GRP 63-Recon Sniper Foundation, 3rd Force Recon Commander, Leadership

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GRP 63-On for this week's podcast are U.S. Marines John Brown, the President of the Recon and Sniper Foundation, and Lt. Colonel Drew Ralston, Commanding Officer of the 3rd Force Reconnaissance Battalion. We talked about the Recon and Sniper Foundations event at Shot Show in Las Vegas a few days ago which was a huge success, as well as the role and mission of the Foundation. We talk about leadership, what it takes for young Marines to become Reconnaissance Marines in dealing with and overcoming hardships and adversity.

Very shortly the Global Recon's veteran team of writers will begin to release articles with topics to include transnational terrorism, geopolitics, veteran-related issues, military history, and tactical medicine. Our writers are very smart, and accomplished individuals with a lot to offer.  We will announce start the article publishing early February. Below is an excerpt from the podcast.

John: You guys met and worked together under some unique circumstances. Can you guys talk about that?

Lt. Colonel Ralston: As a reserve Commander my unit is over in Mobile Alabama, but I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In August of last year, we suffered some of the worst flooding’s on record in this area. Within about 48 hours a group of gentlemen from the Recon and Sniper Foundation had mobilized and got guys down here to help with getting myself and a number of other Reconnaissance Marines back on our feet. There's another reserve unit here in Baton Rouge that was affected by the flood and we got to work.  We found retired Marines who needed help. A gentleman who was a Korean War Vet was at the Chosin Reservoir with Chesty Puller had his house decimated by the flood we did a lot of work to get him back on his feet.

We ended up helping the first responders who were out not fixing their homes, but out on the street helping civilians. One of the most rewarded moments for me was one of my former Marines his parent's house was destroyed. We spent 3 days at their house alone. At some point, this Marine's mother looks at her husband and says "You know baby it's going to be ok, the Marines are here.''

John Brown:

http://www.reconsniperfoundation.org

Social Media: ReconSniperFoundation

Introduction speech was by Colin Powell.

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net

GRP 62-GSMSG, Iraq, British Army Combat Medic, Navy Corpsman

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GRP 62- Back on for this week's podcast is my good friend retired British Army Combat Medic Chantel Taylor. We discuss the process of becoming a Combat Medic in the British Army, as well as discuss some of her experience's as an Army Medic, and as a Medic working as a contractor in several conflict zones post military.

The second conversation I had is with a former U.S. Navy Corpsman named Cris, who spent the duration of his career attached to the U.S. Marine Corps for multiple combat rotations into Afghanistan. Chris shares a story of a mass casualty event in which he was leading the quick reaction force into a potentially dangerous situation. Cris has since retired from the Navy and is now working with an incredible organization called the Global Surgical Medical Support Group (GSMSG). The GSMSG is an organization that provides medical training and treats soldiers fighting ISIS in Northern Iraq, and elsewhere. They have surgeons, doctors, and military medics working around the clock to train the Kurdish Peshmerga medics, as well as performing surgery on Peshmerga soldiers, and Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF).  GSMSG is now recruiting SOF Medics for a trip into Syria. If you’re interested, apply on their website http://www.gsmsg.org

 Below is an excerpt.

John: Can you share a story of a time you treated a casualty in combat?

Cris: My second deployment to Afghanistan we were supporting the Afghan’s as they took the lead in the fighting over there. We had a lot of mass casualty events. A couple of their vehicles struck an IED and we were the quick reaction force. I was with three other Marines. They could all do the basic interventions to help save lives. Putting on tourniquets, occlusive dressings, needle decompressions. There were 20 casualties total. When we got there the scene was total chaos. We started triaging. Who's alive? who needs care right now? we got everything from a triple amputee to minor burns. Having all my Marines trained to the standard that they could all perform casualty care efficiently was great. Each of us had four casualties. We were able to get them medevac'd and taken to a higher level of care.   

Global Surgical Medical Support Group:

http://www.gsmsg.org

Facebook: Global Surgical Medical Support Group

Instagram:Global_Surgical_Medical_Support_Group

Chantel Taylor:

Facebook: Battleworn

Instagram: Mission_Critical

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

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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

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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

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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