GRP 61-Matthew McClintock, Special Forces Medics, Transitional Process

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 61- The one-year anniversary of the passing of Staff Sergeant Matthew McClintock. Matthew was an Army Special Forces Engineer Sergeant. With news of his passing circulating through the United States, the online military community really came together to contribute what they could to support his wife and young son. I remember feeling proud to see how Americans rallied around a gold star family.

Co-hosting for this week's episode is Tim Kolczak, the creator of the Veterans Project. Our special guest for this episode is one of Matthew's Special Forces teammates a retired Special Forces Medic named Chris. Chris talked about some of his experiences with Matthew as they had gone through the Special Forces selection course together, and eventually ended up on the same team deploying into a war zone together. Chris took out the time out of his busy schedule to record with us while he's in Afghanistan working as a contractor. We also talked a lot about Trauma medicine, bleeding control, and how the lessons learned from 16 years of hard war on the medical side are now being applied back here in the States raising the level of knowledge to new heights. We also touched on the veteran transitional process and what veterans can do to be successful as a civilian. Below is an excerpt.

John: Can you share a story of when you treated a casualty overseas?

Chris: This happened within the first week that I'd set up a VSO (Village Stability Operations) site in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. I was still setting up my clinic, and it as told we had a patient at our gate.  They told me he'd been shot in the foot. The guy comes in, and he'd been hit by an RPG. He had shrapnel sticking out of his skull. He had through and through gunshot wounds to both thighs. He had a partial evisceration of his stomach, so his intestines were sticking out. All of these obscure medical techniques that they teach you in the 18 Delta course (Special Forces Medical course) I got to experience on my very first week deployed. We got em out of there completely bundled up. The helo was there in 45 minutes he survived, and he was back with his unit when we left country 9 months later. I wasn't prepared, but the training I'd done over the past two years took over at that point.

Chris:

www.readywarriorllc.com

Social Media: SpecialForcesMedics

Tim Kolczak:

www.thevetsproject.com

Social Media: The Veterans Project

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net

GRP 60-Wes Kennedy, CSOR, Special Operations Selection, Fitness, Mindset

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 60-Episode 60 of the Global Recon Podcast I thought it would be a great way to kick off the new year by having Wes Kennedy back on the show. Wes is a former Canadian Special Operations Regiment(CSOR) operator. Wes is a combat veteran and since leaving the military has become an expert in fitness, nutrition, and mindset. Wes owns and operates a successful company whose main focus is to help people from the Five Eyes(FVEY) community pass special operations selection. FVEY consist of the Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. We often received emails and messages on social media asking for any resources that can help someone pass a selection. Well, there is no better place than the services provided by Wes and his company. Below is an excerpt from the podcast.

John: You spent your time serving first as an engineer, then special operations, and now you've left the military. When you first started your company you were focused on a few different avenues of fitness and health. Now you guys focus more on special operations selection. You have the physical aspect, but you also have the mental aspect. I know this is something you specialize in. Can we talk about that?

Wes Kennedy: What I've learned over the past several years with hundreds of guys training for various special ops selections around the world is the programming. Spent a lot of time learning how to do nutrition. It's almost the fluff of the training. It's fairly easy to deliver good individualized program design, good individualized nutrition. There are few guys that take it on and do it without question. Hit it day in and day out. What happens with most of us being the human beings that we are is eventually guys hit a crossroad. They said they're going to do something and they don't do it. I've begun to create a series of modules and training for that mindset piece to understand where they're behavioral patterns come from. The first module we cover in the mindset piece we cover is a purpose. A man without purpose is lost in the wind. Purpose to me is essentially what do I need to do before I die? and what do I need to do right now?

Wes Kennedy:

Main Site: www.brotherhoodlife.com

Warrior Mentor Project: www.warriormentorproject.com

Team Room Training:

www.teamroomtraining.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/OfficialWesKennedy

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/WesKennedyETP

GRP 59-Cultural Support Teams, Adversity, Cancer Survivor

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 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 58-Assassination, Terror in Germany, Navy EOD Tech

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 58-A lot has been going on in the past 24 hours with Russia's ambassador to Turkey being assassinated in Turkey, as well as a terrorist attack in Berlin. We are proud to announce that we've revamped the article section for the website and have put together a solid team of writers to release content very soon.

 On with me for this week's podcast is active duty Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD) Damian. We discuss what led him to join the Navy and talk about his career throughout. Damian gives you guys a combat story from his first rotation, and most importantly we talk about those Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice. We discuss what it's like to lose someone you love, and how it can motivate you to work extremely hard as it has done for both of us. Below is an excerpt.

John: Spending the amount of time you've spent in EOD you've had some guys who've lost limbs, as well as having lost some of your brothers in combat. Is there anyone you'd like to pay a tribute to?

Damian: There's a lot. We just Jason Finan in October from my unit Mobile Unit 3. That hit us hard. He was, in my opinion, EOD Tech I've ever been around. I can't think of anyone more highly regarded than him in my field. He was a good man. I remember telling the guys in my division before he came through with his platoon when he finished you'll say that's the best EOD Tech that ever came through and they all agreed. It was a huge loss. They're all huge. I remember getting the phone call and I just could not.....we're still reeling from that. Jan 2nd, 2012 we lost Chad Regelin. We went to Afghanistan together in Aug 2010. We'd come home from that one and he'd volunteered to go right back. He was with an ODA from 5th Group in Helmand when he was killed. That's still very hard.......you know.... he was such a good kid. It's really hard because to me he was so young.

He was extremely humble; they were aggressive without being reckless. We lost Shawn Carson. We lost Christian Pike he was a CCT (Combat Control Technician). Killed in a firefight that we were in. We always lose the best people. Mark Forester was a CCT that I worked with. My first IED strike was the one he ran over. Calvin Harrison the same day Mark was killed. He was an 18 Delta. Pat Feeks was a SEAL that I worked with. You cross paths with some many people.

John: It's crazy because you go right through the door with the IED, you move and the guys behind you set it off. You're standing in one spot a second later the next guy standing in that same spot gets shot. I use the personal loss as my motivation to honor the memory of the people I lost. You almost feel like they're watching you.

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net

GRP 57-Slovenian Special Forces Medic, Kosovo, Albania

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 57-  Co-hosting for this podcast is British Army Combat Medic Chantel Taylor. I had a conversation with retired Slovenian Special Forces Medic "Sidik". Slovenia is a small country located in Eastern Europe. We talk about Sidik's time in the Mechanized Infantry in which he has a peacekeeping deployment into Kosovo. During the 1990's the Serbian government was pushing into the Serbian region of Kosovo which is mostly home to ethnic Albanians.

I have good friends of mine who are Albanian, and I remember a time when their fathers left the U.S. to go and help in the effort countering the Serbian advances. The Serbian military pressed into Kosovo and commenced acts of genocide, and ethnic cleansing. The United States and its allies deployed into Kosovo and bombed targets inside Serbia to stop their advances. Sidik upon his return from Kosovo began his journey into the Slovenian Special Forces Regiment. He became a Special Forces Medic and underwent his medical training here in the States alongside American Special Operations Medics. Sidik has a combat rotation into Afghanistan alongside a Green Beret Special Forces ODA. Below is an excerpt from our conversation:

John: A lot of times until something bad happens people believe it could never happen until it's too late. We end up reacting. Having basic knowledge of bleeding control and tourniquet use could make a difference. Let's say someone gets in a car crash and you have a bilateral amputation of your lower leg, with a tourniquet and understanding of how to use it someone's life can be saved.

Can you share with the audience a story of your deployment?

Sidik: We were mentoring the Afghan Police, we ran armed reconnaissance, direct action in going after high-value targets. We went on a big operation into a valley that was Taliban-held territory. The plan was to have one team to set up over watch on top of the mountain with the other team clearing out the valley. I was on over watch. My team consisted of three Slovenians, and two Americans and a bunch of Afghani's. We started out with a couple of hundred guys, but upon reaching the top of the hill it turned out to only be us, and the American's (laughs). We got into a firefight and called in CAS (Close Air Support), but even with the gunships, these guys were still hammering us. When the op was over walking back down the hill suddenly we got 10 guys with us, and then 50 people, and by the time we got back down the hill, we had 300 guys with us again (laughter).

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net