GRP 169-What War Did to Us Ukraine: My Conversation with Marine Corps Veteran Nick Laidlaw

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Joining me for this week's podcast is Marine Corps veteran Nick Laidlaw. Laidlaw spent seven years in the Marine Corps as an 0311 Rifleman and Security Forces Marine. He wrote the book "What War Did To Us: Ukraine." Providing first-hand accounts of all aspects of the conflict in the first 150 days of the war. Nick runs the popular Instagram account Battles. and.Beers, where he posts photos and videos of war stories from civilian and soldier perspectives. We discussed talking with veterans from both sides of a war, including Ukraine and Russian soldiers, plus much more. Tune in. 

Here is a short story told on the podcast by Laidlaw. It is of Anton Kryll, a Ukrainian soldier who fought at Mariupol's besieged Azovstal steel plant. They were surrounded, entirely out of food and water, and medicine.

" Anton, what do you want to do when the war is over?" He replied, "Here in short, we are always relying on each other. We are in history now, and we have done everything possible and impossible. After we are pulled out of here, I will immediately marry my girlfriend, and everything will be Ukraine. " Anton Kryll was killed the next day on May 14th, 2022.

Main Takeaways

• Stories from Battles and Beers 

• Making it a point to speak with all sides of a conflict

• Being contacted by a member of the Taliban and having an honest discussion 

• Talking with Russians fighting in Ukraine

• Documenting the heroism displayed by Ukrainian forces at the besieged Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol 

This episode is sponsored by 4 Patriots, a survival food company. You can visit www.4patriots.com and use the code RECON for 10% off

Follow Nick Laidlaw on Instagram: Battles.and.beers

Check out his book here: What War Did To Us Ukraine

Connect With John Hendricks

www.globalrecon.net

www.instagram.com/igrecon 

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspian.band

GRP 113-The Graveyard of Empires: Afghanistan

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Episode 113: Back on the podcast co-hosting is Tim Kulczak, the creator of the Veterans Project. Our guest for today’s episode is author and British Army combat veteran Gez Jones. We took a dive into the conflict in Afghanistan from various points as it is a complex situation. Hilarious stories were told as were serious ones. We talked about the failures of western leadership regarding tactics and rules of engagement. We discussed the culture of rape that exist in some areas of Afghanistan where women and children are systematically abused. You guys are going to enjoy this.

O:00-Intro

3:56-Inserting into Afghanistan

44:55-The perception of time

1:04:00-Combat story. Asymmetrical warfare.

1:53:26-Culture of rape: Abuse of women and children  

 can keep up with Tim Kolczak at:

www.thevetsproject.com

www.instagram.com/theveteransproject

Geraint Jones is on Instagram at:

www.instagram.com/grjbooks

Follow my co-host and my pages on social media. Links below.

Global Recon:

www.Globalrecon.net

https://www.instagram.com/igrecon

https://www.instagram.com/blackopsmatter

www.twitter.com/igrecon

https://www.facebook.com/GlobalReconPodcast/

HP Lefler:

https://www.instagram.com/4runner.freyja

Chantel Taylor:

https://www.instagram.com/mission_critical

https://www.instagram.com/altern8rv

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net

GRP 59-Cultural Support Teams, Adversity, Cancer Survivor

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GRP 59- Co-hosting for this week's podcast is Tim Kolczak the creator of the Veterans Project. Tim was recording from the house of an American warrior who survived the Bataan Death March during World War 2. Tim's featuring this gentleman on his next project which will come out soon. It's very good. Our guest for this week is retired Army veteran, Mylee Cardenas. Mylee worked in several capacities throughout her Army career. She made her way into the Cultural Support Teams, a program that put women alongside Special Operations units in Afghanistan to assist in intelligence gathering and other aspects of the mission because of the culture sensitivity of Afghanistan. We talk about dealing with adversity and how to overcome it. Mylee discovered a lump in her breast while on deployment in a combat zone in which it was discovered to be stage 3 breast cancer. Below is an excerpt:

John: You've been in the Special Operations community for a few years now. There was a need in Afghanistan because of the cultural differences to have women alongside Special Operators to deal with the women and children and to handle other facets, working in several capacities as the strategy was changing. Eventually, you signed up for the special job?

Mylee Cardenas: 2009 I was voluntold to go to the school house at FT. Brag. The good idea fairy visited some people in SOCOM. For a while, in Afghanistan, there was a top-down approach to promoting governance and security. The Special Ops community decided that we needed to go back to the basics with a bottom-up approach. The Green Berets started setting up these Village Stability Operations camps all over of Afghanistan to train the local police, gather intelligence, and promote governance at the village level. As amazing as these men are they were only able to reach 50 percent of the population because of the cultural differences. A message came out about the program and I said nope I'm not doing it. I felt like it was a knee-jerk reaction, and there wasn't enough time put into setting this program up. The second time around it was more like you're going. The reactions to the program from the guys also made me not want to do it. I didn't want them talking about me the way they talked about these other chicks. I knew the men weren’t happy with this program.

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net

Tim Kolczak:

www.thevetsproject.com

Social Media: The Veterans Project

GRP 56-2 Commando, Eddy Robinson, Iraq, Counter Terrorism

Click the buttons below to access the episode on ITunes, or Soundcloud. Be sure to like, share, subscribe, and download the episodes. Thank you.

GRP 56-Co hosting for this podcast is Army veteran Tim Kolczak the man behind the Veterans Project. On with us for this podcast is Australian Special Forces Veteran Eddy Robinson. Eddy has multiple combat rotations with the 2 Commando Regiment. We discuss Eddy's career path, get into some combat stories, and honor Eddy's best friend Corporal Cameron Baird, VC, MG. Corporal Cameron Baird is the first Australian commando to be awarded a Victoria Cross and the first posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross for Australia. Corporal Baird is also the 100th Australian to be awarded a Victoria Cross. He's one of Australia’s most highly decorated soldiers of the modern era. We discuss Iraq, counter-terrorism, and Afghanistan. Below is an excerpt from the episode:

John: I'm reading about the rise and roots of ISIS. A lot of it is credited a to the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The U.S. named him as one of the reasons for going into Iraq when he was just in charge of a small terror cell prior to that. After naming him it catapulted him into the spotlight.  Making him a major player. He then stoked the flames for a civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims throwing the country into chaos.

Eddy Robinson:  My experience there was from a contracting perspective 05-06 period. Every morning before 10'o clock you hear the huge IED's being detonated. For the guys on the ground, it was relentless.  Zarqawi was the perfect catalyst for making the situation worse. We got our intelligence reports about mass graves being found on the side of the road. People being mass executed by these guys. It was a very difficult situation during that time.

Tim Kolczak: I joined in 05 I was 17. My drill sergeants were coming back from their 18-month tours. You could just tell how it affected them. We were the first trainees to get trained up by these guys. I remember the recruiter telling me not to become a truck driver because 1 in 5 was getting killed. One of the guys I knew was killed by a Somali contingent in Samarra. We were fighting people from all over the globe.

The Veterans Project:

www.thevetsproject.com

Social media: TheVeteransProject

Global Recon:

Social Media: IgRecon/BlackOpsMatter on Instagram

FB Recon on Facebook

IgRecon on Twitter

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net