagine it won't be, you know they'll have some level on autonomy. And that's obviously got it's own set of giant, enormous issues.

John: It really does.

Colin: It has huge, massive implications. The tolerance of the American populace for casualties is trending downwards so dramatically. You 62:00know I haven't kept an exact count, but we're less than 10,000 dead I think in both these wars combined. You know which was like six months of Vietnam. You know, so I mean, and there's people up in arms over it. And Vietnam was probably not appreciably more or less justified than you know it was probably less justified than Afghanistan. Afghanistan in a very real way attacked us first. But people were still willing to do that back then. They no longer are. So I think eventually the tolerance for casualties will reach essentially zero. And we'll either fight wars with drones and robots or not at all.

John: Is there something inherently wrong or seriously questionable about fighting a war that is risk free for one side that is waging it? 63:00Isn't that one of those base questions that you've alluded to?

Colin: Yeah, I mean I don't know how much anything is ever going to be risk free. I mean anyone who's country is invaded by robots will find a way to strike back. It will be in the form of terrorist attacks, and whatnot, and so forth. You know I mean if you look at what a few people did on 9/11, I mean we're not all safe here. So I don't think anything will ever be risk free. You know and then having said that, there are huge implications to fighting humans with drones and robots, but we're doing it now. You know we've been doing it with 64:00Tomahawk missiles. I mean World War II with atomic bombs and dumb bombs dropped from--

John: Way up in the sky.

Colin: Yeah so I don't know that I see the moral implications of a drone strike as being all that different than the moral implications of an artillery shell. You're still shooting it from 20 miles away. So I guess I don't see that much of a difference. You know I guess I understand the notion that it could be easier to order us into a conflict if we saw no downside. But no one seems to see an issue with that 65:00in Bosnia for example in '98. You know I mean I don't even think we flew below 15,000 feet was the rule. We literally just dropped bombs on them from above 15,000 feet was the entire conflict. I guess I don't see the moral implications as being all that different.

John: Just in recent months the Pentagon, the Defense Department has lifted the ban on women in holding actual combat roles in the US Army and the Marine Corps. It's a longstanding sort of truism or statement about the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars perhaps others that there wasn't 66:00necessarily a frontline like there had been perhaps in other wars and that women in the armed forces were certainly at risk in pseudo combat positions in those countries, but this is different. As we speak, women are going through US Army and US Marine.

Colin: Sure I've seen the, yep.

John: And the like. What do you think about that?

Colin: I'm not entirely sure.

John: Probably a pretty good answer.

Colin: I have thoughts that are sort of jumbled on the subject. I don't necessarily see why a woman shouldn't be a tanker or artillery man 67:00which are jobs they're banned from now. I don't see why they shouldn't be. There's absolutely no reason a woman can't drive a tank. I really fail to see a logical reason to exclude them from those roles. And so I'm sure they will be integrated in those roles, and I'm sure they'll do great. The infantry is a different animal for two reasons that I see. One of which I don't think is sexist, and the other which may be sexist, but I don't think is it either. The first is that the infantry is extremely physically demanding, like extremely physically demanding. You know and so I'm not saying there aren't women that can do that. I guess I'm wondering at what point does it become 68:00impractical to sift through enough women to find the women that can do it. You know I know they've been putting women through the School of Infantry, SOI, as we refer to it. And the graduation rates have not been great. SOI is hard, but it's easier than the fleet training which is in turn easier than an actual combat deployment. The humps as we referred to them back in the days, and I don't know if they still do it the same way. But we used to go on these hump build ups where you'd got 10 miles and 15 miles and 20 miles, 25 miles. You know in my case 69:00carrying a 50 caliber machine gun for at least part of it. And it was just incredibly physically demanding, just incredibly physically demanding. Like so much more so than running a marathon or a triathlon or anything. I mean carrying 100 pounds of gear for 25 miles is the most unbelievably physically demanding thing a person can do that I can think of frankly. I've seen two people literally die from it. One guy fell over from heat stoke and died, and the other guy just had a heart attack right on the spot. So are there women that can do that? Sure, absolutely. I'm actually in a relatively, not unique but strange position in that being a track athlete here at Lehigh and in high school, I've actually exercised with women for hours a day everyday for years. And I'm actually quite aware of what a woman can do 70:00physically 'cause the way a track team works is that the sprinters male and female all workout together, the hurdlers all workout together, the distance runners all workout together. And you workout side by side with the women everyday. You know so I was far more teammates with the female sprinters and the hurdlers than I was with the male distance runners. So I'm really very aware of what they can do physically. And I just don't see very many women, even division one track athletes, having the physical wherewithal to, and it comes up in Afghanistan. There was fighting in a place called the Korangal Valley just as one example. And they go up into these outposts high in the mountains and helicopters can't even fly up there. And they literally have to carry all their stuff up to these mountain outposts sort of ringing the 71:00valleys.

John: Why can't helicopters get up there?

Colin: Helicopters can't fly above a certain altitude. There's actually not enough air for the rotors to push to provide the lift. And you know there are ranges below that at which they can't carry a heavy load. It just becomes more and more difficult to fly. So you pretty much have to walk with all your stuff. And you not only have to walk, you have to walk, and then you have to fight. And then you have to get up, and then you have to walk, and then you have to fight. And you have to not eat much, and you have to not drink much. And this is over days and months of this depending on the you know particular engagement. I'm not sure how many women are physically capable of doing that.

John: So this goes more to that capacity as opposed to another point about women in infantry combat units upsetting the chemistry of that 72:00masculine unit.

Colin: Yeah, I don't know how much I buy into that. I think it's something that could be adjusted to with one exception which is my other point. You know and just physicality. I'm sure there are women that could do it. I'm sure there are, but the other aspect of it is that you have to train for years and years to do it, and that is very tough on your joints and your bones and your back and your knees. It's very tough on you orthopedically. And I'm also not sure how many women would actually make it through a four year enlistment of training before their knees gave out you know or their backs. You know it's tough for a 200 pound guy who can do it. If you're already stretched to the 73:00max, and you're 130 pound woman, I'm just not, anyway while there're women who could do it, I'm not sure that it's worth running 100 women through SOI at a time to come out with two that could actually do it for five years. Anyway, so that's one point. The next point, and I have no idea if this is true or not. And this is completely pop psychology that may have nothing to do with reality whatsoever. To actually point a rifle at someone's head and pull the trigger and blow their head off and then immediately do it again and blow somebody else's head off intentionally that you can see is very different, very, very different than any other kind of combat in which any of the other aspects of the military engage in. And you have to be in some respect a sociopath in that moment to do it at least to do it the second time. You 74:00have to have abandoned normal human morals and standards. And I think in some respects it is easier to brainwash a group solely consisting of men into that state. I think women may be more resistant to that sort of breakdown of their morals in the first place simply because just sort of the way they're wired, they're more I don't want to say they're better people, but they appreciate the consequences of their actions more than men do I think in general. But actually, much more than any actual difference between men and women, when men and women 75:00are together, I think they rationalize each other. A mixed group, I think you know people probably see in their own lives, a mixed group behaves in a more civilized manner than either a group consisting of solely women or a group consisting solely of men. You know a group consisting solely of men will be slapping each other with towels within five minutes. And a group consisting of women will be gossiping and carrying on. A mixed group behaves in a manner that is more normalized to societal norms which is exactly what you don't want when you are trying to brainwash people into being sociopaths. And so I just wonder if combat effectiveness would be reduced by people behaving in what 76:00in any other situation would be a normal, and rational, and right manner. And I wonder if a mixed group of people is more likely to do that. I don't know. And like I said.

John: That is one of the more intelligent answers I've heard to that really tough question.

Colin: And it could be completely made up.

John: Both counts. One definition of being a sociopath or at least one factor of it is to be without empathy and to work from that point of view about having to be a sociopath to not only pull the trigger the first time especially to pull the trigger the second time. Is that part of how you understand that act of killing to be, empty oneself of empathy?

Colin: Sure. I mean empathy's what gets you. Empathy's what gets me not everyday anymore but certainly often enough. Yeah, you know 77:00empathy's a bitch. I mean you have to be able to put it aside in the moment, and I think some people are better at putting it aside in the longterm than I might be. You know it's tough.

John: I remember from our earlier talks that there has been a tradition in your family of military service. Your father served and was decorated in the Vietnam War and perhaps his father and your mother's father as well. You've spoken of your children. There's a lot to 78:00unfold between they're at a young age and when they become of adult age. But what are your thoughts about the prospect of them following in the family tradition?

Colin: They're mixed I guess. Again, I don't know if this is sexist or what, but I probably think about it more with my son than my daughter. You know I probably don't want my daughter doing that. As far as my son, the Marine Corps did a lot of good things for me. You know I was kind of a mess before the Marine Corps. You know it certainly was a huge part of turning me into who I am now. You know on the other hand, the notion of him being in danger in that manner is obviously not something I'm fond of. You know I have a much greater 79:00appreciation now of what my poor parents must've been going through when I was over there. I can't even imagine. In many ways, that seems harder than actually doing what I did is just sitting here you know obsessively watching CNN or MSNBC. You know that just sounds awful. You know so I certainly worry about that aspect of it. But I don't know. There are a lot of factors there. So I guess my feelings are mixed.

John: Good answer. Is there anything you'd like to add to this discussion?

Colin: No, I mean, well I think more of the PTSD issue quote, unquote. You hear that term thrown around so much. I'm not totally sure what all encompasses the PTSD and frankly I don't know that anyone is even if they say they are. Maybe there should be a different term for the 81:00feelings that accompany an active combat engagement where you're killing people because so much of the post traumatic portion of that seems to focus on things that have happened to you. And you hear people claiming well this happened to me and so I'm traumatized and I have stress because of it. But that seems to me to be, you know in my personal experience that's almost none of what has affected me in the long run. And then you hear things about the drone operators who have what is essentially PTSD, and they're calling it PTSD. And I completely empathize with them. I think that would just be awful sitting there you know playing what is essentially a video game with real people on 82:00the other end of it. You know flying over villages and blowing people up from a drone. I mean, oh God, hundreds. 'Cause they can fly two, three missions a day for years. I can't even imagine. And so maybe some of the thinking and the literature on this, there should be a different term or a different expression of the after effects of taking a life in combat 'cause it seems to me the two are lumped together too much. You know it seems to me an entirely different animal than being traumatized from being raped. I mean being raped is the most 83:00horrible thing I can imagine happening to a person. It's awful, but I just don't see the affect that it would have on a person is very divergent to me. Not making some value judgment better or worse, but I don't think it's the same thing. So I don't know. You know I think that's my two cents on a subject that I've thought about.

John: That's fascinating. I mean these problems overlap and yet hearing you talk it seems like they could be sort of disconnected and sequenced out. It seems like the most physical one is what's being called brain trauma now. You know experiencing incredible concussive 84:00blast that traumatizes your brain and leads to all sorts of difficulties to the sort of catchall post traumatic stress that has been called many different things over different wars from shell shock to combat fatigue to the extent that I understand in what the current medical and psychiatric literature describes is that it is the trauma of a heightened disorder and chaos and it includes death of enemies, and buddies, and everything else, but it is this harsh contrast between generally a mind and a person being able to make order of one's world around him and the realities of combat just running smack against that. And the recurrence of that incongruence that is haunting one or 85:00revisiting one after the combat is over. What you're describing is not completely disconnected to that, but you are specifically describing what began this talk and what is now ending it is this ongoing, lingering, sometimes weaker, but sometimes very strong feeling of empathy for those you killed, and those families of those you killed and the psychological experience of living with that, and how that manifests and what if anything can be done about it.

Colin: I don't know. I read an article recently about the drone operators and some of the affects that it was having on them, and I totally 86:00understand why they would have issues with it. That just seems like the absolute worst job in the world to me. And it's gotta be tough. And you know I think it all ties in. You know I mean what I was talking about at the beginning of the interview as far as the thinking about the justifications for what went on, the experiences. You know I mean I think the act of killing is so tied into everything about sort of my experiences and my thoughts about the war. It even ended up tying into my thoughts about women in combat. It is the defining 87:00characteristic of both my experience and of warfare frankly.

John: Of war, yeah. Not dying for your country but killing for it. 'Cause has it gotten better, Colin, over time?

Colin: Yeah, it has. It has.

John: The intensity, the frequency of--

Colin: Yeah, I mean I certainly still circle back to it from time to time late at night, when I'm driving sometimes. You know I'll think about generally that one incident. But I don't have nightmares anymore. I don't think about it certainly everyday. Not all that often. I certainly don't think about it everyday. Eventually, you just sort of move on. You know I still, and I don't know if I talked about this as 88:00the time. I still can't hear about, I don't like news stories about murders and whatnot. My wife likes to watch Criminal Minds which has this awful depictions of these incredibly violent, just awful stuff, and I refuse to go anywhere near that. And it's not the violence. It's not blood that bother me. It is the traumatic experiences of people. Because I have my own kids, I can't hear about anything bad happening to a kid, or I get very upset. The Newtown thing just absolutely upsets me. I can't even talk about it. I can't even think about it or talk 89:00about it. It's so just absolutely, absolutely horrifying to me. You know I am up in arms that guns are still allowed in this country. I can't even think about it. It's absolutely horrifying to me. That's the way in which it affects me the most is that I can't be around or experience traumatic things like that. Yeah when they come in my own life, I can deal with them, and that's fine. But I don't like to be exposed to them certainly not for pleasure like on TV, you know? But I don't think that'll ever go away. But in terms of thinking about it