Do you have any questions . You look like you have one. [inaudible] 2009 was the Helmand Province afghanistan and was like the height of the whole war taxed out going around Helmand Province to eliminate as many bad guys as we possibly could in the eight hour time period before the marines were in and they were the first ones there. In the 90 day time frame i accumulated most of my kills or whatnot. The average 2,000 per 35 guys. So thats how this whole thing came together. After i got out i have really bad im not going to call it ptsd but your you are used to g a certain lifestyle for so long and everything comes to a halt. So i picked up contract in and worked with some cool guys and bad got shut off. I lost my house and my car and i started writing a diary. Put everything on pen and paper after a failed suicide attempt. 22 veterans kill themselves each day on average and i was about to become one of those statistics. I wrote a journal and turned into a self published book. We got bracelets all down the side from Close Friends that we lost and it wouldnt be here today if it werent for the corporal. I will get into that story if you want to hear that. So, 20092009 we were giving the occupation. One of the skill set is trapping people. And the opposition we may be averaged 15 minutes of sleep per night from a total of 45 through the entire thing or so. We landed on a unit. We found out where the guy was and met up with some marines having a hard time one day. They got attacked every morning by the taliban. They used us and it was a little bit different. We didnt have to get shot out all the time or have to run away. We utilized the sniper team with the element to five or somethi something. We sat out all night, me and my spotter and the marine snipers. Its the most boring thing youll eveyouwill ever experien. They glamorize setting up in the middle of nowhere and its real cool that i probably went through a pack of cigarettes in 30 minutes to stay awake and counted so manaccounted so manya boring time. I could see movement in the village and the marine corps cleared out the village. This guy pops up around the corner almost half a mile okay. A firefight happened and it was like 135 degrees, im sweating, the bottom of my boots are sweating. My helmet is off. We started to get in an ambush, i met with my regimen guys tracking the individuals with going after. We met the marines are there but we had to finish doing our thing. We started around three or 4 00 in the morning and we talked a few hours. If youve ever watched the movie aladdin, thats what its like to walk through. About 100 pounds of gear on walking for hours and hours. The sun started to rise. My element splits off into the group from 35 who are going to the target we were tracking Via Technology i will say and some other means. We found ourselves pinned down and we had gotten word that there was an enemy sniper who fought for the soviets and stuff like that. He had 300 skills throughout his career, really good sniper. Remember bullets started to snap over our heads and machine gun fire and stuff like that and told my guys to hide so we got pinned down into this goes on for about three hours when playing volleyball with bullets with the enemy chechen sniper in and on the third hour we called for air support and this is when the politics got involved in things and the rules of engagement started to change and we were not allowed to cause any more than the 0. 1 Collateral Damage by dropping the bomb so they dropped the thousand pound bomb to eliminate those that surrounded my six guys. They kept denying it so we finally made the decision to drop bombs that way we could get out into this whole ordeal would be over with. It boiled down to the team leader we made the decision we were all going to hug each other and blow ourselves up. By this point i could hear the televisions screens a lack far and i look over my Left Shoulder and see a good friend of mine he comes running in a thousand meters or so coming in to save us. I look over my shoulder and he starts weighing down massive firepower that allowed us to bounce back. The wind blew the opposite direction. Five minutes after that there is a little ravine into the telegram had underground entrenchment systems and pops out of the ground and started to ambush us. The first thing i did was get shot at and missed ravine. We started to fight them back. I thought my eardrum had been busted or Something Like that. Not the case, it was bullets snapping off my shoulder i heard a funny sound that sounded like smacking a pillow and immediately following that i hurt my best friend screaming for his mom. I look over and see the small artery did it and then it started to fill the ravine. Hes crying and stuff like that and i go over to ss and try to put on a tourniquet. Then i turned to look over my left side and my platoon leader is there and we need to get to the safe haven. It was about 300 yards or so. I am screaming in his ear to do that and i feel this water splash and he falls down and got shot in the upper chest. He goes down, my spotter goes over and puts a finger inside the bullet hole to stop the bleeding. The special operations guys i think a lot of the moment everything blacked out and was in super slow motion i could see stuff differently and he smacks me in the helmet like youve got to return fire. He says youve got to kill this guy. He had taken out of the Machine Gun Team and i thought everything i can do i will do. Im 23 at this point. Im running really low on ammo, guns dont work well an when theyve been submerged in water and have blood and stuff stuck in the barrel. As benjamin is passing by and we have to go under hes losing so much blood we pull him back up and try to wake him up and we did that for 300 meters it lasted about ten minutes no food, no water, carrying his backpack and a few other things so i have additional weight. I dont want my mom to wake up tomorrow morning and see that little name is growing across the bottom of the screen. I snapped out of that. No one is going to have things happen like that around them and the normal afterwards. I snapped out of that and what i kept telling myself its someone is going to come around this routine and take us all out. There were a few firefight happening, guys were throwing grenades and if you combat than this little ravine but at this point lea we had 800 plus guys. We met up at the safe haven. I remember getting out, im soaked in blood and hear this gunfire. My spotter looks at me like this is it. He comes over to grab me out and im looking at him like a down there getting shot at. He said no, those are our guys. That was the site to see him to the ground was shaking at this point. Get up inside the safe haven and i told them when we get up here i dont care how much ammo you have every bad guy is going to die there. I went in on that mission with 110 rounds and after the ordeal i left with sick. We called him medevac to get benjamin out at another sniper was attacked, shot in his foot and we had the pio was also hit. We called back to the marine camp and they said we couldnt go into the area with anything less than a brigade. The most assistance they could offer at that point is you have to run about a mile in the urban terrain and meet us. That is murphys law. We finished taking our position and defend it as much as we could. Everyone was low on ammo and he started to pick up and move out then we are just going to move to this thats awaiting us. I couldnt take any more of this getting shot at. I took the lead like if its going to happen to be going to happen. I sprinted the fastest in my life like a mile a minute is what it felt like but it wasnt. One would pop up and i would take him out and there was a firefight going on. Finally we get to the convoy and theres not even enough trucks is like five trucks in 35 guys. So w they capture the target we are going after. Then i have a machine gunner that had to be like 350 pounds it felt like. I looked at the driver like youve got to have a cigarette i smoked right now. Let the cigarette to start smoking it, go to flicked the ash and not thinking about it it falls back and im doing this jingle dance and everybodys like whats going on and we have no water. But anyway, we made it back to the compound and it was like the day never happened. We would go back home and take a shower especially the snipers its been five days into skin starts to peel off when you scratch and stuff like that and i smell like ammonia, the weirdest smell. But its like the day never happened. I went to close my eyes and theres six guys on this designed to fit 40 people into the air like who are these guys, delta . I closed my eyes to go to sleep and i heard a snap again and a bullet past my ear so i wake up and everybodys looking at me like whats going on. I was so used to getting shot at. It was continuous bullets snapping. The sound is stuck with me all the way to this day and its a reoccurring dream like what if i would have done this, if i would have talked to him over here, its a reoccurring thing that happens each year but it was a big lifechanging experience and we all got out after that. He went on an additional six deployments after that. We all keep in contact with his mom who died five days after that. He wanted to continue fighting until he got home to see his mom and that is just what he did. His mom gave me his bracelet and hat and journal and stuff like that. It was a hard transition. Thats the story. Do you have any questions . [inaudible] after 2007 we were ambushed and vehicles and my team have those square little you could do your thumb like that, i have many. We started getting hit with the ak47 striker and he freaked out or did something and the entire speaker started playing Michael Jackson dirty diana and it was like you only sell this stuff in the movies where you wish you had a soundtrack. Having it playing in the background i was getting into it, i grew up listening to Michael Jackson and i wanted to meet him. My mom never wanted me to go. [laughter] i grew up listening to him and used to dance like him and stuff like that so im jamming out in the cockpit and i might pass me a cigarette. Im not a big smoker but it sounds like it. So ive got a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, i loved john wayne, i am up returning fire, giving a little Michael Jackson shooting bad guys and thats what i decided to name my rifle, dirty diana. If you listen to the words thats what i thought about the rifle, she was bad but she was good, too. Anything else . How do you deal with it everyday to keep going and not let that ruin your life . Been in special operations is one of those things they dont look down upon but they dont encourage you to seek mental health. When we get back heres our situation, whatever value you go to you might be killing bad guys monday in the 24 hours after that at a bar downtown in columbus georgia. There is no big parade or anything in the first thing we do is have a beer or similar deployment money we saved up and make a young girl rich or something. You know what im talking about. [laughter] [inaudible] youre not soft for doing it but definitely get help. And alcoholism i think is a big contributor to suicide. I was selfmedicating drinking from 4 00 in the morning. We were at a sniper party and i was pulled to the side and he said you have a problem and i was like im good. It didnt hit me until he died. It appears that he came back to me in my dream and said you need to stop. So i didnt quit but i call it down drastically and didnt let it control different thoughts in the oceans. Alcohol is a big thing in the Community Using an access. Getting help from a definitely do that. [inaudible] two years ago. I was in arkansas. [inaudible] i forget his name. Hes like a walking refrigerat refrigerator. Thats a good school. I was precision high angle, longrange. When i got to israel Sniper School i never did that but i wish i did. The one got out about three months ago and right before the last deployment in 2012 he had a chance to go and said it was the best school. The are you a sniper, too mac . Obviously. [laughter] anybody else . [inaudible] and then this guy from texas who always has that been his mouth. The e. Kind of talks like this all the time doesnt really open his mouth. You described everyone in the audience. [laughter] every time we would get to the range he would light up the cigarette. He was like do you ever not have a cigarette in her mouth and i was like dude youd never have dip in your mouth . I thought yo i thought you said something else. [laughter] the anybody clicks its lets get it started. They have to shut down because they are not taking any more. When they changed over from 82nd 201st. [inaudible] go for it. I have a bad memory loss. I would need to see a face. I never forget a face but names, i forget the name we just talked about. Pierce. Are you ready to sign some books . We will have the front row stand up and come out a of the things i talked to him on are the basic philosophy of putting America First on trade, immigration, the war. Hes made so many mistakes, little mistakes he backtracks. But when the entire media rose up to crush and after that mexican rapist speech it took me two weeks to think he wasnt going to back down. Every once in a while i would send a point you might want to mention this but for probably six months, we could figure out how long it was, one of the planes would be dont let him back down on immigration and i think it was after the muslim than i thought okay hes not backing down. The