[00:02] recipient. I served as a Marine Raider for 8 years, 12 total in the Marine Corps. This is everything I'm authorized to tell you.
[00:14] things happen out there. People die. People get hurt. And then you come back with these unforeseen wounds that you didn't think of because you fantasized you're there, it's as real as you can imagine. So I was Marine Raider. That's
[00:28] who I was. I don't know who Nick Jones is. I just knew who Staff Sergeant Jones is. I just knew who Staff Sergeant Jones was. But like that was my life.
[00:46] Command. My first deployment with my Marine Raider team was January 2016. We went to northern Iraq, uh the Kurdistan region. ISIS had kind
[00:58] uh the Kurdistan region. ISIS had kind of taken over that whole region in 2014, and we were tasked with helping the Kurdistan region kind of employ some some order back there. We got assigned to train some Kurdish special forces
[01:14] to train some Kurdish special forces units, and they were really itching to take back some of their towns that had been taken. So whenever we did our turnover, you know, it was very specific when we got to the
[01:27] this one specific area, this team was like, "Look, like we haven't seen much here. It's been very slow. Like we may have dropped five bombs on this whole deployment." Well, within minutes of him
[01:39] saying that we start taking direct machine gun fire. One of the reasons why I got selected for this team was my mortar capabilities. And they said, "You the team. You're going to teach us how to use mortars because we're going to a
[01:54] place where we're probably going to need these. So, turned from very non-kinetic, so no hardly any combat before we got there, to um unleashing and uh us dropping hundreds of bombs and hundreds and hundreds of mortars and
[02:10] um it was it was a good deployment. You know, one major factor for us to make it a good deployment is none of our no teammates got hurt. We gathered so much in like intelligence and information on these
[02:24] towns. Our team ended up tallying up uh 398 confirmed kills. We had over 200 air strikes. I dropped probably uh 500 120 mm mortars. Got to employ the
[02:38] the sniper rifles several times and and things like that. So, overall, being able to employ our combat skills, being able to employ multiple different, you know, arrays of of skills that we have within the teams, we got to
[02:51] really test out a lot. Some of the biggest risks that you know, we face theater-to-theater is is those unknown, you know, tactics that the the enemy can do. You know, you never know where that IED or improvised explosive device could
[03:06] be. You never know where that sniper could be. But, where ISIS like jumped to a whole 'nother level is they almost became like a conventional force. But, then they also had money and they had equipment. I remember specifically one
[03:19] time we had this huge oil refinery or oil rig right behind us and it was the silliest thing to set up behind that, but I had no idea at the time. My mortar team was set up here. We had a a um machine gun, a couple machine gun
[03:33] positions set up in this bunker. We were softening this target for our Kurdish forces to be able to go into and hopefully take back this village. Well, as we started the offensives and started doing our softening um like
[03:47] that, uh we started taking indirect fire. We actually destroy their mortar team. Well, then they wheeled out their uh, artillery.
[04:02] artillery. And they had full-blown 105 artillery's and anti-tank. They were probably 20 mm cannons, maybe 30 mm cannons. And they were shooting huge airburst like machine gun rounds at us. Me and my
[04:18] looking at him like, "Dude, we're going to freaking die here. Like, this is insane." We had a very like easy identifiable feature right behind us and right where they're at. Like, we're just going to keep hammering them and
[04:30] hammering them." And it like we found a lull in the fight and we ended up getting like we collected our stuff, grabbed the mortar tube. We had to leave certain things there and we had to like move positions
[04:42] or else we were going to get killed. As soon as you come home from that uh, 6-month deployment, you're thrown into an 18-month workup, which is a training for the next deployment. My second deployment with MARSOC was in January of
[04:57] 2018 when I went to Jordan. Jordan was a very non-kinetic type of deployment. We went there and trained the Jordanian special forces in Amman, which was a a special forces in Amman, which was a a very cool historic area. Looking at the
[05:11] what is success on a deployment uh, versus this type of deployment, deployment. And that's what we wanted, you know? Now, like understanding as an adult, like that was a very successful
[05:26] deployment because I got to successfully train our our partner force, make very good relations, and you know, build up those those guys to an operational those those guys to an operational standards.
[05:45] unique because most places uh like Green Berets or or SEALs, you can do it straight from initial contract to go to BUD/S or go to the 18X ray course, uh which are the Navy SEALs or Green
[06:01] Berets pipeline. However, with MARSOC, you have to have a certain time in service and experience under your belt to even and experience under your belt to even try to go to selection. I graduated
[06:14] try to go to selection. I graduated high school December 2009, and I left high school December 2009, and I left for boot camp uh January 20th of 2010. And I had a uh a seat to go to assessment and selection in January of
[06:28] 2013. So, right at my 3-year mark. So, I was moving super fast to try to get there. And the things that we look for as new person coming into a MARSOC team or Raider team, they have to be able to be critical thinkers, think on their
[06:43] be critical thinkers, think on their own, think outside of the box. We want people who question things. We want people who push the envelope. We want natural leaders, people who are very good at working in
[06:55] teams. So, everything from day one when you show up, you are no longer Sergeant Jones or Corporal Jones, you are candidate number 023, and that's what you're referred to
[07:09] for the rest of the 6 weeks. You do three initial weeks in North Carolina, lot of swimming, it's a lot of ruck running, and a lot of like preparation for land navigation courses. They're intense. It's uh
[07:23] the swimming when we do the specific workouts, there's never really a finite time or distance. It's always just intensity.
[07:35] You're all You're treading water with bricks or with rifles above your head or these tight little circles and you're trying to tread water and you're kicking each other and you're like gasping for air, pulling people under. It is the
[07:48] most humbling humblizer in the course because that is one of the biggest droppers. Like, people will drop like They'll immediately raise your hand and say, "I quit." There's a time standard
[08:01] for everything. Assessment and selection is more so a They want to see that you have the heart. They want to see that you have the ability to not only work as an individual, but work under pressure with a team. We do a lot of
[08:17] with a team. We do a lot of 12-mi timed runs and those are set to a 12-mi timed runs and those are set to a time standard and then the 10-mi time standard. So, you have to complete it in under 2 and 1/2 hours with a 45-lb ruck
[08:31] before food and water. And then the land navigation is also 45-lb pack. So, you have always have that pack and then you always have a rifle with you. So, the rifle is It's a dummy rifle, but it's still weighted appropriately to
[08:44] resemble that of a a fully loaded out rifle. You get into a blacked-out van. You drive to an unknown location and we learn how to use map and compass, and we learn how to use map and compass, protractors very well. So, no GPS, no
[08:59] get told the coordinates of where you're at and the coordinates of of your first those on the map. You go to the instructor and you say, "This is This is where I'm at. This is where I'm going." And then
[09:12] you have to navigate there. So, with just a compass, your pack, and a rifle You have no idea what the time is. There's no talking, there's no teamwork, no nothing. So, it could be anywhere from
[09:26] uh three clicks, which is like 3,000 yd or meters, to 10 km. If you've ever felt lost before it is a very overwhelming feeling. And you have to
[09:40] move fast, so it's hard. You have to continue to think on the fly. I remember random farm field in front of me, and I'm like, "This is not on my map. Where am I?" Like, I was freaking out. I took my pack
[09:54] so lost." I was like, "What is this doing for me? Nothing." Like, get my need to get back, and I Luckily, I wasn't very far off. I was just like so confused that like, I was tired, I was
[10:07] confused, and I was like, almost gave up. And I was like, "No. No quit." So, you do that 3 weeks in North Carolina, and then you go up to Virginia, and you do the rest up there, and it is mainly all land navigation and team-building
[10:21] exercises. So, you're basically doing land navigation from sunup to sundown, and then you sleep in the woods. We started with 144 candidates in phase
[10:33] one, and we left with 80, and then only 40 of us got selected. So, it's very challenging.
[10:51] of 2013, they sent me back to my my parent unit, which was second battalion fifth Marines. And I had from April to January of 2014 to kind of prepare to go to individual training course,
[11:06] individual training course, or ITC. There is still the the what-ifs of if you don't pass this school, if you don't pass the 9 months, you get put back into the needs of the Marine Corps. You might go do something
[11:19] totally random. So, it is one of those very intimidating factors of like, holy crap, like, I have to pass this. So, when I started January of 2014, you start in in different phases. So,
[11:32] you start in in different phases. So, phase zero is uh communications phase. So, you do several weeks, I think it's 3 weeks of communication phase, and then 3 weeks of SERE, which is survive, evade, resist, and escape course. You get to
[11:45] live out in the woods and like catch rabbits with snares and make fires and stuff like that. I'm a Kansas City boy, so I was like that was it was So, it was it was really cool. Uh and then you go into uh phase one, which is
[12:01] small unit tactics. So, talking about the guys that come from different MOSs, military occupational specialties, they get to learn the small unit tactics from from nothing. So, we go over the basics. Everything starts with the basics. And
[12:17] at the end of each phase is a culminating exercise of something very intense and grueling. So, at the end of our phase one of that small unit tactics phase is what we call a Raider spirit. A lot of people talk about Hell Week in
[12:31] BUD/S. This is our our Hell Week. You're very sleep deprived. You're walking through the woods and you set up these in a 360° circle with all of your your guys
[12:46] on security facing outboard to make sure that nobody, you know, ambushes us. Well, the instructors will come with their flash bangs, middle of us, and be like, "Boom! Like,
[12:58] now you all need to evade." So, like then we get up and we run, and we've got it's like all night long, all day long, you're moving, you're you're not resting. Like, it it was intense. The military has a
[13:13] very good way of like taking very fun things and making them not fun because they're like, "How much weight can we get on you? How much like how long can we do this for? How, you know, tired can we make you while doing this?" The
[13:25] for one thing, you have to carry a certain amount on your body. It's very heavy if you continue to carry more. Can really only have one real gun and one really only have one real gun and one sidearm. Um so like my normal loadout
[13:39] sidearm. Um so like my normal loadout would be six magazines of 30 rounds for would be six magazines of 30 rounds for my M4. I carried a M203 grenade launcher that shoots a 40 mm grenade. So I had 12 of those and then I had a pistol on my
[13:54] side with three magazines for that. I remember having a an XL size of uh 800 mg Ibuprofens and uh you know, sleep aid and caffeine and I'm like you know, I'd take Ibuprofen
[14:10] before the day starts, in the middle of the day, take more caffeine, then sleep aid to go to sleep and I'm like, this is this cannot be healthy. >> [laughter] >> Once you pass that, we went into our uh
[14:22] >> Once you pass that, we went into our uh our CQB phase, like our more of our more advanced shooting styles. So we would start with getting on the flat range and working on very slow fundamentals, transitioning from rifle
[14:36] to pistol, full combat load, night vision shoots and then the ultimate vision shoots and then the ultimate train up is to get into a shoot house. It is very much a crawl, walk, run phase. That is one of the most intense
[14:50] phases because it's a very very pass or fail thing. You know, you could have some really really good guys with all the right attributes and characteristics but then they get to that phase and they just can't shoot as well as they can uh
[15:06] getting dropped. Shoot, move, communicate is what we say. Like you need to be able to do that very well. After the shooting phase, you go into reconnaissance phase. So you learn how to take pictures, you learn like some
[15:20] sniper techniques And then that kind of culminates into doing a an exercise of watching a village and reporting, taking photos. And then you go into the irregular warfare, unconventional warfare type of stuff where you fall
[15:35] warfare type of stuff where you fall into a gorilla style force where you go in and you train these people from nothing. So it's it's role playing at its finest, but it's it's very fascinating the the things that you get
[15:48] fascinating the the things that you get to do um and get to build and train a a partner force and like the the conventional Marines actually come out to help us out. So we get to train them. And then at the end of all of that
[16:01] And then at the end of all of that uh you go through a a a board. So you do like an interview at the end. We started ITC with about 90 and then we graduated with 40. So we lost about half. And a lot of
[16:15] those happened at the very beginning. Once I got to MARSOC I had that notion that it would be very fast-paced and a lot of cool stuff. When I graduated ITC I had to go back into a classroom
[16:31] setting for 6 months and learn modern standard Arabic. I thought that was I thought it was cool. However, I did not like school. So it was very hard for me to sit in a classroom for 8 hours and study. And I was like, I just hope that
[16:44] it's not like this like this there's no way, but I'm still in school. I understand. And then I got assigned to my team, Second Marine Raider Battalion, Hotel Company Team 2. They had a lot of like
[16:56] legends within that company. Well, then I check into my team room and they're going to this place called Busco Beach. We're taking dirt bikes, ATVs, side-by-sides, and stuff like that. And
[17:08] we're going to camp out." I was like, "No way." Sure we travel down there. We take our campers down there and we set up set up tents, we set up a grill, we do all this stuff, and then we unload all of the uh the side-by-sides
[17:21] and the dirt bikes and the four-wheelers. I'm riding dirt bikes with a gun on my back, and then we have night vision on, and I'm like, "No way." You know, needless to say, it held up its its expectations for what I
[17:33] envisioned it to be, cuz immediately after that, I went to jump school. And then shortly after that, we, you know, we finished our training. I got put into a team that was about to deploy right away.
[17:54] January 2020. We were tasked with going back to northern Iraq. In 2016, I was a little bit south of Mosul in an area called Kirkuk. This time, I was up in Mosul. At this time in 2020, I'd like to believe ISIS was basically back down to
[18:10] an insurgency level, and they are now in sleeper cells, they're hiding in caves, and you know, using these uh auxiliary type of of fighting techniques. And then in March of 2020, there was a a large tasking that came
[18:25] down that they had been watching these intricate cave systems. Our sister team over there got tasked originally with this operation. And then, next thing you know, their partner force all came down with this sickness
[18:40] that they come to find out was COVID. And they were like, "Hey, A232, like you guys are you guys are ready, operationally mission." So, we had about 5 days to plan for this
[18:54] for weeks. I'm in charge with the tactical maneuver and the security structure of what we were going to do. So, March 8th, 2020 was insert. And we get flown in on helicopters. We
[19:10] And we get flown in on helicopters. We had a team of probably 15 operators, US service members with me. And then 25 Iraqi partner force. In this instance, there was a go and no go criteria and it was like an increasing
[19:24] of forces over double the amount that was already on ground. So, we had seen seven fighters on the ground. And within 24 hours, we start getting intelligence updates that there's now eight, there's nine, there's 10, there's 11, now
[19:37] there's like 19 fighters on the ground. And so, they over doubled their size of fighters that they had seen in and fighters that they had seen in and around the area. I wish I knew
[19:49] why we still went in. We voiced our opinion. I know that there were there were things being said behind the scenes. Um I don't being said behind the scenes. Um I don't know specifics. We work best at night.
[20:03] That's that's our strong suit. And we were also told to continue to wait until daytime. But, you know, it doesn't doesn't change the fact that, you know, they still told us to go and and we flew in and and tried to do the job to the
[20:15] best of our capabilities. And then we finally get to our first cave that we're going to clear. And uh I get up there and our our going to throw in some grenades. Uh we have some anti-structural munitions that
[20:30] condensed, like very intense explosives." But then as dust settles, I go up there and I look and there's a a dead ISIS fighter sitting in there. Completely covered in dust, like white white face, white armor. He had an M-16.
[20:47] Up in the corner, there was a mounted machine gun, like I mean, this guy had this cave fortified. He was ready. He was ready to fight. He knew that we were coming. And I can see it right now in my face. Like this this guy's whole posture
[21:01] and face is can still burned into my vision to this day because of what happened. And as soon as I'm going to go into this cave and start doing this clear, just hell opened up and just machine guns,
[21:15] hell opened up and just machine guns, explosions, and just chaos casualty. I'm like, holy crap. And this all happened like within seconds. And then the next call comes in, there's an eagle
[21:28] down. And an eagle is a US service member. So, when you hear that, like it's immediate gut gut wrench gut drop. I'm like, I got to do something. And I felt it. And then a second later, another eagle
[21:42] my Iraqis. I was like, you guys you guys like watch this cave. Like, don't don't go anywhere. Hold security here. I got to go. And I grab my gun and I just run over there. And I get down there and there's still smoke and machine gun fire
[21:56] happening. And I was like, what is happening? And there's just people could really tell me. So, I was like, okay, well, I'm jumping in this ravine. into there. And there's one French fighter in there. His English wasn't
[22:09] you know, guns pointed. I was like, okay, I get it. I still had my night vision goggles on my head. And like, if we ever go into caves, like I I flip them down. I bring that up because I start climbing up. And then as soon as
[22:22] And then I see like right over the crest of this rock, I see this huge mouth opening. And like, the fortifications and the rocks and the the built up barricades that they had. It was just
[22:36] barricades that they had. It was just like, it was intense. It was so intense. I don't even know what other word to use. And it was dark. And all of this happened within a split second. But as soon as I see this, I
[22:52] come up and I take all of this sand just like I just immediately start getting pinned down by automatic fire. I'm like, I'm going going killed if I move up any pinned down. And this French guy starts yelling
[23:06] something. He was like yelling roll. And these legs fly up in the air. I thought Like it had to have been dead how much fire was going on. And so then I stand up as fast as I could and I just start shooting as fast as I can into this
[23:20] cave. And I run up and somehow I grab this dude's legs and I pull him back still shooting and I finally like throw him down these rocks and this French guy grabs him
[23:32] and I just continue to shoot and cover this guy as he's moving and it was wild. But so that we ended up pulling out the the French operator that had been wounded previously. I had a US
[23:45] guy come and eagle come up and he was like, "Hey, I'm coming down. Like don't know where the US guys are. I don't know if there's still more casualties, if that was a fake call. Like I I didn't see anybody else down
[23:58] go this way." And so we finally find a spot um to go to up on up on top of basically the roof of the cave. And I had the snipers. The snipers were like, "Hey, I
[24:13] think I see a body right here. Continue to walk up." And I walk up as slowly as I can. And as soon as I get to the edge, that's when I I see Mo and Diego down Both of them killed pretty much right in front of the cave. And man, I'll tell
[24:28] front of the cave. And man, I'll tell you that was one of the immediately that they were gone. Mo was a little bit more
[24:42] believable that he might still be awake because he or alive because he was still. His eyes were open. So, in him and so I whispered his name and there was
[24:56] nothing and then like the closer I got that's there. So I had to take a step back and that's when I realized like hey it's it's time I I have to take this over it's no longer cave clearance operation
[25:09] it's a recovery mission. We've got to get these guys out of here. I called up to the commander the the commander in charge and told him Mo and Diego are dead plain language. And they didn't believe me
[25:23] the company dead and how is the team chief dead? And I was like it doesn't what else to tell you but they're gone. And so out. I don't know how I'm going to do it but I'm going to continue to go up there
[25:38] and I'm going to try. So I went up there and took as many grenades as I had and I looked under it like I'm looking under a table and just started chucking grenades in there. I even had a teammate hold my belt so I could get even further down
[25:53] there as they're shooting at me and snipers my sniper shooting this close to head. But it was it was one of those situations man it was so complex that I just didn't know what to do and I said okay screw it like I'm going
[26:07] to go back in one more time. I'm trying to go up there and make this move to get these guys out. Everybody everybody is shooting as I get like right up to the gaining the confidence I'm just going to jump down there. I just get smacked with
[26:23] a baseball bat in my shin and I was like holy crap what was that and I like jumped back and and kind of took cover and sat down I was like dude I think I just got shot and I felt immediately this sense of failure. I was like
[26:38] these guys are still down here. I just got shot like how are they going to get back out? Like I don't I don't know how this is going to happen like it was and now like pretty much everybody is running very low on ammunition
[26:51] grenades, water. It was March, but it was still hot and have to fall back. Like we're going to wait for the quick reaction force to come in and take over for you guys and then they'll they'll take over from
[27:04] but I knew that I had to. I couldn't walk at that point. So, I had a medic from a hoist on a helicopter and pick me up off the side of the mountain. You know, this is kind of when uh I
[27:18] I I realized that the majority of my trauma started was I get on the helicopter and the medic asked me how my pain is. I he's like cutting my pants off and cut my shirt off and then hits me with
[27:32] ketamine. And immediately, like I go into this like insane visual trip. Like the blades of the helicopter are spinning and the next thing you know, I get sucked back down into the mountain.
[27:47] And I'm having this horrible trip of Mo and Diego and I could tell that they and they were screaming for me to get them out. And my I'm my arms are strapped into the stretcher and I couldn't talk, but like
[28:01] I kept trying to push my push-to-talk to talk to them and be like, "I'm coming there." And then I have this vision burned into my head where I'm reaching out and Mo is reaching up to me and there's my hands
[28:14] are this close together. And I'm like right there and the next thing you know, I get woken up in the hospital and I'm like bursting into tears, crying. I'm like, "What the hell? I was right there. I was
[28:27] about to get them out. Like what did you do?" And I'm like blaming the doctors. I'm like delirious. Like I didn't know what was happening. next to the the the French special operator and
[28:40] um he was shot through and through in the left leg, blew out his calf, shot in hear very well." I was like, "Yeah, you got shot in the head." The Delta Force guys came in that night. Um killed a whole bunch of bad guys in
[28:55] the cave, ended up recovering our our teammates, and uh bringing them home that night. I think we both actually stood on crutches as they uh wheeled them by in the
[29:07] in the body bags, and it was a very very intense glorifying moment that we know that everybody came home.
[29:23] and that is a a ceremony where we drape the caskets in the American flags, and we put them up onto the C-17, the big transport plane, to fly them back to the states. So, yeah.
[29:40] >> it was a tough time. I tried to stay in country cuz my wound uh it wasn't a made it to where I couldn't walk and gave me this super rare nerve
[29:53] syndrome called complex regional pain syndrome. Within weeks, uh I finally raised my hand and was like, "Look, like Iran's bombing Iraq again. I need to leave. Like, I'm a liability here. I can't move with kit on.
[30:05] I need to go home and get surgery." So, we we reach out to Walter Reed, get a home. And this is, you know, the the start of And this is, you know, the the start of my grueling recovery. The beginning of
[30:19] COVID, the beginning of the shutdown of the world. April 1st, 2020 is when I got Thought it was an April Fool's joke. Like, why didn't anybody come visit me Corps, nobody from the Special Operations Command. They didn't come see
[30:33] me. The pain I was dealing with from The pain I was dealing with from the injury itself was excruciating. I don't know if you've hit like uh a nerve like your funny bone or something and
[30:46] you get all the the tingles that shoot down your arm. Well, it was like that constantly. I could barely walk on my own. I walked with a cane for almost 2 years. A lot of that time I had crutches and then I would sometimes walk with a
[31:01] walker. It was a constant every minute reminder of the mission. I could not get it out of my head because it was like I wake up, I move, like my leg hurts. Now I'm thinking about the mission. Finally, they ended up
[31:15] amputating a nerve amputating several nerves out of my leg. to get a spinal cord stimulator installed in my back with wires going through my spine to regulate pain in my leg and like all of these crazy things.
[31:31] And I'm like, I'm going to live like a cyborg now with no nerves in my leg. Like, what is this life coming to, you know? And finally, in July and August we finally got to bury our teammates. They do this thing called roll call at the
[31:44] beginning of these ceremonies where they start calling off certain names. Then the last name that they call off is is the one that that died. um you know, Captain Novis.
[31:59] Captain Novis. Captain Moses Novis. And then I just just broke down. I couldn't control it. I I couldn't control the voice or the
[32:11] noise coming out of my It was like this insane mental breakdown that I had right there in the middle of the ceremony. I walked into the back and I found the was like, I need help. I I can't do this on my own anymore.
[32:26] Like I I'm I'm hurting so bad that like something has to change. I need I need something. So, finally I was admitted into uh, admitted into a treatment program at the uh, Intrepid Spirit clinic, a traumatic
[32:40] brain injury clinic, and I got to go do physical therapy, occupational therapy, all of these different modalities, and then I started to kind of dabble into like the more like holistic side and doing yoga, and
[32:53] doing breath work, and meditation. When I tell you I did art therapy, I went this whole section there, and I was like, "Look, like I want to try this. I'm I've tried everything else, and I just I can't seem to break this shell.
[33:06] Like I need I need something." And they sat me down with this with this 4x6 note card, and a whole bunch of negative emotions on one page, and positive all these negative ones. I was like,
[33:19] right now." And she's like, "Draw it." All of a sudden, like I start drawing, and just like something took over, and I started drawing the mission. I started drawing mountains, and blood, and death, and all of these things just came out of
[33:33] me. And I just cried, and cried, and cried, and I was like, "What just happened to me? Like how did this just become a thing? Like I don't know
[33:46] starts to break it down to me, and and I was like, "I'm hooked. I want to come in here, and I want to paint. I want to do all of this stuff. Like I need to release all of this out of me. If this
[33:58] is how it happens, then this is how it happens." So, I was doing that through art, and through music, and yoga, and breath work.
[34:13] very interchangeable between battalions. We used to be regionally aligned. First Raider battalion would go to PACOM, or the Pacific command region. Second Raider battalion would go to Central Command, or like the Middle East. And
[34:29] then Third Raider battalion would go to AFRICOM or the African region. In MARSOC, we deploy for 6 months together and then we do an 18-month training for deployment. In the movies, sometimes it's the president that gets
[34:44] this order that's like, "We need to do this now." And the next thing you know, it's this MARSOC team that's about to jump out of a plane and go shoot up a village and it's like far beyond what's actually real. Um you know, there's a
[34:59] it's actually a lot longer and a lot more bureaucratic than than people would think. So, we do a lot of PowerPoint. We in there. And if there's weather situations, if the weather is too bad
[35:13] and we can't get a a helicopter or medevac in there in a certain time frame because we know that if somebody gets hurt, they get killed, we can't get them out fast enough to help save their lives. There's a lot of different moving
[35:26] intelligence and the human intelligence and things like that without going into things that I I can and can't talk about. A lot of the times, these missions will come from a higher entity and us sitting at at our team space in
[35:40] that region that we're deployed to, we'll get a a email and they'll be like, "Hey, we just got this information. Uh we need you guys to build a package. You're going to go here." So, then we plan. We do everything. We could make
[35:55] buildings. And we can do all of our rehearsals and rehearsals are key. If we don't do the rehearsals, the mission set could be a failure. It's all very crucial because then it like builds it into our minds of
[36:10] like where to go, what what route to turn on. And there are different levels of missions. Whenever we were in Iraq in 2016, it was still very politically sensitive because we still didn't fully understand where ISIS was, what they
[36:25] were doing, what their stronghold positions looked like. Whereas in 2020, when we went there, we had already done the huge offensive, we had taken Mosul back, we had taken all of these different huge areas back. We would
[36:37] wasn't as high because we knew that these bad dudes were there. We're just these bad dudes were there. We're just We're trying to get them out now.
[36:50] very small. We start out initially with about nine operators. So, our initial nine operators right off the bat would be the officer in charge, who is a
[37:02] special operations officer. We always try to have a a weapons sergeant or a weapons specialist. We have some sort of engineer, some sort of communications expert, and then we have the medic. We start with those nine to 12 guys uh or
[37:17] and then we end up deploying with almost 20 people in the team. We used to have explosive ordnance disposal guys, so EOD techs. We used to have multi-purpose K9 handlers. You can even get as far as uh a geo intelligence, so uh people who
[37:32] make maps. Like we can deploy with with those types of guys. So, it gets very specific, depending on the region that we're going to, the mission set that we have. We have different command structures within the the region that
[37:46] team, and then we report to our company, and then they report to another higher level of command. And if they can't do it, then they have to go all the way to the theater command. So, whenever we get to
[38:00] designated and we find these these people that are are in need of uh of our help. But specifically in Iraq, there was a a flot, so there a forward line of troops, and there's a big berm built up. And those people that we were helping on
[38:16] the other side of the berm were the Kurdish partners. In 2020, when I went back there, we were a part or got attached to the counter-terrorism unit for the Iraqi special forces. So, it honestly just depends on where
[38:31] we're going and who we partner with. So, I got to learn Arabic for 6 months and then when I went to Iraq, they spoke Kurdish. Then I went to Jordan and then they spoke the Levantine dialect. I'm like,
[38:44] "I at least have like the very formal like Arabic structure." Which was It was bonding things. They actually thought it was hilarious when I would try to speak
[38:56] to them because I would speak in this like they would call it like the the King's English, you know, like the very formal like But then, you know, you you gain that that trust and that that respect for them because it's like,
[39:08] "Hey, like I want you guys to go do this on your own." And so then they look up to do everything that I can to make you proud." And so that it it is a very fulfilling type of thing whenever you see them and then you get to send them
[39:24] see them and then you get to send them out there to do that stuff. And they were like, "Hey, we want you to be the guest speaker and just talk to
[39:40] the donors and and give them a story on on what happened to you." So, I start I start sharing the story and then immediately like all of these emotions started rising. And like I feel like this release and
[39:53] strangers about it, but the next thing you know, like I was like, "I want to be able to share my story and my experiences in hopes that other operators understand they're not alone." And it just clicked. I was like, "I know
[40:06] what I'm going to do now. I'm going to start this nonprofit." And that's how Talons Reach Foundation was born. The name was chosen based off of a friend of mine, Talon Leech. July 10th, 2017,
[40:21] there was a plane crash over Mississippi. C-130 took off >> from Cherry Point, North Carolina, taking some Marines out to do training Mississippi, there was a malfunction with one of the rotors on the plane.
[40:35] detached from the plane and cut the fuselage in half at like 30,000 ft. Killed everybody on the plane. So, 15 Marines, one sailor all died that day. Uh seven of those guys were from my company. And that night I got the phone
[40:51] call from my command saying that, you know, crash, and and our guys were on that plane. And um And Talon was one of those, and he has
[41:05] And Talon was one of those, and he has you on his paper to go notify his wife. absolutely distraught about the whole situation, I thought that stuff only happened in movies. We fill out these paperwork,
[41:21] worksheets before we go on every deployment. And it's like it's kind of like a will. And it's it has certain requests in happen to me, this is who I want to go notify my family.
[41:36] And he put me in there as that guy. We went through selection together, we went to through training together, we went through Arabic school together. We got assigned to the same company. He was in between our first and second
[41:48] deployment, and he yeah, he was on that plane, and man, I had to I had to get dressed in my alphas, it's the green uniforms that the Marines have, and you only use that to notify families of death,
[42:02] uh or to change commands or check in to a new command. So, when she saw me in that uniform approaching their house, she knew immediately Um and it was hard because, you know, she
[42:18] trying to think of something very significant for the nonprofit and, you know, I had dealt with his death and in the wrong ways, I guess. You know, I did what we knew how to do best and I drank and I drank and I
[42:32] worked harder and, um, you know, my family life struggled because of it. And then it was you know, at this time when we were thinking of names and like, hey, we want to call the participants Eagles. We're
[42:45] like, well, Talons Reach, like that would be very like metaphorically symbolic for for this this whole event, you know, like that that's kind of the power in the name and and why we chose it. We were founded,
[42:58] uh, January of 2021 was when we first actually incorporated. Our first, uh, very first fundraiser was Our first, uh, very first fundraiser was held on July 10th of 2021. And then
[43:11] from there we, you know, we finally moved out to Montana, Bozeman, Montana and we started everything out there. And we ran through 12 programs now and And we ran through 12 programs now and we've helped, um, 65 special operators.
[43:25] We did our first program in Jackson, Wyoming in February of 2026. We're really starting to move, we're really starting to evolve. Uh, the impacts that we're having are absolutely profound. It's, uh, those self-destructive habits
[43:39] that we we all knew too well are are something that's taking more lives than helping. And that's one very hard thing to realize is that we're not going to be able to save everybody.
[43:53] And the bottle is still going to be one of our worst enemies. You know, we fight so hard we go through so much, the world's hardest training these selections
[44:09] fight for this country, but we don't even know how to live for it. holding all of this stuff in. Years of combat and years of training
[44:21] don't want to show weakness and don't want to ask for help. want to ask for help. You think the only way out is when quitting has never been in our dictionary.
[44:38] that I was a victim of it as well. I was an extreme alcoholic and I didn't know how to ask for help and I had already asked one time and it just wasn't wasn't working and but
[44:53] God had another plan. And he knew that I was here to help So it is not easy. do it and only wanting to quit
[45:07] and then having somebody follow through with it and actually being gone from it this to us? I wish you would have just asked me. I like I would much rather hear you talk for
[45:20] hours and cry to me and whatever you got to do than bury you. It's hard.
[45:34] We're trying to help save lives. Change lives, change that thought Uh Sorry.
[45:54] the Navy Cross, which is the second highest award for valor that you can receive in the military for actions taken on the battlefield. My actions on March 8th, 2020 were the reasons why I was awarded this this uh
[46:09] Navy Cross. It's a also a very significant and It's a also a very significant and profound day. Uh August 26th, 2021 is the same day that the Abbey Gate bombing happened that killed service members and
[46:23] several other people that day, but it was also Talon's birthday, which was just absolutely wild. So, I felt very connected to the guys that that were lost that day and ended up going up on 9/11 to uh to Walter Reed. My wife
[46:39] know, it would be really good for you to show face and just just see them. You know how bad it how bad it feels to sit up there in that hospital. So, maybe you can go see them and and bring Fletcher along with you and
[46:52] and uh show them some comfort." So, Fletcher and I here, we have been Fletcher and I here, we have been together for 5 years now, actually Um in May 2021, he was gifted to me.
[47:08] He was donated to me through um an organization out of Jefferson City, Missouri because I was having panic attacks and anxiety and depression and just having like having a companion there with me
[47:23] when I was traveling back and forth to appointments and things like that would appointments and things like that would thought bring me a lot of joy. And uh and Fletcher has became a healing entity for for very very many um very many
[47:38] uh for for a lot of people. Come here. And um so, he's uh you know, he's flown with me everywhere. He's visited people in hospitals. He's
[47:51] ran with Talon's Reach Foundation and and is very much uh the icon of of of our organization and um you know, he's he's a goofball chocolate lab, but
[48:05] um Oh, yeah. Is that what you got to say? But at this point like I couldn't imagine life without this dog like he he's
[48:17] he's saved me more times than he knows. I knew that I wanted to join the Marine
[48:31] Corps, but I ended up getting into a path of uh very troubled as a as a young kid. So I drinking I guess heavily at like 12, 13
[48:43] years old. I started smoking weed. I did all of this stuff. Um and then the heavier things kind of came on on sooner after that. So I was very much an outcast. Uh but I I liked to fight and I liked to you know, do very
[48:59] adventurous extreme things. Kansas was not the place for me. I got involved in the wrong crowd. I was drinking. I was selling and doing doing other drugs and uh I worked at a skateboard shop.
[49:13] I worked at a skateboard shop. I got into a big fight in the back room of the skate shop and the cops showed up in the doorway and they knew who I was and I was like, great. Here we go. And I was like, I'm
[49:27] past them. I know I can make it. They were standing in a doorway, two huge cops in in uniform. >> [laughter] >> I tried to run and they just basically clotheslined me, threw me into the wall,
[49:40] handcuffed me, waited for my boss, my mom, and a huge waited for my boss, my mom, and a huge crowd in the mall. And so I I felt like POS. And
[49:52] so when I got in there, I was like, well, they already know I'm in jail, so used my one phone call, called my recruiter, and said, "Hey, I'm not going to make it. I'm in juvenile detention again, and you know,
[50:06] he's like, "Okay, I'll be at your house when you get out." So then I I finished out my house arrest. I continued on that path of sobriety and uh you know, more community service and
[50:20] involvement with the recruiting station until I finally got through school and then said, "Hey, it's as soon as I can go, I'd like to go to boot camp." Um and then yeah, we made it happen. I did all of my stuff uh as a Hollywood Marine, so
[50:35] West Coast Marine. San Diego, California, beautiful spot. After the 13 weeks of boot camp, they assign you to the School of Infantry. And they do like the first few weeks as basic infantry tactics, and then you go off to your to
[50:51] your specialties. But whenever they were reading off the MOS's, the military occupational specialties, the one that I did not want to do that was last on my list was a mortorman. Uh I didn't want to be an 0341. I wanted
[51:03] to be a a rifleman or a machine gunner. Last one was mortorman. What did the Marine Corps do? They picked me as a mortorman. What I imagined the mortorman doing were support roles, sitting back there
[51:16] That's exactly what they did. The culture of the Marine Corps like really did, you know? They loved to drink, and they liked to fight, and but it's like that's not who I wanted to be necessarily. So I see these snipers
[51:32] running around in their ghillie suits. That was like, that's what I want to do. Like, how do I do that? In 2011, I went on the 31st MEU, so Marine Expeditionary Unit. It's basically a big ship that floats around, and we go to
[51:45] all of these different places in the Pacific, but it was it was on that ship of these snipers and was like, "Hey, like how do I take this selection?" You know, fast forwarding to the end of that deployment,
[51:58] middle of 2011, get back home and I I get selected for the sniper platoon. We did a a number of training within Camp Pendleton. And we were doing land navigation, running through the mountains of of Camp
[52:13] Pendleton and I came across this trailer with this sign, this banner, MARSOC, and this guy with this cool helmet on and this sweet gun in his hand. As soon as I uh finished that land navigation course, came back to base, cleaned up, I drove
[52:29] walked inside, I was like, "Hey, what is MARSOC?" He's like, "Here, sit down, let all about it and he's like, "However, you need to have either two deployments." I hadn't even been in the Marine Corps for 2 years yet. So, he
[52:43] said, "Two deployments or 2 years time in service and you can come deployment after Afghanistan. He's like, "Well, now you need to be an E4, which
[52:55] is a rank structure, so enlisted, which is a corporal." So, E4 is a corporal. criteria, which was a little frustrating, but I was like, "Okay." I ended up picking up E4 the next month, which was awesome. So, as
[53:09] soon as I could, bam, I came back in there. the very obvious differences that I can see with the conflicts and the possible
[53:23] warfares that we're seeing right now in the world is in Afghanistan, early Iraq, even, you know, the fight against ISIS, sometimes it was hard to see and tell
[53:36] who the enemy was. And, you know, sometimes with the insurgencies and and and dry as like this is a very conventional force. They have conventional style equipment. They have tactics, techniques, procedures. They've
[53:52] got equipment, they've got drones, they've got everything that we have. And some people are are beating us in that that technological warfare. You could be matched with somebody that's got a very
[54:04] close capability to you. And it's not as like easy. Like in Iraq and Afghanistan, like you could feel like we were on top. Like we had all the air assets, we had all of this, but it's like if our air assets can't fly and our
[54:18] spies in the sky can't do what they're doing, then how do we have the upper hand here? It's a very even keel battle. So, we had drones, they were bigger, they were slower moving, they could only loiter in
[54:31] certain areas. Like we got one shot. These drones now, I'm seeing videos, they can fly back and forth and they can do all these things and then boom. Like they can go into car windows and do all this stuff. It's wild. Cuz like we saw
[54:45] how effective ours were when we did them. And now if they've got, you know, headsets where they can drive these things like race cars, that's just uh scary. I've heard drones fly over my head
[55:01] stuff. But if I heard that and I knew it had a bomb attached to it, like that's no thanks. What's really fascinating right now in the change in dynamics in war and all of that stuff is the Marine Corps is
[55:16] actually going towards like Marine Commandos now. So, the Marine Corps is actually starting to specialize in smaller teams and smaller units. And they're trying to get this broader special operations kind of feel
[55:31] to what what they're doing. We learn a lot from from all the other conflicts going on in in the world, and if we're not continuing to evolve and adapt to what's happening, then we're falling behind.
[55:45] time, it's like it's it's not if, it's when. And some of these guys that have joined are upset that they don't get to go see combat, you know, it's not my time and this and that. And I've told people, don't try to
[56:01] chase combat because you could be one of the unfortunate ones to go one day. It's the unfortunate ones to go one day. It's not It's not as fun or as glamorous as out there. People die. People get hurt. When you're there, it's
[56:16] it's as real as you can imagine. The military, I think, was one of the best things that I could have ever done for my life. Coming from an an adolescent like juvenile detention kid to having discipline and
[56:30] the drive and, you know, the fortitude to continue to keep moving forward. That no quit mentality is still with me very much today. So, there's so many know, some of the negatives that I saw at the beginning are now just a
[56:44] transition into my lifestyle that I use as fuel. And I say like, you know, I I felt depression. I felt sadness. I've, you know, I've experienced PTSD. But on to me. They're not going to grip me, and they're not going to define me. I'm
[56:59] Nick Jones. I'm going to take this life as it comes. Like I've got a beautiful daughter. If it wasn't for my wife standing by my side and dealing with my stuff for so long, like you know, if she would have given up on
[57:14] me, she's my rock. She's everything that I've got. Like I the support that I need to continue to push to do the things that I want to do in life. I've what-if'd so many things in in life, but the one thing that like
[57:30] you know, I I know for certain is that I gave it my all. All of the pain, all of everything, like it is worth it. Whatever that end point is, whatever you know, you set your mind to, like just continue to keep pushing towards it.
[57:45] >> Hi, I'm a producer and authorized account. If you enjoyed this video, then topics that you'd like us to cover in this series.