Tom Lowry

John Pettigrew: It is August 3rd, 2012. I'm John Pettigrew, I'm here with Robert O'Neal and Liz Irwin and with Tom Lowry, a combat veteran from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Tom, could you spell your last name for us for the record?

Tom: Yes, my last name's spelled L O W R Y. That's usually right here, it's always on the right breast pocket.

John: When were you born, Tom?

Tom: I was born July 3rd, 1981.

John: And where were you born?

Tom: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

John: Is that where you were raised, where you grew up?

Tom: We moved around a lot as a young child because my father was a roofer and we moved around. Basically I grew up, most of my time was in 1:00one area was in New Jersey in high school in Williamstown area. So I was raised half and half, Philadelphia and New Jersey but I graduated high school in New Jersey.

John: It's a tough question, I don't know that I'd want to answer this one, but what do you think of your childhood when you think back, was it happy thoughts, bad thoughts, probably mixed I would guess like most of us. But how do you think of your sort of pre adult life?

Tom: I already had it rough as it is already and I had a cousin already, I looked up to him before and he joined the Marine Corps and he 2:00failed at it. And I always looked up to him 'cause he always did everything I wanted to do and I was like; you know, he didn't do it, so I'm gonna do this. And I wanted to succeed at it and be the best I can possibly be, you know. You know that sounds like the Army theme song and all, but no, but I wanted to do, I wanted to learn the best about it. I already, I shaved my head, I knew he had to go in with a shaved head and you had to talk in the third person in boot camp. And so excuse me sir, this recruit requests permission to speak. And he'll say what, usually effing this or effing that or cursing. And I was like can this recruit make a head call? And he'll say fly, like yo, and I'll 3:00usually do that. But you have to ask permission to speak before you ask can ask the question.

John: Right, so it sounds like you were set on joining the Marines in part because of your cousin. You joined the Marines in 2000?

Tom: Yes, I joined the Marine Corps in 2000, yes I did.

John: Is that after graduating from high school? Did you graduate?

Tom: Yes I did, I graduated, I graduated high school. I made sure, well you're not allowed in, not allowed in the service unless you have a high school diploma and college credits would even better, but if you wanted in college you can go to OCS and you can be an officer.

John: So it was not September 11, 2001 that motivated you to join the marines. You were already in?

Tom: I was already in. I remember specifically that day, what I was doing too. We just got back from doing PT, which is physical training. 4:00I remember we turned our tv's on and somebody filming it from far away and we seen the planes crashing the towers. I thought it was fake first, I thought it was like a movie. And there was some Fox News. I knew it was real right away, I didn't even finish watching the rest. People were jumping from the buildings and everything. It was awful. I knew right away, I said 'We're going to war. We're going to war, this is a terrorist attack.' I left right away and then I started packing things up ready to go.

John: Was that a good thing or a bad thing to you, that you were going to war?

Tom: It was bad thing all together. My father always told me 'Every ten years, we always go to war.' And if you think about it it's kinda 5:00true. Even if it's something small. Our economy goes down, and then when the war happens it boosts our economy up. Scrap metal and all kinds of everything, everything gets raised, we need money for this or for that, for a while, when we're at war, the economy is, it boosts the economy up. This war is like Vietnam. It's never ending. We can't just go in there, we killed everybody they had us they were been like this since Saddam. For thirty plus years. They were used to the beatings and everything like this, and then they were used to freedom, we tried leaving the country to pull our guys out then it was rape, kill, pillage and burn. That's what they were doing. Then we had to get 6:00back over there and that was Iraq Enduring Freedom.

John: Let's back up a little. After highschool, you joined the Marines in 2000. You go to boot camp, you've already talked a bit about what that is like. It's fairly physically demanding, did you find the physical part, the training, the running, the whatever else to be quite difficult? How would you describe that part of it?

Tom: Very difficult. I already had training before we were grouped for the football team. We went all the way, we were Conference Champs.

John: What did you in play football?

Tom: I played football. I was a break center and I played defensive end. I started both ways, I played Iron Man Football. We didn't have a 7:00lot of people, so I never left the field. Kick off, can't return, I was a long snapper, so I was on the field for punt and..

John: So even though you were physically trained as a football player you found boot camp pretty challenging as well?

Tom: Definitely. I was not used to running long distance. And plus, being in New Jersey is different. You know, North Carolina or South Carolina,

John: Parris Island?

Tom: In Parris Island is swamp hot. I don't even have the right word but it's humidity, humidity gets you so bad. It feels like you're dying. You need water and water and water and you only got one canteen you're running with. You can drink from it. You get yelled at by 8:00everything you're doing. It's not like you're just running and everything you've got five drill sergeants in your ear screaming they're like 'You're nothing, you're scum, you're dirt, you're shit, you're absolutely nothing.' To me, now that I'm older and I know this was a brainwash technique. Think about this if you do this, and you're telling a kid this and he's 18, 19 years old. He's gonna believe everything he hears, these guys are older and then they're thinking they're nothing. As you go on through boot camp, things get harder and harder and then if you fail or whatever they call you junk and pieces of shit so you work at it harder to get better. 'You're a fat ass.' whatever you're like this, so you work harder, you don't wanna be a fat ass anymore. That's why they, I don't know people call people names 9:00because they think it's helping them out. But the military's different, they help you. They're always there for you for everything.

John: After boot camp, you make it through what comes next?

Tom: School of Infantry, I went through SOI a lot of people call it ITB, Infantry Training Battalion School of Infantry. That's what I, SOI. That's where you learn hands on weapons. You learn about most of your weapons. Your M249 SAW, your M16 82, you even learn about the A1, you even learn about the AK-47, how it sounds differently so that you know, if there's an AK-47 being shot off and you can tell if 10:00you're in a building or something someone's shooting an M16 or an AK-47 you had to train like that. Senior training.

John: Had you shot a gun before the Marines?

Tom: Have I shot a gun before the Marines?

John: As a kid, with your dad? Hunting or?

Tom: Yes I have. Never went hunting, like I said, I was in Philadelphia, New Jersey and not in the bad areas either. Grew up in East Philadelphia. And I lived in some bad areas. My father was from a rural he was from Lindenfield. They call Lindenfield projects. It's not 11:00there anymore, they knocked it down but that's where he was originally from. And my mother was upper class, but she got pregnant with me, young. And they got married and stayed with each other.

John: Did you get really good at shooting a gun in infantry training and then beyond?

Tom: Yeah, it all started in boot camp. They scare you so bad like 'If you don't pass you're gonna be held back.' And that's the last thing you wanna do, is held back, held back for a week or go back and start from the beginning because you're already accomplished so much, so why would you want to go backwards? So it was a scary thought so you concentrated so hard, more than you've concentrated on anything else, I don't care if you say you're studying for a big test, whatever, no. You're worried about getting beaten. You weren't sure if you were 12:00gonna get beaten or hit. I don't know how it is now a days, but they used to hurt ya.

John: They did beat you and hit you?

Tom: They did that they did beat you. And they hit you hard. Sometimes they would, you would have to dig a hole to bury yourself. But you couldn't use your hands. You had to dig it out with your feet. So you're doing, you're holding your hands here like a push up position, and you're kicking the dirt out like this until you're all the way, almost straight. For hours, and sand fleas are biting at ya. And they used to say 'Hey you ate, and now they need to eat.' They brainwashing, brainwashing. And after a while brainwashing is so bad when you do something good, if you're first in a run, cause you always get first in a run. They tell you 'Great, great job.' and it feels so great that 13:00this guy that's been yelling at me, calling me an asshole, and a piece of shit and scumbag and you're a cockroach. You're lower than nothing. Almost like Full Metal Jacket. They did do things like that, embarrassed you. Made you run around in your boxers and suck your thumb. With your weapon, and drag your rifle. And if you didn't have a cover on your head you had to walk around with your hand on your head like an ass. You had to...

John: Lets get out of Parris Island, we've had enough of that.

Tom: Okay.

John: And you go through Infantry Training, back to September 11, 2001, you say you're going to war. You understand that it's a bad thing. Talk about deployment to the Middle East, the first time. And what unit you were assigned to as the war is coming close to starting.

Tom: As soon as that television program was over everybody was in their rooms, we were ordered to pack our things up, we packed everything up, and then we had an inspection to make sure we had our cammies, we had everything that was issued to us was going, our packs, our everything. And the cammie handled that, he had a picture, of how it was supposed to be lined up so they could come in and check it out make sure you have everything. You had to have a loofah.

John: A loofah?

Tom: Them wash loofahs? Because rags carried bacteria. And loofahs could dry easily, so everybody had to carry a loofah, it had to be a 15:00dark loofah so it didn't glow. It's not like we took baths out there. I remember I didn't take my boots off for two weeks one time. I had two pairs of socks on my, my skin actually grew over my socks. I had to peel my skin off over my feet it was pretty gruesome. And it's only when you very get to stop. You never..

John: So you're on the move pretty much right after the terrorist attacks? As you are deployed, you go to Kuwait?

Tom: Every unit pulls into Kuwait first. We were giving 'em warnings. We were telling Saddam 'Give up peacefully.' Listen we tried to tell 16:00him 'Look, we're coming in, regardless. We got word that you have Weapons of Mass Destruction's' He's saying he doesn't, he let our guys in to inspect. And then next thing you know... He went with them a certain day, where they were supposed to be at, you could tell trucks were there, things were moved. They found traces of radiation, and certain things came up. They had, I don't know if weapons of mass destruction is what you wanna call it. I wanna say he had a lot of biological warfare weapons. A lot of things that would have made a lot of people sick. And things that could end the world, if it got out.

John: And so, President Bush gave Saddam an ultimatum, he doesn't respond to the ultimatum, and we're at about March 19, 20, 2003 and the Marines, along with Army and British forces, cross into southern Iraq. Can you tell us what you remember from that

Tom: A lot of times I close my eyes to get the good visual, plus I got these lights that are beaming on me, but it's okay. First, say that question again, we went in?

John: The opening invasion of the Iraq war, I think it was March 19 or 20 of 2003, your unit is the third battalion, fifth regiment?

Tom: Third battalion, fifth Marines. First Marine division.

John: What is your rank by this point?

Tom: At this point I was a sergeant. I mean I lost rank, gained rank, lost rank, gained rank. And eventually got out as a Staff NCO.

John: As a sergeant during this opening invasion, were you responsible for other marines? Can you tell me what kind of unit you were in for this invasion into southern Iraq, as I take it you were meant to move up towards Baghdad, and seizure of that city.

Tom: I don't understand the question. So you're saying

John: Were you, as a sergeant in the invasion, did you have men who..

Tom: Yes like I said, I was a squad leader. And I was in charge of 15 guys. And then you had fire team leaders, and fire team leaders had to report to me, they had four guys under them. And they came to me and I told them what to do, we spread out to the Larry, take your team out on patrol tonight. And would take guys out on patrol and do certain things, squad regi's. Usually we had everybody on line, staggered, you never stayed on, stayed in a column, cause straight on, or straight on like this either. They could take somebody out. We always spread 20:00out. We were always trained to watch out of surroundings to look for trip wires or lot of times they had holes dug out and forms if you fell in them you were getting killed. They had spikes sticking out and everything. So you had to watch what you were doing.

John: Were you traveling in a Humvee?

Tom: No, no. We were traveling, the whole time over to My company, we were Helo Company. There was a Helo as well as Evact, from when I was injured from a suicide bomber. The whole time we were in there we were in tracks. LAV Vehicles they go on land and water. They're like tanks. You come off the ship and you sink. It looks like you're never gonna come up again. But then you bob up and you float and then as 21:00the tube powers are back and they go. Just like I remember one time it's the whole time we used them over there cause they're more protected against gunfire.

John: And they have a large gun on them, do they not? The LAV's?

Tom: LAV's. You can have the 50 caliber, the Mark 19, you can have the 240 Gulf, some guys carry the small... A rocket. A handmade rocket. Most of the time it was a 50 caliber cause it'd have suppressive fire. And a lot of times like I said it'd have suppressive fire and every eight rounds was a tracer round so you could see where it was going. Even though if you didn't know where the bullets coming from you would 22:00look over see where the 50 cal is shootin, and you see that they're shooting that way, at least you know where the direction. Sometimes, 'Attack four, attack four' and there's so many people in front of you you don't know where everybody's at. You don't want to shoot your own men, so you look for a lot of the tracers. And I was one of the men that carried the M249 Saw and we had tracer rounds as well, so as I and then my men looked to me for tracer rounds and I looked for other guys like me that had tracer rounds so they'd have suppressive fire so that we could move forward and progress and take over what ever it was that attacked us and everything. A lot of, I'll tell you right now, a lot of men weren't trained over there. They were shooting like one handed, hiding behind rocks, shooting AK-47's. They weren't trained. 23:00They stole their families and they made them go to war. They said 'you're not gonna get your daughter and your wife back ever again unless you fight for the country.' And they would tell us this all the time. I don't know sometimes you have to 'Why are you here?' And sometimes they would lie and sometimes they wouldn't. There was mass uniforms on the ground. Like they quit. They knew we were invaded, we were top notch, we were over powering them they paid Syrians, Syria to come in they paid other

John: Militia?

Tom: Militia, from other countries, well I can't say certain other countries because right now we're supposed to be at peace with them. But 24:00they were there too.

John: I wanna go back to the saw, swat automatic weapon. You told me before the interview started that tended to be your main weapon. Can you describe, how heavy is it? It's really hard to carry at first?

Tom: At first when you have it it's just this heavy thing. After a while it becomes a part of your body. It becomes almost an accessory like a wristwatch. You're used the weight. I carried four drums, one here, one here, one here, one here and one of them things, so I had 1,000 rounds. It was heavy.

John: What kind of range would a saw have?

Tom: A saw? A saw has, I'm not gonna put a number out there. It has a significant distance. I mean 500 yards you can take someone out in 500 yards. But a saw can shoot further, but you have snipers, stay platoons for that. Most of the time the saw is used for suppressive fire. To keep the enemies heads down, while guys with the M16's, the light weight weapons, can move forward, and as they move forward they lay down and they all open up and fire at one time. M16's and then the saw guys would get up and then we would go and then we go further than them, it just kept going like that until we got to where we had to go. And we're laying down suppressive fire shooting, and we all had 26:00our where we needed to shoot, it was kind of like a 45 degree angle you knew where to check because you know the guy next to you has this way interlinking fire. So you know if another squad wraps around you'll know to stop shooting a certain way cause you don't want to shoot your own men.

John: But you're trained very well?

Tom: Trained very well. This is drilled into our heads every day. Even before 9/11, we would call it the back yard. Like Camp Pendelton isn't small. I think Camp Pendleton is about as big as the state of New Jersey.

John: You were deployed so many times. And that is going to be the challenge of this interview, is to cover all the different operations 27:00you were in. But right now, as you're moving north with three five up towards Baghdad in this initial invasion, is there a particular engagement, a fire fight, a town, a city that stands out in your memory as the most significant? Fighting?

Tom: Fallujah was one of our major towns that we had a lot of problems with. In the beginning, and we took it over, and I don't want to put down any other services, but when we left it there to the army, then we came back and it was a mess again. We became their backing service, we set up tables to get their names, and they would, we're handing out money. Then that became counter productive because we had gangsters 28:00just like Saddam was, he came up as a gangster, and they would be with the families who walked away, jump them and take all their money. Became counter productive, so that was stupid. Then we had guards for that, so we became like police officers which was horse shit. It's not what we're there for, we were there to take out the bad guys, that's it. And get out of there. You got humanitarian rights people who do all these things. That's not our job, our job is to take out the bad guy. The real bad guy. The killers, the rapists, the people who were there who are not gonna follow by the rules. And we had to take them out. People have the misconception we're over there shooting 29:00women and children and things of this nature. Well, I'm gonna tell you something women and children the women knew what they were doing. Women pretend that they were pregnant, and 'I'm pregnant I'm pregnant, I'm having a baby.' And we had five guys rush over there and then she clicks a button and she blows up and kills five of my men. Five, six of my men. Because she said she was pregnant. Lied, said she was pregnant. You have children they said a guy kids don't even know any better. They give them boxes and say 'Here, here, here's a present sir, a present. It has a drink and food and whatnot.' and sometimes you would see, you would tell them to stand back and open it up and they would have food and everything like that and then you would share it with them. That was a treat, them thanking us. In the beginning. 30:00But then he started using it against us. Oh god.

John: To go back to the woman who said she was pregnant, she was a suicide bomber taking out five of your men, is this when your leg was split open?

Tom: No.

John: It was not from that attack?

Tom: No. This is after. The first suicide attempt, what happened was with, out of the whole war, the incident that happened with me, it was, Janua..Februa..Mar... April April 10th, 2003 I believe. Almost right at the beginning of the war. We pushed all the way through, we got through the burn, we got in through towns, went over Tigris River, pushed past, we went all the way through Iraq and in the town where 31:00we came back and we hit the edge of the border, you know? Of what ever country and then on the way back we hit Baghdad.

John: This has kinda just cut out again. Oh there.

Tom: No it's still here.

Man In Blue: He could probably just do that.

Tom: Okay. Where was I at?

John: Back to Baghdad in April of 2003.

Tom: Yes. This was a big change for us, fighting from the desert, jumping out of our trucks to chase people in the desert, they're going in their little holes and tunnels and stuff like that, not tunnels like tunnels, but like you know little dug out things they had. Little 32:00pits. We got them, we killed them, they had their weapons in the air, what was I going for?

John: I think a suicide bomber, I think, you were going to, you moved quickly through Iraq, went to a border, came back to Baghdad.

Tom: Okay so we're at Baghdad. We got into Baghdad, we weren't used to it. Everything, there's windows everywhere, roof tops, we did not have the man power. I mean at this point, you see on TV now that we have double layered metal on the tanks, on the Humvee's. We had paper or the tarp we were still covered in tarp, if they jumped over our roof and started going at it we would have all been dead. Everything was open. They didn't start doing this until later. Even the turrets with the Mark 19's and everything we were scared to death. There's windows 33:00open there's people staring at us people with cellphones, we don't know if they're cellphones with ids to blow up So what we did was we stopped. We stopped at a major intersection. And we decided to get, pull our trucks over to the side. There was an old newspaper stand made of rice bags that were filled with stand. It was an old stand, you could tell it was boxed up. We tore it down and the sand was so heavy them bags were about 50 pounds, but wet it took about six or seven guys just to carry one of the bags. But that became counter productive, and we're in traffic I'm talking about guys the traffic was going 60 or 70 miles an hour. We're putting our hands up but they don't care. 34:00They'll run through, they're trying to get out of there. It's a normal day in the city they'll run us over. We started filling up our own sand bags, so that we can carry two at a time. As we were pulled over we were set at a 240 golf position so that we could have ourselves protected. We were making that as our checkpoint, we were set up. Long story short, as we're doing this back and forth, I seen four men get run over. Not my guys, them. They were helping us, we'd fill a bag and they were running our bags over 'Thank you thank you' thumbs up But over there thumbs up means f you. And they're always like 'Yeah, yeah' they were proud though and we're always thumbs up too. But then some 35:00of them didn't mean thumbs up thank you, okay, they were like great, thank you for being here. I'm gonna tell you about when we were first there. It was 70/30, they wanted us there. It was getting bad, they wanted us there. By now, by the time I was getting out of there it is the opposite.

John: 30/70?

Tom: 30% want us there and 70% don't.

John: Did you understand that?

Tom: I understood it because it changed the whole way of life for them and people were losing money. They couldn't do their normal jobs. They were so used to screwing and being screwed over and told what to do, farming became difficult because who are they selling to? The 36:00governments...no ones there to collect taxes, they don't know what to do. We got tracks running over their farm fields. We destroyed a lot of their land. And we'll fix it like we always do. Their way of living, we screwed their whole way of living up. Their way of living was like living how they live. They live out in the dirt and making roads and everything and doing things for them. The way we were trained the way we grew up was not the way they were growing up. And we're trying to change them, from years and years and years of them doing certain things the way they do it. They don't have laptops and cellphones and these things. They don't have any of this stuff. They live by doing 37:00manual labor for cheap and that's how they got their money, from a shitty boss, and that's them. And everything changed everything. That's what I'm saying the raping and people stealing for things

John: What were your orders in terms of how to treat Iraqi civilians? When there isn't you're not in a combat situation, when you are occupying and dealing with Iraqi men, women, children, families. Are you supposed to treat them with respect?

Tom: Yeah we do treat them with respect, we have, everybody has on their wrist. Key words, thank you, certain words, lot of things I 38:00learned. (speaks Arabic) was stop, turn around, put your hands up, drop your weapon. It just became so so much for me but it got different from when we got in a town, because we got used to fighting in the desert. Now we got people coming up to us and they're wanting to shake our hands. People were butt stroking people because we're thinking they're just trying to fool us. Like I said, this is when this stuff started happening. Women would line up across the road and they would walk and women and they would be all pregnant. And some were pregnant, some women were pregnant and they'd walk, and they had guys with AK-47's shooting over their shoulder at us and walking toward 39:00us. So what do we do? I'm the head and I have a saw gun, and I can't. Marines, we don't do warning shots. We don't do take down and questioning and stuff like that. Marines are there to kill. Army and Navy and Air Force, they do the talking bit. We try, as best we can, not shoot anybody unnecessary, this time it was necessary. These women, come to find out, they had bombs, we seen they had bombs. And we took em all out. We took em all out. And some women were pregnant. But they had bombs strapped to themselves. And don't think we just sat 40:00there and didn't say anything, we were talking to them for miles on the loudspeakers. Telling them to stop, they're holding their children in front of them. They're playing soccer in front of them. And we're not shooting. We're warning and warning and warning. And we said it in four or five different languages that they would understand. Even if they're from Libya. Or Syria. Or Iraq, Afghan. Wherever they were from, we spoke every language possibly to speak to tell them to stop. They just kept bumping forward. Faith like they were ready to die. You could see it in their face ready to die. I was giving the order, because I had the saw gun, I had to take them all out. And they're still shooting at us. And we're getting guys getting killed. Getting shot in the face. Because we're trying not to kill these women and 41:00children. So they said 'Lowry, open up.' and I just (imitates gun rapid fire) took em all out. Took everybody out. I tried not to aim for the kids, the kids didn't have any weapons on them. But then the next thing you know kids running toward us I started seeing C4 hanging out of their pockets, I went over and it was beeping, beeping, beeping boom. And then I shot him, and these kids are five years old. You think I wanted to do this? You think I was trained to do this? I have nightmares every day. I can't sleep, when they send us home, I'm not a light switch you can't turn me off and on. They want to drug us. 'Here ya go. Everything's okay, here's some this, here's some of this, and here's some of this. Take this, take that.' There's not a forget me not pill. The forget that everything ever happened. They just try to 42:00drug ya and they want you to be addicted to pain medication which was a big thing, cause I was hit by a suicide bomber, and I

John: Why don't we go to that, Tom.

Tom: Okay.

John: Can you describe the suicide bomber?

Tom: Yes I can, like I said I got off track. We were setting up the sand bags and all, and I got really mad because this is all, we're doing tedious work. And we have no, I mean there's buildings all around, nothing's being covered no one has we should have had, guys are walking around smoking cigarettes and everything. I'm like god, what's going on. We should have, I'm a squad leader. I'm trying to go to the officer, I'm like 'Officer, officer, sir. We need to start pointing guns at these windows.' but there's innocent people out there, we can't be pointing guns at innocent people. There was no one innocent, we're at war right now. Then stay out of your window. Next thing you 43:00know, a guy is shooting an RPG at us if he wanted to, right out of his window. And luckily that didn't happen but one guy walked out of the thing like any normal thing and then all of the sudden I noticed all the Iraqi's that were helping us just started fading away. I knew something was wrong. And my weapon was strapped behind my back, I have a shovel in my hand now. A shovel. Because Ernie Bishop, I'll say his name. Told me he wanted these bags filled so we filled them just 240 golf, I knew what his purpose was. And this guy gained rank, was real tool bag. He was a real tool, you know? I wound up getting hit because I didn't have enough time to react. Next thing you know he 44:00walked out of maybe, not even a block away. Not even one block. I gotta figure out the distance. I'm gonna say maybe 10 yards. 10, 15 yards. Didn't have time to react, he came out, then he started running. The only thing I knew was he was wearing all white. Had a gown, like everybody else, wrapped the turban. But he had infantry combat boots on and I noticed it. I said, I jarred around, I tried to warn everybody. Get down. And everybody, it's loud, you're in town, everybody's there, there's trucks, there's cars going by. And didn't get my weapon out fast enough before he (imitates screams) screams something, fa-la. He held, kinda like a football. And I think that's what saved 45:00most of us because he took most of it in, he grabbed it like a football and blew himself up. Arms, legs, everything. Everybody's knocked on their ass. I felt really bad because the guy in front of me who was holding the bag was our core man, he was a doctor. Doc Bittle. Very, very good man. Now he can't, only can see out of half of one of his eyes. His face is deformed. Very good man, and I don't know why he was there. He was a surgeon, and he was there. And I felt about that, I have a lot of survivors guilt. But I got hit real bad, I got my leg blown off. I got hit in the face, as you see. I've had so many surgeries just to get this normal at least I look almost normal. And it was 46:00rough. And then I got shot. I got shot four times in the chest. Twice in the thigh, once in the back. And this is a different incident.

John: You kept going back, didn't you?

Tom: I kept going back. You know why I kept going back? It's because it's just not that brotherhood and you have friends. You have to learn these people's families. I was there when they couldn't be some guys had to go out to the field some guys would stay back in rears. I was there doing six of what my friends wives are pregnant. All different trimesters, I learned so much. I promised myself I would never have a 47:00girlfriend to put her through any of the situation that I had to go through. That we had to go through. Get her pregnant, have her by herself for months. And I'm hurt, and I'm on crutches I'm running around with six different women, and they're sitting at home and I got two days here, one day there, one day here, one day there. And then I had six, I dropped two. Because two started getting a little too affectionate. They started calling me hun and babe and,

John: Tom, your point is that you went you kept going back because of these deep personal connections to

Tom: The men. They're husbands.

John: So it wasn't necessarily, not to put words in your mouth, but necessarily for patriotism. Was there belief in that you were doing 48:00good over there?

Tom: I believe we were doing good over there in the beginning. I knew from the beginning, it had to be stopped. I think along during the chain of command, things got messed up. People wanted power, then the whole things, the oil was up for grabs. That whole thing came into it. That wasn't what it was we were there for. You's all can kiss my ass saying 'We were there to get the oil.' No, we were there because he was it was mass genocide. He was killing villages of thousands of people testing biological warfare weapons. What if we were in the 49:00United States started doing that? 'Okay, this is a little town.' For example. 'Let's just test this out.' but everyone started getting sick and coughing. Blisters and shit growing off their face. What if that started happening here? That's the reason we had to stop him, and end to tyranny. He was an evil man. It was almost like

John: Hitler?

Tom: Hitler, yes I'm sorry. Someone said he was starting like Hitler. Hitler He was killing. And he was killing his own people.

John: I want to go back to this point that you've made a couple of times now, about how it isn't like flipping on and off a switch. That 50:00after the things that you've done and seen and that have happened to your buddies and others, when you come back here there's this idea of drugging, as if that's going to take care of things. You mentioned a really strong sedative that people have been given.

Tom: The best thing they would give us was cippro. C-I-P-P-R-O It's a very good antibiotic. You don't even hear about it now. It was such a good antibiotic, you could take that for anything. You can take it for a daily vitamin. I wouldn't recommend it because it's a very expensive pill. And they don't even give it out anymore. It got rid of my infection, I had staph infection, and I got MRSA infection they 51:00had to clear the room out, because that one doctor I told him that if he cut my leg off, his was coming off too. And I promised him that. I swore to him. He clamped my artery and closed my leg up and I got to Walter Reed they said horrible surgery job. They did a little bit more suturing and then I got, went home convalescent leave. And something just wasn't right. So I went to a civilian hospital, and they cleared the room out. They knew right away, they seen that I had MRSA infection, they cleared the whole room out. They had to get permission from the hospital, I sat there four hours in a civilian hospital so that they can get permission to work on me, which is ridiculous, I have MRSA 52:00infection, get it out. So once they opened my up they found out that he sewed me up with the sutures inside of me and cotton balls that were still in there. Awful. He said 'You're gonna lose your leg anyway.' And well I don't, it's right here. Still have it.

John: Is it well healed?

Tom: It's not all the way healed. I have a lot of nerve damage, I trip over. I get drop foot sometimes. But you know what I work. I still work at it, I keep it strong. I test it out, test my limits. I do a little bit of running here and there. I still have it. A lot of these guys are missing limbs; they didn't need to loose their limbs. And I'm not saying, some guys really did loose their limbs. They got blown to bits and they're lucky to be alive today. I'm lucky to be here alive today. Just to be talking to you guys. I love our country. I'm not 53:00necessarily proud of what I've had to do over there. But things need to be done. A lot of bad things you keeping hearing on the TV and the news. It's just the media, they want to make a story. It's like a movie, the media wants to make a movie. War is not a movie. It's death, and it's killing. There's nothing great and pleasurable about going and taking another man's life. I was a young, young a child still. You 54:00say as a 19 year old, 'I'm a man.' No you're not. You're living at mommy and dad's house and you are going and joining the military. Hoping that you're gonna get out and get a college degree. Sometimes your mind's so messed up, like mine, it's hard to go back to school cause you can't concentrate on stuff. I got hit in the head real bad, I got shot. I got blown off my feet by our own anti aircraft. Knocked me 20 feet in the air, herniated disk. I stopped taking pain medication because they want to get you addicted to that for the rest of your life. And I don't want to be on pain medication; I don't want to be on any drugs. And I have bad bad dreams. It never stops; never ends. It 55:00doesn't go away. They said time heals all wounds, time is helping me with this. Speaking to an audience like you and letting people know letting you guys know what kind of situation we're going against. Scrutinizing us or hating us, embrace us. Love us and help. We might be too proud to say, I know I was. I'm a Marine, I'm too hardcore, I don't need that. I don't need help. Well, we all need help. There were a 56:00lot of things that happened to us over there and I'm not going to compare any war to say this war was worse. War is war. No matter whether it was in a jungle, it was in a desert. Whether it was here or there or where ever. This place, this time. POW's happen there too. I don't want to say that Vietnam War was worse than this war. But there was circumstances where Vietnam War was worse. And there's a lot of times that.. You can't compare them, though. It's two different wars. But it's a war. People are going to die. What they're doing is they're taking young minds and they're molding them into being killing machines and that's what they did to me. One of their hand to hand combat 57:00instructors. It's almost like I wish I never did there. I took two paths, I could have played football. I got offered to go to CV West Football now my cousin Jimmy O'Neil he's one of the coaches for the Jets. And he never played football till he started high school I played football since I was five. So I don't know, imagine if I went to the school where I could be at today. I chose a path. And that's what I do. I got hurt really bad, I got shot. I almost lost my leg.

John: If you were to have a son, who wanted to. We're wrapping this up with other questions.

Tom: I just want to say something, I've got these bright lights on me I don't want you guys to think I keep closing my eyes. So I don't want you to think I'm drugged up right now and I'm saying things that I'm not not supposed to be saying. Or that I'm not coherent and I'm just saying these things. Right now, I'm completely fine. I'm talking to these gentlemen, telling everything. I can be here right now for days and tell you things. Where we slept at, how we dug holes. We slept in the wastelands, where they dump their trash. We sat out there 59:00for three days, in dumps. There's no showers over there. Baby wipes were our life saver. Hit all the hot spots, keep yourself clean. A lot of people got turned foot, if you cleaned your feet or did something you grabbed your stuff or you might even get something on your genital area. You keep yourself clean.

John: What did you do in the slower times I take it, compared to other wars, there's no alcohol.

Tom: No. That was a major thing. There was none; no alcohol over there. No alcohol.

John: Cause for, you know, forever men in war drank. It's one way to sort of get through it.

Tom: They made alcohol, the H&S company, headquarters, they had so much downtime. They found Welch's grape bottles, it has so much sugar in it, and you go to the cook's and get yeast, and you would pour yeast in it, two, three bags yeast and then you close the lid real tight, you duct tape it up top, you duct tape it around and you leave it there. And yeast, what happens is it's gonna rise to the top and it's gonna pressurize and push all that sugar push it down, but I mean squeeze it down. Underneath the duct tape and everything. Things like blown up this big, and then you're ready. You have to cut the tape off around so it doesn't explode, and you gotta get a knife and cut 61:00into it, it don't pop or nothing, and you cut into it with a thing. It's about a fern that grows about this big, and it's a firm mush and you cut that out cut it all out it's like a gelatin, it's gross. But then whatever's left, that liquid right there, that's alcohol. Almost like a 70 proof wine.

John: Was it drinkable?

Tom: It was drinkable, but it was disgusting. Worst thing I tasted, oh god. But you better make sure you have nothing to do the next day. Sometimes you had downtime, we're downtime four days, we have another company out there doing Alright then that's our downtime. And I drank this stuff and oh my gosh, Worst hangover of my life. And then I drank water and water it was just so nasty you got a buzz. That was it. 62:00That's what they made. And you had to pay in cash. Out there, people were broke. Dude come up to me and one guy gave me $1,000 for two pairs of socks and a pair of underwear. I told him no, what am I gonna do with $1,000? Wipe my ass with it? Money was not an object, it was bartering. We needed things. You needed underwear, you needed socks. And a shave.

John: What about cigarettes? Everybody, Marines that smoke a lot.

Tom: I never smoked. At all. I hated cigarettes. Dip was a big thing. Dip. People came over with their things of dip.

John: Copenhagen.

Tom: And then what happened was after time went by, you re dipped. You dipped and then you put it back in the can, and re dip cans.

John: That's gross.

Tom: Well it's gross but hey. You have sometimes. Oh and that's another thing too, chow. Chow time. An MRE. An MRE has got 4,000 calories in a MRE. You burn 4,000 calories by easy what we're doing. All the weight in our pack and running around. And we were stowing NBC gear. Which is Mob suits. For biological weapons. So we had these were the cammies we wore over there. We had these and the cammies bottoms and 64:00they had the green green, desert, I mean jungle warfare, filled with charcoal, that charcoal inside. With hoodies and everything, gas masks on the side so we wore them at all times. That was nuts though. We had beanies to keep the sun out of our face. Sunblock, sunblock was a major thing some guys got cancer from the sun out there it was insane. Look at me I'm Irish. Pasty red Irishman, red hair, blue eyes and freckles. I got sunburn, I got burnt to a crisp out there. I tried to cover myself up you think that during the day, the more stuff you 65:00have on that you're hotter better to keep a lot of stuff on cause then your sweat actually cools you off. You sweat and then you can open it up air cools you, keeps your body temperature down. There's so many things, just survival things. You learn as you go along. There's more things I'm just not thinking of them right now. Anybody have any questions or anything? Anybody. I'm not talking to a major classroom right now there's a few people here.

Man: Do you still communicate with the guys that you served with?

Tom: Yes I do, I had a Facebook page. I was communicating through Facebook and then I called him. I didn't want to sit there and type on a 66:00computer and a lot of times everybody's married now, they got fake names and stuff. So I gotta find these guys, and they got fake names cause their wives lookin on Facebook for them, seein if they're talking to any girls. It's a mess. My buddy, one of my really close friends, I'm gonna call him, I'm gonna tell you his name. I called him Aldi. He changed his name to First Donovan the Third. Where he came up with that name I have no idea. Maybe it was a joke or he heard it somewhere. I erased mine, it started getting bad. I was getting hate 67:00mail.

John: From who?

Tom: From people hate mail about I had shaved my head one time and it was Memorial Day and I was inside I was wearing my uniform, I still had my digitals, because I was in during both. When we had these and we had digitals. Somebody said I disrespected the uniform because I wore my medals. With my uniform and I'm taking a picture with them all. I got patches on here and stuff. A lot of these patches are not 68:00just for me, they're for fellow marines that died, that were in these units, and are still in these units, that are lost, I have a big patch on the back. I don't know if somebody can read it back there, somebody read it?

John: Brotherhood is Brotherhood Wherever You Go.

Tom: You can see it's one guy they're out there in the desert or wherever with a gun and they're at a bar or a restaurant and he's handing a beer over to another guy. So it's like split in half. Did you get that?

John: Where did you get that?

Tom: They have them at, every year on Memorial Day a lot of the bikers, military guys. Rolling Thunder, it's called. I've been there 69:00before, and this is their 26 or 46 years, I have no idea, (mumbles) I'm sorry Washington Ave. All the bikes get to come down, for hours and hours and taking pictures and taking pictures. It was a great time, got a lot of these patches there. This patch right here was my major patch. My Unit. Third Fifth Marines, Bella Woods. I usually have a French Fourragere, that we're allowed to wear our French Fourragere, I 70:00don't have it on me at this time. I have where's that, my booklet. I have my Purple Hearts I can show you.

John: What is the skull and cross bone?

Tom: Well right here you're seeing a skull cross bone, he has a Marine Corps cover on there. It's kind of like a military thing I'd spend too much time trying to explain it to you, what it means. It's a military thing, another guy sees it he'll understand.

John: I was gonna ask you this question when we had to switch the tape. If you were to have a son, who turning 17, 18 wanted to join the 71:00marines, off the top of your head at least, what do you think your response might be?

Tom: No. No. If you're a dummy and you're not really smart, you had to be strong willed to be a marine. I've seen the biggest, the baddest the toughest, here we go again. The biggest, the baddest, the toughest guys, I thought they were tough, seen 'em crawl to the corner and cry like a baby. Because they death was knocking at the door. It was there. And guess what, you had to go. Had to push through. I had mail 72:00sent to me, he's crying reading letters home from mommy, and daddy and sister and brother. I didn't open one piece of mail when I was there. I had my mind set, on war, I was at war. This is what I had to do. I did what I had to do to survive. To survive out there. Kids come up to you with boxes and didn't even second guess anymore. (speaks Arabic) back off, stop. I got candy for you. Boom, shoot em. Next thing you know he falls over, boom, he blows up. There was a bomb. That happened nine out of ten times. Like I said nine out of ten times, 73:00there was that one time. Where they wouldn't listen he came right up, and I shot him. And an apple and a drink fell out. The family ran over and yelled at me. You think I don't feel like I killed... I killed a child that was trying to give me... Thank me. What it does to you in the Marine Corps. No, I would not have my child join the Marine Corps. If he wanted to join a service join the Coast Guard. Join the Air Force, use your brain. Go to college. Go to college. I wish I could do a lot of things. I'm not very good book smart. I got hit in the head a lot. Playing football and everything. So many things that I'm a Marine Corps at for the rest of my life and I hope God don't hold me as 74:00well as punish me for the things that I've done what I have to tell him when I'm at the gate. And they said when you're at war, that don't count. Yeah well it's still part of the Ten Commandments. Whether I protect myself or not.

John: What can we do here, people who weren't in the war, but who have benefited from military service, and others what can we do to make things somehow at all better?

Tom: You know what? There's really nothing you can do. I mean what can you do, I don't know these families. I wish I could go and sit down 75:00with these families and apologize for and say sorry for what we're doing over here and why we're still here? We have a base there now. It's got a swimming pool. You're not supposed to know this, but there's a swimming pool, there's tennis courts. It's becoming a base like we have in Okinawa, Japan. And that's what's gonna happen. We're gonna have tours now. You'll go on tour, okay we're gonna go to Okinawa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, and then we're gonna wrap around the world, and we're gonna stop over to Kuwait and Iraq. It's gonna keep going. Then we're gonna go to Libya and then somewhere else. I understand why people are mad. We're taking over other countries and 76:00trying to adapt them to our ways. I don't blame why their people are upset. But you can't blame us. Can't blame the marine. You's have control. Vote. You study, you go there, you vote, you go to school. It's not us, we have orders. I can't just say no. You know what they'll do to me? I'll be shot for treason. Lowry get up there, get up on that hill and take these guys out. No I don't wanna do it, I don't wanna kill anybody. What? No. Bad things will happen to you if you do that. You don't have a choice and they train and say, remember, remember 77:00you're 19 years old. I'm older now and I understand what they did to me. They brainwash ya, they put you down and they put you down. And after a while they hand you that Eagle, Globe, Anchor now you're a marine. You got tears coming from your eyes, well not me. I was like I deserved every damn bit of this. This is mine, I deserved it. Some guys are crying, grown men. They worked so hard to get it. And not everybody can be a marine, either. When I first started I had, no I'm sorry I had 80 men in my platoon. Only 30 of us graduated. 80 guys 78:00and only 30 of us graduated. And you know what the funny thing is you don't do drugs. Don't do drugs, it's the worst. You know what's funny, you know what they make you do. If you do drugs, think you'll get away with it, after a while, they've got the best drug tests in the world, you're gonna do a drug test before you join the military and you had better be off any kind of drug for two months to three months before you join because they will find it. Marijuana, anything. Xanax, anything. I don't care if you're prescribed it or not. They 79:00will not take you. And they kept you there. Imagine being a marine and next thing you know you find out you're almost done, you're halfway through the boot camp, and then they're handing out the Eagle, Globe and Anchor and you're waiting for yours and they tell you sorry you don't deserve it. You popped on the drug test. These guys fell to their knees. They felt like they were cheated, but they failed on their drug test. And they were kicked out, but they still had to stay there and do the time. Because it was so many people that out there doing this. They didn't find out right away but they found out They thought they were on the clear once they started doing the training and all, no. You'll sit there and you'll be doing eight weeks of training before you find out. Imagine that, you think you're in. You're gonna be a 80:00marine, and the next thing you know here's your clothes. Here's a bus ticket. Go home. And I slept by the side of the Tigris river. These bright lights.

John: I think we're gonna wrap it up with that. Tom, thanks so much, I've done a number of these interviews and some of the things that