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I'll spell that to you because it's not as you
think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. Welcome
to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing, and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome on the show Air
Force veteran and author Matthew Coleman. Now,
amongst many of his assignments, Matthew was
the deputy commander of the 380th Air Expeditionary
Wing, who were tasked with the mass evacuation
from Afghanistan prior to the withdrawal. So
we discuss a host of topics, from his journey
into the military, the truth behind the Space
Force, the horrors of war, the boots -on -the
-ground perspective of that evacuation, the ripple
effect of that deployment, catharsis through
writing, and so much more. Now, before we get
to this incredible conversation, as I say every
week, please just take a moment. Go to whichever
app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every single
five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 1 ,000
episodes now. So all I ask in return is that
you help share these incredible men and women's
stories so I can get them to every single person
on planet Earth who needs to hear them. So with
that being said, I introduce to you Matthew Coleman.
Enjoy. Well, Matt, I want to start by saying
two things. Firstly, thank you to our mutual
friend, Colin Broderick, for making the connection.
And secondly, I want to welcome you onto the
Behind the Shield podcast today. I appreciate
it. It's an honor to be here. So where on planet
Earth are we finding you this afternoon? So this
afternoon, I am just outside the nation's capital
in Arlington, Virginia. Beautiful. Well, there's
obviously a reason why you found yourself located
there. I would love to start, though, at the
very beginning of your timeline. So tell me where
you were born and tell me a little bit about
your family dynamic, what your parents did, how
many siblings. OK, I was probably one of the
very few people that were actually born in Daytona
Beach, Florida. And from there, family moved
up to Illinois where I have a lot of other family.
My sister was born and. My dad was Air Force.
We were in England. From there, California, Colorado,
back to Florida for, holy cow, mid -70s through
early 80s. And from there to South Dakota, where
I finished high school, family couldn't afford
college. So I knew I wanted to do a little bit
more with my life than be on the management team
of a couple of pizza huts there. in South Dakota.
So I enlisted in the Air Force and was fortunate
enough to get into Satellite Command and Control.
That was back in 1990. Talk to me about the changes
you've seen in Daytona Beach. I know at one point
it was quite the destination. I know now having
friends that work with Daytona Beach Fire that,
you know. It's not quite as glitzy as it maybe
once was. So what have you seen through someone
who was born and bred by that lens that you've
got? So Daytona Beach, yes, it has had its ebbs
and flows for my alma mater, Embry -Riddle Aeronautical
University there in Daytona Beach. I remember
that used to be a bunch of shacks out there.
Now, from the time I graduated there in 1998
until now, Embry -Riddle, that part of town,
is unrecognizable. It's such a phenomenal campus.
If I hadn't gone there since I graduated in 1998,
I wouldn't even recognize it. It's phenomenal.
The racetrack has exploded. Everything is raced
there. The entire racetrack with NASCAR. It's
done nothing but go up. They've done a lot of
nice building around Daytona Beach. I know for
a while there, if you think through the 80s and
90s, that was the spring break hub. But then
that flowed on to other places. But I know there
were times that it was rough, but it has gotten
better. They are... I'm neutral on it. So with
Bike Week, I understand there's some significant
changes going on with that. That Main Street
is not going to be what it used to be. So I obviously
don't know the inner circle decision making on
that, but it seems as though Bike Week may not
be as glamorous as it used to be. It may be going
the way of the spring breaks that I remember
from the 80s and early 90s. It's grown in so
many ways. And if you hadn't seen it in quite
a while, you definitely wouldn't recognize it.
But still a great town, a lot of great people
there. I went to a concert called Welcome to
Rockville, which used to be in Jacksonville,
hence the name. And they kind of outgrew Metropolitan
Park. And it's a shame because it was a beautiful
park by the river, you know, and you had all
these different stages and hills and areas and
you could sit under trees. And then they moved
to Daytona. when you're in the middle of the
racetrack where there's no shade, everything's
echoing off all the stands. And yeah, I went
there once. We may go there again, but I was
kind of sad. I'm not a big race fan, so that's
not what would take me to Daytona. But yeah,
when you're from a place like that, you're either,
there's very little middle ground. There's two
camps. You love it or you could do without it.
I've got a lot of family there. my parents that
are big race fans and they've gone to everything
and i it's amazing the the engineering behind
it the logistics behind it uh and it it drives
my mother up the wall the one daytona 500 i went
to i believe in spring 97 is the one dale earnhardt
won the only one he won And you didn't deserve
to be there to see that. Maybe you were the reason
he won. Maybe you should have gone tomorrow.
Maybe. Well, as you said about Embry -Riddle
as well, my son ran track for his high school
and they went to, I forget which, it was regionals
or one of those ones. And it was at Embry -Riddle
and the sports facility there was beautiful.
The ROTC assault course was beautiful. Let's
talk about that. Talk to me about your career
aspirations when you were younger in the school
age and how that took you to Embry -Riddle in
the first place. So I was the guy that always
had his eyes looking upward at the planes. And
I had always been fascinated with aircraft and
wanting to be a pilot. When I was in high school,
I had gotten... a presidential nomination to
the Naval Academy. But it's funny, when I was
little, I had asthma, but I outgrew it. I could
run till I dropped when I was in high school.
And I remember when I was going to do my medical
to get into the Naval Academy, excuse me, my
parents, both of them said, if they ask you anything
about asthma, say no. Young, bright -eyed, naive,
perhaps. I definitely didn't have my 53 -year
-old brain, but when I was doing the medical
stuff, I was doing a questionnaire and it said,
have you ever had asthma? Yes or no. But on fine
print right below that question, it said, as
long as you haven't had it past X birthday, I
can't remember what the year was, you're fine.
Well, my 53 -year -old retired colonel brain
looks at that question and says, Well, if that's
truly the case, then if you've had asthma, what
was the last year you had it? It was purely a
weeder question. And me being naive, I answered,
well, it says I'm okay as long as I haven't had
it past that. Yes. So I got disqualified. And
I went into, I've promised myself, and I'm focusing
really hard not to use swear words during this.
You can, by the way, because I probably will.
Okay. I will use the king of the bad words then,
the Frankfurter word. To be quite honest, I went
into a fuck the world at that point because having
lost that for something that was BS. And then
knowing my family couldn't afford college, then
it was like, okay, I'm going to enlist in the
Air Force. I got to get out of here. And then
Air Force wasn't going to let me in for the same
thing. And luckily we had dug through my medical
records with a doctor and found something. I
mean, thank God when I was little, he just happened
to write, yep, Pierce Matt's outgrown his asthma.
Air Force said, come on in. And I explained that
whole Naval Academy thing to him. And he just
looked at me, goes, yeah, well, had you found
that back then, you'd probably be finishing your
freshman year of either the prep school or, you
know, your plea beer at the Academy. So that
threw me in, you know, when you're 18, you don't
think fully straight. That threw me into more
of a fuck the world type thing. So got in the
Air Force and got into Space Command, which was
only a couple, three years old at that point.
And I thoroughly loved it. I was in four unique
different space systems in six and a half years.
Had me from Washington State. a four by two mile
Island in Alaska, all the way at the end of the
illusion chain, England for a couple of years,
California. But during that time, I still had
that, that drive of, man, I want to fly. I want
to fly. I started taking college classes, but
you know, when you're that age, it's, I did work
hard, but I also played really hard. I didn't
have much rudder giving me directional control.
And it's funny when I did all my mentoring, I've
done a ton of mentoring. I love, cause I didn't
have that when I was younger. And whenever I
talked to the young airmen before I retired,
I talked about a moment when I was at RAF Lake
and Heath and they had a Popeye's there on base.
I don't know if they still have it. I was standing
out front eating my three piece chicken strip
with, you know, it's the spicy beans and rice
watching F -15s doing touch and goes. And I was
like, man, I wish I could do that. And I stopped
for a second. And then I just thought, well,
why can't I? And that's the day my head came
out of my ass. And that's the day when I, when
I would do all my mentoring, I called that the
pop hurt around the world. So from that point,
it was the, I would always say good luck telling
me no, because that. Work hard, play hard ratio
went more towards work hard. I got a lot more
directional control and I was taking classes
like nobody's business. And then I was getting
to where I had enough classes and I knew I wanted
to apply for commissioning and hope to get the
pilot training. And Embry -Riddle was always
the natural choice because that's where my family
is. And I was thinking of, okay, if I'm going
to go from having a paycheck to being a student,
what's going to be the most cost -efficient way
of doing that? Daytona was always the way because
I lived with my grandfather. So I got picked
up for a two -year ROTC scholarship in 1996,
separated December 96 as a staff sergeant. Drove
back home to Daytona Beach from the South San
Francisco Bay Area and started, well, started,
I shouldn't say, finished my schooling there.
So that's how I wound up at the great University
of Embry -Riddle. Well, I know we're going to
talk about mental health in a little while as
well, the impact of trauma when we're wearing
a uniform. One of the real... you know, aha moments
that I've had as we progress through all these
interviews is the impact of childhood trauma
or, you know, arguably unaddressed or addressed
of our early life, you know, that sent us more
and often than not into uniform in the first
place. You kind of made a comment about lacking
mentors as you were growing up prior. When you
reflect now, what were the highs of your upbringing
and what was some of the things that maybe contributed
to the struggles in adult life? Uh, I mean, some
of it I am not going to fully nosedive into,
but yes, um, there were some things there when
I was younger and with, you got me dancing in
my mind a little bit. The, uh, just like if you
asked me something about stuff I'm not supposed
to talk about, um, there were contributing factors
I would say when I was younger that may have
contributed to how I thought, how I felt, how
I thought of myself. And since we're going to
get into some of the childhood trauma, I think
there is only about 12, 13 -ish people I've ever
said this to. You will be 14 and whomever else
listens to this. And one of the people I shared
this with is when I was a... doing my squadron
command lieutenant colonel level command i had
a guy in my squadron that went through quite
a bit and he went through he had a lot of mental
issues and i was really worried about him and
i sat him down and shared what i'm about i shared
with him to let him know he's not alone and that
there's a lot of people that suffer with a lot
of things but it's not the end of the world When
I was 25, there was a lot of bad things that
came to a head that summer of 96. And I can't
believe I'm saying this, but for about a half
hour in my bedroom, it was just me. I was single.
I had my job in the Air Force. I was working
a second job. In retail because I knew I was
gonna need money shortly so and on top of that
I was taking a buttload of classes had no life
because I was sacrificing a short term for a
long term gain and there was just some a bunch
of personal factors and family factors that came
to a head and I Sat in my room for a half hour
rotating a handgun from my mouth to the side
of my head and I think at the end of that, I
just, it was, I had my, again, I had my aha moment
of what in the fuck are you doing? And I'm glad
I finally came to that. But I, it's funny. When
I was going through what we're going to talk
about later with the PTSD and all that, you could
imagine I was asked, oh my God, it seemed like
every five minutes, are you going to hurt yourself?
or others. And of course, I told them about that.
I'm like, look, that was my come to Jesus moment,
if you will. I didn't do it then. It ain't happening.
And I'm a smart ass at heart. I'm like, unless
you're going to sit down and torture me to death
with a spoon, then I might consider it. But yeah,
we're safe. But yeah, there was a lot of early
trauma that led to that point. And that point,
having made it through actually helped me with
the later stuff we'll eventually get to. I think
this is such an important conversation. And thank
you for trusting me and the audience with your
story as well. That was hard. But this is, if
you look at what they call the ACE score, so
the acute childhood, sorry, adverse childhood
experiences score. I've been told many times
now that on average, first responders, military
have a six, six out of ten, I believe it is.
Prisoners, incarcerated population tend to have
six as well. And you hear this all the time.
I end up in the military or dead or in prison.
You know, so a lot of us are kind of at this
at this crossroads. And luckily, you talk about
mentorship. The accumulation of all the positive
role models in our lives sent us down this positive
path. But for the grace of God go I, these people
that didn't. But I think if we're not talking
about that early life and the fracture of the
foundation, and you just take a military member,
like, well, I was at the Afghanistan withdrawal
and I saw the bomb go off. And, oh, that must
be why you've got this. Yeah, but you're not
talking about what happened, you know, the formative
years. then you could be missing the very pee
under the mattress that, you know, is really
causing the issues. It was the origin of these
issues. Well, I'm going to consider today a win
because I learned something. One, what you just
said, I did not know, but what you just said
helped me connect some dots in my head. If there's
any mental health professionals listening to
this, I apologize, but I had a good relationship
with mine when I started the PTSD treatment,
and I always referred to him as my skull jockey.
But now I know why he asked a lot of those questions
about my childhood. I'm not going to lie, I was
just sitting there, how in the hell is this relevant?
But now that you say that, I get it. I mean,
if you just kind of look at the basic building
blocks when it comes to psychology, did that
child feel safe? Did that child feel loved? Did
they feel, you know, validated? All these things.
And now you take a child, you know, one of the
parents left. Well, why wasn't I good enough
for that in my dad? Or why was I good enough
to stop them drinking? You know, all these things.
And then you think about what's that child going
to do now? Well, they don't want other people
to feel the way they felt. They want to be a
protector. They want a profession that maybe
is so exciting that they don't have to think
about that stuff. And that's all well and good.
And it carries us in one, five, 10 years. But
if left unaddressed, then you have this Jenga
moment. Right. Wow. I like that. Like I said,
today's been a success already. Good. There we
go. We can close out. All right. Well, totally
going off on a tangent now. You mentioned Space
Command. I'm going to learn from you now because
we had this conversation a while ago. We hear
about Space Force. And if we're talking about
Florida, I literally got off a cruise. probably
a couple of years ago now, and the Air Force
sign had been changed from Air Force Base to
Space Force Base. So I'm the child that kind
of grew up with Thatcher and Reagan and, you
know, the Star Wars program. So educate us, the
audience, on the genesis of Space Force, and
then maybe you can debunk some of the myths while
we're at it as well. Well, I will do my best.
I am not a Space Force professional. I did not.
I left Air Force Space Command in 1996. Granted,
I had some touches with it as I moved through
my career. And when I was on a joint staff as
a lieutenant colonel, they were working on the
stand up of Space Force. But, you know, within
the Air Force, you have what they call major
commands. You know, you're going to, for lack
of better words, to keep it simple. we're going
to group all these similar toys under this major
command all of these similar toys under this
major command you know you've got air mobility
command so all your air refueling assets all
of your airlifters and things of that nature
under that air combat command all your fighters
and bombers but you know they had air force space
command and within air force space command you
know you had Uh, geez, uh, low earth, low earth
stuff, uh, high, high stuff, uh, in the, you
know, geo type stuff. You had ground -based,
uh, radars that would watch stuff in early war
or in a low earth orbit. You had launch type,
uh, things of it. And. I think it ultimately,
if I remember correctly, boiled down to funding.
So when you've got Air Force, U .S. government
approves this much money for the Air Force. Air
Force, oh man, I'm hitting this so topical. I've
got all these different collections of toys.
I've got a budget for personnel. I've got a budget
for... fighter aircraft, air mobility aircraft,
space command, research and development, so on
and so forth. And at the end of the day, there
had been a lot of different studies and I can't
remember the years and the names of the reports,
but given the importance of what those space
assets do for this country and our allies, they
felt it'd be more appropriate to make a space
force just like the department of the navy has
the marine corps now the air department of the
air force has the space force they fight for
their own budgets then it's up to them what they
want to do with their money so that is the god
awful short and simple of it probably from we
like to joke and say well i'm going to give you
the thousand or thirty thousand foot approach
to it That's probably the 100 ,000 -foot approach
to it. Yeah, well, thank you. That's more information
than I had before because I was thinking Starship
Troopers and, you know. That's what a lot of
people think, but a lot of it was funding and
so that they could focus on themselves as an
entity versus an element of the greater Air Force.
Absolutely. Well, let's go back to your kind
of timeline then. So you're standing on the deck
watching fighter planes, you know, drill taking
the landing and taking off again. You got Popeye's
in your hand. Walk me through that moment into
actually being in the cockpit yourself. Well,
like I said, that was the pop hurt around the
world when I pulled my head out of my ass. I
had been taking classes and I just doubled down
at that point, taking more classes. And as I
said, I got to, it's not there anymore, Onizuka
Air Station when I left England, which was in
the South Bay. I was taking a ton of classes,
working extra because, like I said, I was focusing
on getting extra money in my bank account for,
you know, in the hopes that I got picked up for
commissioning. That happened. And I got really
lucky because. Mid 90s, they were, you know,
the great Soviet Union isn't there anymore. The
Cold War is gone. We don't need this large Cold
War force anymore. And they started drawing down.
And when I was at Embry -Riddle, I had. So when
I got there, I had two and a half years of college
done. So I only needed a year and a half to have
my degree. But you had to do the two years in
ROTC to commission. Because they were drawing
down, I was told, hey, you're picked up for this
program, but the Air Force is trying to eliminate
numbers. If you want to walk away when you're
done, you can walk away. And I'm not going to
lie, part of that seemed somewhat exciting because,
holy crap, they're going to pay for my school
and I can just walk away and do whatever. Like
I said, my primary focus was I wanted to fly.
I had always stared at planes as early as I can
remember. So I didn't want to be an old man and
say, what if? So I stayed and fought like heck
to get good grades, so on and so forth. But then
they told me, okay, if you graduate when you're
supposed to, which was supposed to be December
98. I would have been too old for pilot training.
But if I can graduate in the spring of 98, it's
waverable. So it worked out perfect because I
only had a year and a half left. So I was able
to get the waivers I needed and graduated early,
got my pilot slot. And at those times, they were
a little backlogged for pilot training. i was
sent off to when i graduated i was sent off to
mcdill air force base over in tampa on casual
status there were 16 of us just waiting for our
pilot training date to come so you know they
farmed us out throughout the wing to you know
guest help lieutenant for whether it's six months
to a year and that's where i met my wife we got
married there and Then I went off to Vance Air
Force Base in spring of 99 in Vance or Enid,
Oklahoma. So you must have a pretty interesting
experience of 9 -11. And you kind of this side
of that, that incident that obviously led us
into 20 years of war in the Middle East. Yes.
Talk to me about the it's an interesting perspective,
actually. The way you were trained pre -911,
and I'm assuming kind of based on certain conflicts
in our recent military history, and then what
was that shift after the towers fell? So it's
funny, and I'll get to this. And I think it was
in 2003. I can't remember what VSP stood for,
Variable Separation Program or something like
that. Again, they were trying to draw down and
offered money for people to get out. There were
no strings attached. And my year group, when
you commission, they call you your year group
the year you commissioned. And that's just how
they track numbers, so on and so forth. And my
year group for pilots got gutted. And the reason
ties back to what you were saying. So I finished.
So guys I graduated and commissioned with either
graduated in 99 or early 2000. And we were that
last group of pre -911, if you were in heavies,
pre -911 co -pilots, or if you were picking airframe
single -seaters, we were those last pre -911
folks. I just remember you trained on what your
mission was. You went through 13 months of pilot
training. Then you get to, hey, this is the airframe
you're going to fly. And that could have been
another three to six months of training. So you
can see almost two years you've been a student.
You get to your first base. Well, you've learned
how to fly the plane. Now you're going to learn
how to employ it. you know so you go through
all your mission ready uh yeah mission qualification
training and you're a bona fide pilot you know
you're trained on whatever mission operations
plans are specific to your airframe but i remember
at my first base a lot of us co -pilots we were
thinking We were going to leave because in order
to upgrade aircraft commander, you have to have
X number of hours and experiences, if you will,
as you're moving along. And let's face it, pre
9 -11, there wasn't a lot going on. I remember
if you were flying 30 hours in a month, man,
you're on fire. You're flying a lot, which it
really isn't when you look at that post 9 -11.
We were showing up late to the squadron in the
morning. We'd take long lunches. We'd leave early.
There was nothing going on. But when 9 -11 happened,
I mean, I was gone October, November, December
01. A good chunk of 02, good chunk of 03. Even
when you weren't deployed when you were home,
you're going on temporary duty. to this base
to support that. You're going here to support
this exercise. So even when you were home, you
weren't home. And when that first reduction came
in 2003, a bunch of those pre -911 pilots, no,
I remember the good life. I'm out. And of course,
every effort to try and downsize after that,
pilots and navigators were usually excluded.
They learned their lesson. What about the actual
day, 9 -11? What was that through your eyes?
Mine was a little different. I was actually in
the middle of a root canal. So I was laying in
that chair with that big dam on my face, my mouth
jacked open. And I remember somebody from within
the dental squadron sticking their head in saying,
hey. The plane just hit one of the towers. You
know, I'm just laying there. I can't say anything.
And I'm just sitting there thinking about, I
mean, I think it was in the 40s, a B -25 flew
into the Empire State Building. So I'm just sitting
there thinking it had to be in -flight emergency.
There had to have been bad weather. Bottom line,
accident, accident, accident. And not long after
that, they came in and said, one just hit the
other tower. And we both looked at each other.
And within a few minutes, here I am, as I said,
with that big damn on my face, the bib. And we
walked down to the staff break room, watching
it all unfold on TV. And, you know, I'm just
drooling all over myself. She was just sitting
there staring at the TV in disbelief. And I just
remember. come on, we got to get the, I could,
like I said, couldn't talk. I was just hitting
her saying, we got to get this done because I
know I'm going to have to get back to my squadron
and get into the squadron. It was, it was something
you had to have lived through it, you know, as
you know, to fully appreciate it, not knowing
what was going on, what was coming next. I remember
the entire squadron was in the innermost portion
of the building to where And you didn't know.
I mean, I look at it now, 20 some odd years later,
you know, staying away from windows, doors, because
you didn't know if something was going to explode
outside and blow inward. And so I was what they
called duty not to involve flight because I had
my tooth done and Novocaine and all that crap.
But, you know, they shut the airspace down and
we were launching because we were flying a KC
-135 there in Georgia. our guys got up in the
air quickly to support a lot of the combat air
patrols and once i got back on flight status
a few days later took off and fly that that is
something that sticks in my head very vividly
because we were just south of atlanta and that
airspace you know it goes on and off of being
the world's busiest airport so flying through
that airspace i mean you're looking for that
One -tenth of a second break in radio transmissions
to get your radio calls in. Constant stair -stepping
as you're trying to climb up and you're getting
vectored around other aircraft. That first day
I flew after 9 -11. Like I said, I'd have to
look in my log books, but it was unreal. We took
off. Silence. Nothing on the radios. No aircraft.
departure. Then we got handed off to Atlanta
Center. And I just remember that controller with
Atlanta Center saying, yeah, Rhett Butler, that
was our call sign, Rhett, you are cleared to
go wherever you want. You're the only aircraft
in my sector. And it was just silence. Every
15 minutes, if you hear nothing, you're supposed
to do radio checks to make sure you haven't lost
your comms. And about every 15 minutes, have
you heard anything? Nope. Atlanta, Rhett checking
in. Yeah, you're still there. Yeah, just whatever
you want to do. So that was, yeah, something
I'll never forget. I just can't imagine what
it must have been like for the pilots. I'm not
saying this ever actually happened, but for the
pilots to know in their hearts that they might
be faced with the situation. where a you know
a commercial liner was headed towards a place
where many more people would die and they would
have to make that decision well that's like the
uh f -16 two f -16s that took off out of here
that weren't armed and they were vectored towards
flight 93 and they thought they were going to
have to ram it but you know the The heroes on
that plane took matters into their own hand and
saved a lot of lives. And I just could not imagine
going back to what you said, knowing that you're
going to have to, in that instance, fly your
aircraft into a commercial airliner or, you know,
once we got postured properly to potentially
have to fire on it. So I could not imagine. I'm
with you on that one. Yeah, horrendous. well
so that's happened now obviously the wheels are
in motion you know afghanistan iraq um right
did you find i mean we're going to talk about
obviously the middle east um you know towards
the very end of the conflict but prior to that
did you find yourself in the middle east yeah
absolutely so we had sent off the first wave
of aircraft in early october i went off with
uh additional folks to support our deployed folks.
We went to Al Udeid, got back, then I went to
Al Udeid again in the spring. And then after
that fall, you know, we started flying out of
Manus near Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, got there late.
2003 into 2004, back there again in 04, I believe
again in 05, and then IUD'd again in late 05
into 06. And then I started doing a bunch of
different staff stuff in schools that precluded
me from, not that I didn't want to go, but I'd
gotten 06 deployments in. and flying between
al -yudid and kyrgyzstan seeing supporting afghanistan
and then on that last deployment supporting afghanistan
and iraq so the question i ask everyone who's
been deployed forward into a combat zone um and
obviously each of these lenses are different
you know that green beret is going to be different
than a pilot for example but the the kind of
prequel to this so this uh What am I trying to
say here? The reason why I ask this question
is when you're a civilian back in the US, you
get a very polarized view of war, depending on
which, you know, I'm doing air quotes now, news
station that you subscribe to. So either a very
pro -war, kill them all, let God sort them out,
or very anti, they're all baby killers. And the
middle are our men and women, arguably our children,
wearing uniforms, fighting for this country and
fighting for the people of that nation. Was when
you, you know, wherever you found yourself, were
there moments where you realized that there were
some horrific people that did need to be taken
care of, regardless of politics that sent you
over there? Yes, I was aware of those people.
I because every flight you get Intel briefs before
you go fly. Sometimes you would go up and they
called them anchor areas when I was flying the
KC -135 and the KC -10. Big chunks of sky strategically
placed throughout the country. And you would
go hang out in those areas. And you would have,
you know, as things in Afghanistan and Iraq normalized
a bit, you found yourself hanging out in these
anchor areas more. But, you know, fighters would
be out there. doing patrols, caps, so on and
so forth. And if troops in contact were called,
the fighters would get called. And then dependent
upon the severity of the gunfight on the ground,
a lot of us, whether it's the 135 or the 10,
I know for me personally, I did not, if it's
our folks on the ground whose lives we're trying
to help as they're doing what they do down there,
I didn't want those fighters to have to fly however
far it was to where this anchor area was, so
I'd go and orbit over them. So they were just
literally going up and down right over them.
That was your standard stuff. But from time to
time, you would get briefed on a high -value
asset. If you remember that terminology, our
badass special ops guys going after some. some
very naughty guys, if you will. And, you know,
sometimes they would literally grab a couple
of the 135s or KC -10s to be tied to that package
supporting them. So I supported a few of those.
And that's when I was definitely, you know, they're
there, but to sit in on Intel briefs and go.
I mean, I'd never know who it actually was, but
if they're dedicating those types of assets to
get one or two of these, you know they're not
the best of people. Now, the other side of that
question that we also don't really get on mainstream
media is kindness and compassion amidst these
war zones. So when you reflect back, what were
events that really kind of pop in your mind?
Well, kindness and compassion. kind of think
that's hardwired you know in into us as a people
you know i know there's a lot of a lot of polarizing
opinions right now but when you get down to the
brass tacks are men and women in uniform i the
one it's funny the one that comes to mind to
me i think it was in iraq And can't even fully
remember the details, but there was a baby that
they had brought in and just crying, crying,
crying. And this chief, I remember seeing a picture
of it. This Air Force chief master sergeant was
holding the baby. And when he held that baby,
it stopped crying. You know, it's just that,
you know, that God, for me, I don't have outside
of. what we'll probably get to with what I did
with the Afghanistan Neo. I never had personal
experiences with it. It's just, it was my reading
it, seeing, you know, the chatter through military
channels, the stuff that would make it into Stars
and Stripes. But I just, you know, I don't think
anybody joins the military wanting to kill. It's
just one of those things that if you're in a
certain profession, you know, if you're an infantry.
uh person you know if you're an attack or fighter
pilot you have to know that inevitably that could
happen and you're trained to make it happen but
you know i think we're very loving and compassionate
people that go above and beyond to try and take
care of those that are in need yeah and i agree
i mean i've heard so many stories from you know
just the you know playing with the indigenous
kids and handing out you know candy through the
military veterinary surgeons taking care of the
local animals and again i just think it needs
to be heard you know these are human beings in
uniform the same way that fire and police are
um but if we just think of them as like you know
these these kind of toy soldiers that we send
out that are just you know got bloodlust in their
mind and then it's it's further you know the
fire is fed by one side of the conversation that's
all rah rah rah team america world police then
these men and women come home who have a servant's
heart and then they wonder you know why we wonder
why they struggle because they're not soldiers
they're humans i think that argument of what
you're saying just a bunch of you know the bloodlust
and people wanting to fight you know you maybe
could have made that argument when we were a
draft service but since the early 70s or mid
70s i don't remember the exact year we've been
in all volunteer service So we are literally
a cross section of what our society is. And,
you know, there's the good and bad in that. But
what you would call somebody in the military,
well, you better look in the mirror because we're
you. We're all the same people volunteering.
So unfortunately, you know, when you look on
the bell curve, there's that very small percentage
of society that is. are undesirable in the fact
that they may not have the morals that everybody
else does. Some of those make it into the military,
unfortunately. But by and large, everywhere else
on that spectrum, they are amazing human beings
that just want to do good. Matt Coleman's opinion.
No, I agree. And the same, you know, with plumbers
and firefighters and everything else, you have
the bad apples. One of my guests recently, I'm
blanking who it was now. I interview so many
people that sometimes it gets muddy, but I asked
him, which I'll ask you now, when I compare industries
that make a lot of money, sometimes that comes
at the detriment of the nation. So perfect example,
fast food, pharmacology, there's a lot of things
that are in modern society that... As we watch,
our nation is 70 % obese or overweight. They
are paying the price. And when I look at wars,
obviously we just yesterday, I think it was or
two days ago, was the anniversary of the liberation
of Auschwitz. So the World War II generation
did incredible, incredible thing. There are some
conflicts that are unavoidable. But when you
think about how many companies make millions,
if not billions of dollars from war. You have
to kind of question the checks and balances of
how do we stop wars from being perpetuated? I
got a really interesting response from one of
my guests. And he said, if we went back to a
draft system, so you have obviously your military,
but you downsize it. And then you had a draft
system. So everyone has skin in the game. He
goes, you watch that would make a huge impact
on how easily we're sent to war. What is your
perspective on how we avoid unnecessary conflicts?
Well, I think that is an interesting look at
it, draft versus non -draft. But I think, again,
I'm reaching into the caverns of my mind on the
draft. I recall there still being a lot of angst
about that because all the... Lower class. I
don't think we have classes in our country, but
you know what I'm saying? The lower end of the
economic spectrum and those in the middle, middle
and lower still felt that, well, they're the
primary from the draft because, hey, if you've
got some money, you can afford college. Well,
if you're in college, you can. be ineligible
for the draft. If I'm in this particular job,
well, I'm not eligible for the draft. So that
still falls back on those less fortunate that
can't afford that stuff. I think if you institute
another draft, you would see the same thing that
people in the 40s, 50s, and 60s saw, the perceived
Well, he's got a silver spoon in his mouth, so
he's never going to get drafted. So that's just
my thoughts on that part of it. Matt Coleman's
opinion on how you prevent unnecessary wars.
Geez. You know, one thing they always teach us,
you know, whether it is squadron officer school
at the captain level. intermediate developmental
education for us in the Air Force, you know,
at the major level, and then senior developmental
education. You know, the whole point is we're
trying to make those that are eventually going
to be leaders within their respective services
educated in the sense that we see things in a
broader sense. So hopefully, you know, we use
that hunk of gray matter, God. gave us between
our years when it comes to conflict and one of
the things they they throw at us the dime you
know diplomatic information military economic
i again matt coleman's opinion not trying to
be political in the slightest but i the first
letter of dime is d diplomatic and i think if
we had more diplomacy And they were funded properly
because I've, oh, geez, seven months I've been
retired now, but I seem to recall State Department
not having the best of funding. So why not fund
that a little better? You know, put out that
diplomatic front and work, you know. And this
isn't tied to the political spectrum when I say
that when it comes to political science, the
liberal view of, you know, people talking, working
with each other, so on and so forth. First, the
real, I can't remember the full terminology of
that, but basically, well, they're going to do
it anyway, so just bomb them. Again, hitting
that at 100 ,000 foot. again there's always going
to be bad actors on the international platform
but we should try to be diplomatic yeah work
the economic side of it you know work the information
angle of it before you narrow in on that m of
the dime matt coleman's opinion yeah no i mean
i agree i mean communication is everything i
grew up with uh you know the troubles in northern
ireland you know and they were bombing them but
that's you know, a group of people who, I mean,
the same, they're neighbors, you know, and I
get totally what, you know, the Britain did as
far as some of the atrocities in their history.
But then you have, you know, Catholics and Protestants,
and they're all the same people, you know, and
I'm sure if that kind of timeline had gone down
a different route, there never would have been
that kind of violence, you know, that sectarian
violence. You know, it's funny, your kids get
into it in school. you know as a parent well
did you talk to him did you work it out i mean
if he hit you i got it hit him back but did you
guys try to talk it out and it's funny what why
don't we elevate that to higher levels of you
know i don't like what country x is doing well
let's talk to him yeah and if country i know
that doesn't that doesn't always work but it
should be your first try yeah and also if country
x did something to you your country you don't
go and bomb country y under the same the same
rhetoric so you're clear with your own people
about who actually did it in the first place
and you're going to get it then so yeah lack
of trust but um the other interesting sebastian
junger said which i thought was another kind
of Parallel to the draft, because firstly, of
course, if you're going to do something like
that, it has to be equitable. Everyone has to
be involved. And I think one way around that
is, you know, there's Korea, Israel, you know,
the national service element. But his thing was
it doesn't have to be military. You can have
those like, yeah, I'll do military national service.
Others will be like, all right, I'm going to
go and, you know, help on the agricultural side
in my town or I'm going to help assist the fire
service or whatever it is. Having everyone really
rolling up their sleeves and being part of their
nation. I love that idea. So not everyone needs
to fight because not all of us are going to be
good soldiers, you know, sailors or mariners.
But we can all serve in some capacity selflessly
and be part of a team and really be the fabric
of this nation, which I think would unify us
again. Yeah. And when we fully mobilized in World
War Two. And, you know, it took me getting older,
you know, watch those old Bugs Bunny cartoons
that were made during World War II and Bugs is
sitting there holding his heart and it's coming
out like that and it says 4F on it. What's 4F?
Oh, you weren't medically, what was it? You weren't
medically cleared to serve, but the nation was
mobilized and, you know, I had. great uncles
on dairy farms in Illinois that your job yeah
you're fighting age but your job is to work this
dairy farm because what you're providing helps
this wedge of that mobilization pie but you know
again being apolitical what you said I'm with
you I I don't think conscription is necessarily
the best thing to do because there are a lot
of hidden costs in that, the logistics, what
are you really getting out of it long -term,
especially when you look at that price tag. But,
you know, the whole, ask not what you can do
for your country, or what you can do for the
country, but I know I totally botched that. But,
you know. I do, yes. You're right. Why not? Where
can I be of service to my local community? Where
can I be of service to my county, my state? You
know, it doesn't have to be military. You could
get out there and do a lot of great things to
help yourself, help your community and your fellow
Americans. Yeah. I mean, look at the incredible
convict crews that we have working the wildfires.
Rather than sitting in a box being told you're
a naughty boy, they know that they've made a
mistake. They're out there rectifying the mistake,
being part of the solution. I love that model.
I think it's phenomenal. And a lot of them end
up going into federal and state wildland firefighting
after that. Yeah. I love when a problem presents
itself, seeing how a bunch of people can come
together and solve. that problem and find the
most expeditious way of getting whatever that
problem is solved. I love that, seeing people
work together. Yeah, absolutely. But again, that
requires, I think, selfless leadership and moral
courage. You know, if you're going to unify a
nation rather than divide it, which being apolitical,
just looking at it through a human's eyes, I
would argue that's happened the last eight plus
years easily. You know, I think the real leaders
are starting to emerge now because we've seen
how not to do it. So it's inspiring to see the
ones that are actually bringing us together.
Yeah, I admire folks that get out there and get
it done. 100%. Well, speaking of mitigating extremely,
you know, stressful situations. You're talking
about obviously some of the deployments and you
said you went into more kind of leadership and
training again. Walk me through how you found
yourself in UAE and then let's start kind of
unpacking the Afghanistan withdrawal through
your eyes. So I would say in two, I believe 2006,
I was picked up to be an intern with air mobility
command, you know, went there for three years,
which, You know, got me going in, you know, in
a direction that I wanted because I've just always
enjoyed working with people and leading people.
And that didn't guarantee anything. But, you
know, because you're always being tested along
the way, you pass the test to keep moving until
you remove yourself or somebody removes you from
that path. And I had a great time. I was at Air
Mobility Command for three years. Me and my wife
went off to Air Command and Staff College in
Alabama. And from there, we went off to Hawaii.
She was the number two in the squadron, and I
was doing some other stuff in the wing there.
And then she got picked up for Squadron Command.
We went to California again, and I was the number
two in the squadron. And then from there, I got
picked up for command and she was a deputy group
commander. And I was, you know, I did decent
as a squadron commander and I got sent out here.
My wife went to the Pentagon and I went to the
Eisenhower School out at Fort McNair. And from
that to the joint staff, that to a South Com
gig in D .C. I was fortunate enough to get picked
up. I volunteered for the desert because my son
was going into his senior year of high school,
and I didn't want to leave the area and take
them along to where he'd lose his senior year
with everybody he's gone to high school with.
And I found out in 20, I believe, late 20. that
I had been selected as the deputy commander for
the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing in the United
Arab Emirates, which I was jazzed about to get
back to the Middle East. Hadn't been to UAE,
only flown over it. And for it to be a combat
wing, that was exciting. And, you know, starting
in the winter and spring of 21, you know, lots
of different temporary duties, learning how to
fly the KC -10. Up at McGuire and different core,
you know, pre -command training classes we had
to do and Air Force's central orientation classes.
We had to do the leadership package that was
going to be out there. And then, you know, showed
up at Al -Dafra just outside Abu Dhabi in the
United Arab Emirates in mid -June of 21. So that's
how I got there. So at that time, what was the
sense as far as concluding Afghanistan? So it
was interesting that that ball had been set in
motion. Before we even arrived, we knew the retrograde
was happening. We knew end of August was the
deadline. It was just something that was there.
And for me, it was just interesting for me. I'm
the guy that loves the details, the backstory.
And I can't remember the guy's name from that.
He was a broadcast journalist. Was it Paul Harvey?
And that's the rest of the story that talked
about the details of significant events. And
I just, it was interesting for me. Getting over
there that first fall of 01 after 9 -11 and fast
forward 20 years and here I am for the closeout
of it. And what was interesting about that is
an additional layer of, oh, wow, was when I went
over after 9 -11, I was incredibly fortunate
to be qualified with a great bunch of aviators.
You wouldn't think a flying gas can would have
special ops associated with it, but we flew a
special ops air refueling mission tied to Air
Force Special Operations Command, AC -130s. And
what was interesting, the one star of our wing
was an AC -130 pilot that had been there that
first fall. I had been there that first fall
as... the tanker for those guys and we would
just sit and go i had to have refueled you in
one of those mountain valleys had but so that
that was interesting to have that leadership
package that had been there that first fall had
planes had connected didn't even know it now
we're back here 20 years later seeing the closeout
of something that was two decades ago two decades
holy cow yeah it's crazy i mean if you think
about world war ii obviously the british were
in it a lot earlier than the us but i mean that
was five years you know and then vietnam obviously
that was a lot more drawn out but i guess the
the height of it was you know a lot shorter than
than afghanistan so you know when you look at
other conflicts in in our kind of lifetime you
know that that one i mean it just went on arguably
just so so long and it's interesting Listening
to some of the, especially the Green Berets that
come on, they said, and this is obviously Monday
morning quarterbacking it, but if they could
do it again, they would go in, they would hunt
the training camps, they would hunt the main
targets, they would obviously train up some of
the forces, and then their thing was like 18
months later, they'd be out again. And then obviously
that's a lot longer than we actually were there
in the end. Yeah, Matt Coleman thinks we should
have been out of there. well before uh our actual
exit when that would have been i don't know but
we should i think we should have been out of
there much sooner but i'm just you know and it's
funny sitting back since i've come home from
the desert holy cow there's the spectrum it's
just it's fun to just sit back sometimes and
listen because they're There are very passionate
views on both sides of the argument on our withdrawal
from Afghanistan. Some of them have a lot of
venom. Some of them have a lot of sadness, but
everything else in between. And yeah, it's kind
of interesting how you can have such diposing
thoughts and views on that event that happened
that summer. Yeah, I mean, from what I've seen
from the people that have come on here, it's
less about the time that we were there and more
about how we left and certainly the people that
we left behind. These men and women that had
literally risked their lives to obviously protect
their own country and then also support the allies
that were, you know, somewhat discarded when
everything was up sticks. writing a book, have
the manuscript, working with an editor and all
that good stuff, trying to find somebody to publish
it. But it's interesting when you look at it.
From my view, I was the deputy commander of a
combat wing. We were putting up over 70 % of
the combat air power over the country. So I was
not necessarily focused or even... read in on
a lot of the decision making that went into how
that happened. You know, for me, just being a
good colonel, well, the president says we're
out by then. Sweet. Everything trickles down
from there. This is your piece, your piece, your
piece, your piece. And early summer, midsummer,
my job was helping my commander and all the commanders
below us. provide the air powered and ensure
everybody on the ground there was safe. So it's
hard for me to look at that because there's just
a lot I don't know. I would love to give benefit
of the doubt. I'm a glasses three quarters full
person, honestly. And in all honesty, that remaining
25 % is thick black tar reality. So that's what
keeps that other three quarters in check. I would
love to believe that the people that made those
decisions had all the right information in front
of them and that everything was going to work
properly. We had to go. The previous administration
had made the motions or at least talked about
our withdrawal. That administration came in.
And actually drew a line in the sand, whether
that's right or wrong. I don't know. There are
folks a lot smarter than me that could probably
answer that better. But, I mean, for me, I'm
going to say when you look at the whole picture,
a colonel in a wing isn't necessarily tactical.
But when you look at the full scope of that,
I would almost consider myself at a tactical
level getting aircraft up. So, God, I hope those
decisions were done. with an educated mind. If
you know what I'm talking about with all the
right information, it's just, that is such a
complex time. And so many, so many things happen.
So many people affected the loss of those Marines,
the loss of all the people just trying to get
out of there and get a better life. It's man,
it's complicated. Well, let's talk about what
you do know then. So you're stationed at UAE,
you know, what is the mission that you start
developing? And then let's talk about obviously
the overwhelming element of the people that you
actually end up bringing back. So I, you know,
like I said, we were completely focused on getting
aircraft in the air. to protect everybody on
the ground, provide air refueling to all the
aircraft up there. And, you know, I'd fly every
Friday just to stay current and to understand
our mission as it's going on. But it's funny.
I remember as that summer progressed, we pushed
through COVID. COVID hit the Middle East hard
that summer. And it's funny. June and July, we
were so focused on COVID, it was ridiculous.
We wound up putting 800 of our people out of
3 ,100 into whether it be isolation or quarantine
tents. We had to build compounds to support the
amount of sick people we had. Remember what I
said earlier about the ingenuity of people coming
together to solve problems, watching how our
medical group and our mission support group I
mean, they were led by two amazing colonels and
how they came together to solve how are we caring
for all these people? How are we feeding them?
How are we keeping up their morale? But on top
of that, our maintenance group, our ops group,
how in the hell I've lost half my shop that repairs
X on that plane. I've lost this. How they kept
that mission moving. With so many sick people.
So we were focusing on that forever. We started
coming out of the backside of that. And I remember
there being more talks, the retrograde retrogrades
going. We had a lot of the equipment they were
bringing out of the country fly through Abu Dhabi.
Well, through Al Dhafra. So our mission support
group was busting their humps, getting that stuff
going. We started getting more and more aircraft
in. And our maintenance group and ops group,
those men and women busted their asses in that
summer heat, you know, getting all those planes
up. And it was just impressive. Then we started
to hear, all right, hey, start thinking about
if a noncombatant evacuation operation kicks
off. If a NEO kicks off. how are we going to
do that where are they going to go and i remember
the o6s first started you know the deputy commanders
we started sitting in and oh god how do i say
this tactfully it was a goat rope um i that's
just the clearest way i could put it you know
okay aldofra you're gonna take x number in You
know, Base X in Jordan, you're going to take
this many in. And I know you can't see if you're
listening. I'm putting my hand up like I'm on
a video teleconference. Okay, Colonel Coleman,
go. Have you talked to the Emiratis if they'll
allow that? Well, no. You kind of need to talk
to them. And, you know, it was just. A lot of
running in circles. And then one by one, you
started seeing the deputy commanders popping
off. And there'd be a lieutenant colonel in there
on the next meeting. I had a super solid lieutenant
colonel I threw in there. And I'm like, let me
know if anything important happens. So then I
remember province after province started falling.
I just remember the intensity of our video teleconferences
with the CFAC, the three -star in charge of air
for CENTCOM. And he was an amazing guy. His ability
to retain information was amazing. But he did
a phenomenal job getting everybody on those.
conferences talking. And then those went from
a few times a week to almost every day. And we
knew things were getting bad in Afghanistan.
Taliban, they're showing themselves more. More
provinces are falling. And I remember I took
off for a KC -10 flight. I'm sorry, the NEO kicked
off. I didn't fully know what was going on in
other places because once the NEO kicked off,
we were so focused on our processes, getting
aircraft in the air, and doing what we had to
do to support the CFAC over Afghanistan. And
I remember I took a KC -10 flight on a Friday.
The NEO had been going now for about five, six
days. And I landed. Just like I always did. I
had my personal phone and I had my work phone.
Turned them both on. Nothing. Sweet. Put them
in my pockets. We all went to the flight kitchen
in Motown. And I remember sitting down to eat.
I didn't even get my first bite in and both my
phones started blowing up. So I wasn't even going
to try and answer everything. And I called. I
was like, hey, what's going on? You need to come
in now. It was our director of staff. OK, drove
over to the wing and a CFAC head. Things had
gotten bad enough that the CFAC had stood up
the crisis action team, which is your collection
of senior leaders that oversee all key actions
in a wing when emergencies happen. And then they
stood up all their emergency operation centers,
which is a mission support group focus thing.
It's all your. you know your civil engineers
the bomb squads the fire department you know
imagine a massive emergency happening on the
base they're the ones that handle it and then
the crisis action team above it does the bigger
picture so all that stuff stood up i was like
what the hell's going on so we get back i start
getting bits and pieces of what's going on and
things that how you deed uh and it's funny i
knew planes had been going there with refugees
i don't fully remember when that decision was
made but i remember they're only supposed to
get a couple thousand and that number just kept
climbing and climbing and climbing and i was
like okay you know my i i'd been up since four
in the morning so i'd flown all day the boss
is in his office i'm in mine and i just remembered
my classified phone starts ringing I had no idea
who it was. You know, at that point I knew all
the important numbers and that was a dude from
CENTCOM calling. How many, how many refugees
can you take right now? What the hell is going
on? And it's like, I can't give me 10 minutes,
figure it out. Okay. We can take 400 because
that's how much we could take in all those 10
cities. I told you we stood up for all the COVID
folks. And then. I'm like, OK. I called him back,
said we can take 400, but I need to talk to my
boss. He was like, OK. He asked all the questions
like a commander would. Hey, what about this?
What about this? What about this? And I said,
worked all that. Keep doing what you're doing.
I'll handle this. Just tell him we can take 400.
I told that guy from CENTCOM we can take 400.
Great. Expect that in two hours. What the? More
expletives. I walked across the hall. He said.
The guy said, we have them in two hours. I'm
going to get everybody rolling. So we start jumping
through our backsides, preparing a base to receive
400 Afghan refugees. And that's when I knew things
were starting. As I said, we're starting to get
really bad at Al Udeid because they were trying
to take some of the pressure off of them because
they had received so many refugees. They were
having a hard time taking care of them. Well,
I think the plane was on short final when the
Emirati said, no, you're not landing here because
our base was within their base. And, you know,
my boss walked in and said, yeah, the embassy
just called saying they're not going to let them
on. So we spun everybody down and, you know,
broke it off, went to bed for the night. And
the next day things, I wound up going. uh with
a team of 13 at the embassy's request out to
abu dhabi international up near dubai the emiratis
have humanitarian city and that was there for
a refugee type scenario so good on the emiratis
they're like okay we're gonna help where we can
uh and the emiratis are awesome and i was out
there they were they had a c -17 i was out there
me and a handful of people, we helped with the
first C -17 of 408 Afghans into the country.
And that was eye -opening to see the people as
they came off. You could just see the fear. You
could see the unease. And just as they were processing
through, you know, talking to some of them, it's
like I found out why they looked so scared. One,
They were trying to see where their families
were because one person would come out. They
didn't know if they made it onto the plane. They
were afraid that if they didn't have the right
documentation, they were getting sent back to
Afghanistan. They were afraid that if they said
the wrong thing, they were getting sent back
to Afghanistan. So that was a little bit of foreshadowing
of what was to come that I didn't know what was
to come. helping all those folks get into the
country. And I didn't get back to the, to the
base, I don't think until about three in the
morning. And then I was up that morning and,
you know, already getting a nice healthy dose
of sleep, sleep debt building. And, you know,
it's just the way I'm wired. I kept telling my
boss, Hey, if Al Udeid needs help, let me know.
I'll go. And he's like, look, I need you here.
They got it. We need to focus on getting all
these planes in the sky. Got it. Because that
is very, very important. And I just remember
we were on another secure video teleconference
not too long after that. And it was bad. The
state of affairs at Al Udeid, they were very
bad. And I had no idea how bad. We just knew
they were bad. That ended. Boss went back to
his office because all the wing commanders were
having their own separate call with the CFAC,
the three star. And I was seeing people out of
the building. And then he came out, motioned
me to come down the hall to him where his office
was. He's like, well, you're going, you're leaving.
God, this was in the evening. He was, you're
leaving tomorrow. So that's how I got to, you
know, right up before. I was on a plane heading
over to Al Udeid with a bunch of people. You
mentioned about the Emiratis having humanitarian
city. Talk to me about the altruism of that country.
In what way? What do you want to know about the
Emiratis? I think having these conflicts in the
Middle East, we like to just kind of bunch everyone
together, you know, and blame them for the same
thing. I was actually in Dubai just over a year
ago, went around with a bunch of special operations
guys and this round the world thing that we did
and just saw, you know, beautiful country. And
obviously, you know, like every country, there's
good people, bad people, wealthy people, poor
people. But I think it's important if there's
an element of. compassion and empathy and altruism
that it's kind of held up. Just like I said,
kindness in the battlefield when it's wearing
an American uniform. Educate us on the fact that
these Emiratis have created an area for refugees
in their country. Yeah. Again, I love the country.
I love the people. I really do. They're great,
kind people. generous people they're fun a lot
of the amiratis i interacted with on the base
a lot of their uh colonels and wing commanders
across the base one of them one of their fighter
commanders had been at eisenhower so you know
i'd gone over to his his wing we sat around and
talked for a while they are amazing people they're
a great ally the fact that they had constructed
a human and a humanitarian city in the event
of stuff like this to happen and it's funny i
talk about it in my book uh they they were so
focused that night when we were down there with
the embassy i had initially brought 13 people
with me because we didn't know what to expect
i brought an airfield guy i brought a gal that
had a background in uh HR type stuff and, you
know, just a bunch of different people. But then
the Emiratis, they wanted it to be their show.
And us, my team and the embassy, we did not take
that as a ding in the slightest. It's their country.
They want to help people and they did not want
it. They didn't want to have that perception
of, well, it's the Americans. They're here getting
in our way. You know, they wanted to show the
global stage, look, we're taking care of people
and we're capable of it. And I was impressed
as hell watching them that night work. They kept
us informed. We kept them informed. We were there
to help them when they needed it. They asked
a lot of great questions at the right time. And
the way that whole processing was set up that
first night at the airport, bringing in those.
those poor refugees um just the way it was set
up it wasn't the fastest and as and there were
jets still coming and they they came to us this
isn't working how can we do this faster and the
army one star phenomenal human being sdo dat
there at the embassy um he was like get us access
to humanitarian cities so we can help you with
a lot of these refugees with their screening
and in processing into the country and for follow
-on movement. And they're like, great, let us
work it. Half hour later, they came back, done.
And process just flew. So they were great in
taking care of people in need. Beautiful. And
it was the same thing with the Qataris once we
get over to that. I mean, both of those countries
helping fellow Muslims and helping, I mean, even
beyond that, helping fellow human beings that
were in dire straits. So the Emiratis and the
Qataris. did amazing things helping those people
well it circles around what we were talking about
earlier you know that compassion that sense of
community bringing people together communication
the miracles happen when you do that yes yes
and miracles do happen and all again i'm when
i say what i was about to say was all those petty
differences fall to the wayside you know i don't
i don't want to imply that we had issues with
each other it's just you know the most simplest
of definitions that you know even the best of
friends have little things that annoy the hell
out of each other you know but when when shit
goes down all right all that silliness is aside
we're brothers we're sisters let's get this done
and it was amazing to watch that i can imagine
well you mentioned before about expecting 2000
that isn't actually what happened so walk us
through you know, what ultimately happened and
the magnitude of the evacuation you were able
to help facilitate? So what's funny is as once
the NEO kicked off, like I said, I mean, I was,
I think it was the 14th that kicked off, August
14th of 20. That's just out of the cobwebs of
my head. And I think I was flying on the 20th.
So for it to get as bad as it did in six days.
They had continuously been requesting, hey, we
need folks from your logistics, well, from your
squadrons that have the vehicles. We need folks
that are qualified to drive buses. And I just
remember at that time, of all the stuff you need,
why do you need people to drive? Hey, we need
people with this specialty. Hey, we need people
with this specialty. And we were sending them.
And then it got to the point they were physically
requesting buses. Why? Okay. Okay. Whatever.
Well, all the other bases in the region were
doing what they could. And then I remember the
wing commander who. I cannot say enough about
IUD's Wayne Commander, amazing human being and
amazing leader. I remember seeing him break down
on one of the video conferences, and I remember
him saying, look, when the dust settles, we need
mental health professionals here. And if you
knew who the CFAC was at that time, man, he was
freaking awesome. He didn't even... I'm heavily
paraphrasing for him. When the dust settles,
wing commanders, get mental health professionals
together now and get them there tomorrow. I will
free up the intra -theater airlift. I mean, he
was not going to let anybody suffer. If you needed
something, it was there. And that's how it was
mutual support through the whole thing. Al Udeid
was in need and every base in that region. Even
if the CFAC hadn't even said that, I guarantee
you every wing would have been like, hey, I've
got people. Can I get them there to help you?
So it was just amazing to watch that. Man, I
was just thinking that. Sorry. So we, I just,
it was crazy. I just remember once we finally
got out there, we had already sent all these
people in the previous days. I think I was bringing
about four field grade officers with me because
they had specifically requested, hey, we want
people that are current squadron commanders or
graduated squadron commanders. And that was because
throughout how you deed. We didn't call them
camps because of the negative connotation of
that, so we called them operating locations.
They had eight operating locations of... seven
or eight depending on how you want to count it
of where they were keeping the afghan refugees
day shift night shift and the people they wanted
running them you know you always military hierarchy
you always have to have that one person in charge
and they wanted it to be somebody that had commanded
or was commanding that understood how to make
decisions in crisis so i had three or four of
those with me and a whole bunch of uh We call
them defenders coming with us. I think we had
50 some odd folks. And I remember when we got
bussed out to a C -130, it was late at night.
I was sitting there and they had dropped in at
another base and picked people up. And as I'm
standing there watching all these folks from
my base going on there, I'm just sitting there
thinking, how in the hell C -130s aren't that
big? How are they fitting all these people in
there? And I was the last guy to go up there.
And I remember getting up the ramp. I was like,
oh, shit, that's how. They were floor loading
us. They had removed all the stuff out of there.
And you sat ass cheek to ass cheek, forward bulkhead
all the way back to the ramp. And they ran a
strap and cinched you down over your lap. I mean,
this was literally. emergency procedure stuff
that's in your books that prior to this you've
read about like if you ever had I mean maybe
read about as you glossed over in your book as
you were studying once oh we can floor load people
okay next and here we had over 50 people floor
loaded in there and it was only a 45 minute flight
over to Al Udeid and when we landed And that's
when I got my first real understanding of what
we were in for. Because we landed, got off the
runway, they popped the ramp. I mean, it was
about three in the morning and it was already
oven hot out there. Excuse me. And we all offloaded.
We all got our equipment off. and the loadmaster
came up and said, hey, it's going to be two hours
before they can come out here to pick you up.
Man, why? We all got off, and we felt like we
were in the middle of an international airport
during the push time. When you look down at the
end of the runway on approach, all you saw was
landing light, landing light, landing light,
landing light. Then you looked out dogleg to
final base radar downwind. Landing light, landing
light, landing light, landing light, landing
light. And all across the sky, landing lights
as they're being vectored to that entry point
to be brought around to land. I had never seen
that many C -17s. in one place in my life you
know the air traffic controllers were humping
the airfield managers were humping to handle
the amount of aircraft they were launching aircraft
in between landings and i just remember me one
of the commanders i brought was a pilot and another
one was a pilot and the other two weren't But
they knew airfields and we were just standing
there looking at the swarm of activity everywhere.
We were on the aft end of the aircraft looking
out across the airfield. And like I said, I'd
never seen anything that busy before. We walked
around to the front of the aircraft. All you
could see was when you're on the airfield, you
always have your flashers on. You saw flashers
everywhere, headlights. We saw one of the massive
hangars in front of us and just Afghans everywhere,
buses everywhere. And I was sitting there a lot
of aha moments because I was like, oh, that's
why they need buses. Oh, that's why it's going
to be two hours before they get out here to pick
us up. And, you know, at that point it was, okay,
let's keep people hydrated. There's a bathroom
and a plane. Take a nap. You know, lay on your
bag here on the ramp watching jets taxi by every
minute because I don't know when the hell we're
going to when we get picked up. I don't know
when the hell we're going to get a break. So
get a nap in while you can. And that was our
first introduction into what was to come. Well,
let's go to what was become them. Again, you
initially have this number of 2000. Talk to me
about all these men and women and children that,
you know. collectively you guys have pulled from
afghanistan and you know where they found themselves
yeah so it was interesting the whole point of
because the the we were supposed to get in earlier
or earlier the previous day but airlift we got
we got pushed back to arrive when we did uh another
contingent of folks from throughout the aews
got in there I don't know, maybe I'm, I couldn't
even tell you, but the night before, if we were
in the AM portion of the night, they got in on
the PM portion of that same night. And it was
another 06 from a different base and a bunch
of other, you know, current or graduated squadron
commanders and a bunch of other support type
personnel. And the whole point we had been brought
in and that wing commander for Al Udeid knew,
okay. i still have a base to run i still have
a mission i have to do and i need help to to
take care of these all these afghan refugees
so that i can actually focus on the mission that
was the whole point of us being brought in so
we once we got through all of our processing
and got taken to the wing and i sat down with
the wing commander you know it was the Provisional
Humanitarian Services Group is what he was standing
up. And me and the other 06 were to run it. She
was going to be day shift. I was going to be
night shift. And the whole point of us was to
manage the reception, care and feeding, and their
follow -on movement from what they called Humanitarian
Operations Center. We plugged in with their Emergency
Operations Center, all their functions that they
had set up. We basically had 24 hours to stand
up this group. I just remember when I was talking
to him that morning and he laid everything out
and I was like, okay, so when do you need this
group stood up? Tomorrow. Okay. So we had 24
hours of having to, like I said, a lot of the
groundwork was there, but how do you create the
head of that organization? create the the leadership
package the command relationships the structures
how do we manage everything that had been this
group was doing it before we arrived that group
was doing this portion of it before centralizing
everything um i holy cow so i think we got in
around 3 a .m and i didn't go to bed till after
midnight then i was up at six in the morning
to go in with the folks for the first full day
shift. And the reason I did that was so that,
because we still had to formalize everything.
And that's when, that's when we first really
started seeing what we were in for. We, at the
high water mark, we had hit. I think 18 ,000
Afghan refugees on the ground and what the people
did there. Again, this is at the heart of what
I said. People coming together to do what's right.
I don't know if you know what a black swan is.
It's one of those. events and planning circles
that it's something so far out you would never
even think of planning against it you know every
base you know you have x amount of supplies you
need this for to do your normal mission and we're
going to give you this much more in case these
types of plans kick off well this was such a
black swan event and the demand signal was so
freaking large on this that it stripped the base
of supplies. I mean, where do you put that many
people when the planes keep coming in? They emptied
out a massive war reserve material warehouse,
had almost 6 ,000 people in it, no AC in it,
no facilities for bathrooms to support that.
Port -a -potties is the best they could do. And
again, none of this was, well, why didn't they
plan for that? Like I said, it just, it happened.
And, you know, if you understand, I mean, I'm
not going to pretend I'm a logistician, but when
you have such a huge demand spike, supply curve's
always going to lag. And even though it lagged,
watching, I mean, the filth, when you've got
6 ,000 people. jammed in a hot warehouse that
had its own weather system up in the rafters
of it. It was so hot in there. You had another
facility the Qataris let us use that was a warehouse
that faced the ramp for, you know, processing
cargo and getting stuff out to aircraft. The
Qataris stood up six... think of a wedding tent
they looked like massive wedding tents um in
a field that they just had tons of people in
them the guitarists actually put fake green grass
down and put up a bouncy house in it for the
kids and that was pretty awesome but there were
afghan refugees kids babies men women everywhere
the filth was beyond anything I could describe.
As I've tried describing the filth to people,
it's, I mean, I'd sent you those samples and
you read the filth that I had talked about. I'd
always said, think of the worst interstate gas
station bathroom you've seen. I would drop a
hundred dollar ribeye on that and pick it up
and eat it. compared to what we saw over there.
Think of the most filthy... Well, think of the
most filthy multi -day concert porta -potties
you've seen. Those were spic and span compared
to over there. There was human feces everywhere,
urine everywhere, just trash everywhere, filth.
And again, it's not out of... They weren't doing
it out of malice or they're beasts. It's just
for a lot of them. And this is where the wing
commander came in. One of the things he wanted
and stressed with me is communication, whether
it be communication with our own people or it
be communication with the Afghans. But I always
preached it to our people as well as the Afghans,
because I wasn't always going to be out there.
So this volunteer. was that touch point with
the Afghans. This person working in this operating
location was a touch point. And it was just making
sure they understood that they're humans, understand
what they've been through. And I said, some of
these folks, because a lot of them, I'm not kidding
you, James, you would just, and note when it
was at its peak, I can, I would have paid handsomely
for a stick. to scrape crap off my boots it was
that bad but trying to explain to people they
would get frustrated why are they all over the
ground here why are they doing this why are they
doing that it's like it's not because they're
beasts i said you have to think a lot of these
people have never seen running water before they've
never had plumbing before on top of that you
have to think That is a very rural, if you will,
country. A lot of these people, you have to assume
they came from the furthest reaches of that country
to get to Kabul. Probably a lot of it by foot,
dragging their extended family. They're dehydrated.
They're hungry. They're mentally beat down. They
get to Kabul, which was a circus. The stress
and the fear that was Kabul to get on a plane.
land in some military base, afraid they're going
to say the wrong thing or not have the right
documentation, get sent back to Afghanistan.
They were mentally beat down. And I know in POW
training, air crew have to go through, they warn
you about getting beat down because you become
dehumanized at that point. Once you become dehumanized,
You're just a walking bag of bones. And that's
what a lot of them were. They were dehumanized
and they just, they were zombies almost just
because of everything they'd been through. And
the thing is with the filth, one, there weren't
enough facilities, but two, once they got there,
we started hydrating them. We started feeding
them. Well, you understand physiology better
than me. You're dehydrated and starving. Your,
your GI shuts down. And once you start reintroducing
that stuff, well, guess what? It starts going
again. So bathrooms got destroyed. When those
got almost unusable, they started just going
wherever. And, you know, a lot of people, once
they realized it's, they're not doing it out
of malice. It's just, man, put yourself in their
shoes. But man, watching every person there volunteering,
we had the structures that were no kidding shift
work and you're working at these operating locations
and all these other places. The men and women
of the 379th and all the other organizations
on Al Udeid, they're freaking heroes. They were
working their 12 hour, eight hours a day job.
Getting off work and then volunteering in all
these operating locations to care for people
because it was the right thing to do. Then they'd
go to sleep with minimal rest and repeat the
next day, just like everybody. It's the most
astounding thing I've seen in my life. The most
profound stuff I've ever seen in my life happened
there. We talked earlier about the kind of proximity
to some of the conflicts in the Middle East early
in your career. And obviously, with a lot of
the pilots, you're not having that kind of, you
know, on the boots on the ground interaction.
Now you're surrounded with, you know, this this
overwhelming amount of Afghani families or Afghan
families. Excuse me. Talk to me about the impact
of that on your emotional health. Well, the impact
on that was rough. I'm hard on myself for allowing
a lot of that to do to me what it did. Part of
it, I think, and I'm glad they can't see me.
I catch myself not making eye contact through
the computer. A lot of it was our mental state,
my mental state. Like I said, I got there with
the sleep debt. I think. Once I went to bed for
the first time after I got there, I think I'd
been up for 40 to 44 hours. And then after that,
I was sleeping three hours a night. Before I
even started my 12 -hour mid -shift, six hours
prior to that, I was already making my way through
all the operating locations. So in essence, I
was pulling 18 hours. And the reason I was doing
that wasn't trying to be a hero or anything.
It's just how I'm wired. If this wing commander
is going to entrust me to make those kinds of
decisions on people's lives, I need to know what
the hell's going on. And I can't do that from
sitting in a humanitarian operations center,
taking phone calls and pretending like I know
what's going on out there. So I would hit every
operating location for six hours before I got
there to understand what that particular commander
needed, what was the pulse of the place, what
was the pulse of the Afghans. And I'd literally
walk through. all of the areas where the Afghan
refugees were. Some of them were worse than others.
The one where I told you we had 6 ,000 people
in there, that was the powder keg because conditions
were so bad. So many people were in there. It
was just really, really bad, that one. The other
Qatari warehouse I told you about that looked
like it was meant for processing cargo, those
two places gave me, to use technical jargon,
a cubic shit ton of scar tissue, mental scar
tissue, because you've never seen those kinds
of conditions. You've never seen people at that
level of... being beaten down the the folks that
look like they're they're zombies they're it's
like they're not even human anymore in their
own minds and you know the those that bore the
brunt of that suck if you will were children
um the children and there were those I think
in addition to the stuff I sent you, I think
I'd sent you the stuff about the trash bag lady
and my experience where I thought I was going
to cash in my chips in a big warehouse. But,
you know, just seeing babies completely lethargic
in their mother's laps and the mother's just
crying, trying to fan this kid to see kids. that
are in such bad shape. And each operating location
had a little medical section, you know, trying
to get IVs into dehydrated little arms where
the veins have collapsed from dehydration. Even
seeing grown men crying as they're, you know,
I remember this one guy, blood all over him,
crying into his free arm as they were trying
to get an IV into him. you know, taken a lot
of the emotional burden on from some other people,
you know, trying to be that, that person there
for them, you know, the, the one lady that, that
broke down in my arms. It was, it took a toll
because I think the fatigue, I'd like to think
that if I was, well, I'm getting nine hours of
sleep a day and I'm dealing with this, I think
I would have the faculties to put up. walls in
my head to protect myself but I was just as beaten
down as they were and I know a lot of the people
that worked there were I know a lot of them walked
away with a lot of scar tissue as well it was
just it was hard to deal with because you're
a human being you're coming together with a lot
of other amazing human beings trying to care
for people because it's the right thing to do
and you just don't want to see people in that
condition but if you look in a mirror you're
not as bad off as they are but you've worked
yourself into the ground and you've absorbed
a lot of that those emotions from others and
you've internalized a lot of the suffering that
you've seen in front of you And man, I'm glad
you can't see my fidgety hands right now, but
you know, it's, it's a lot of that. I mean, it
parallels what a lot of people listening go through
as first responders, you know, it's that, that
moral injury, you know, seeing the suffering,
being empathetic. I mean, that's what sends us
into this profession, being unable to save many
of these people. You know, it's that constant,
as we say, death by a thousand cuts. Now you
had a much more acute event and I'm sure anyone,
Trying to be part of the solution in Gaza is
probably seeing that same thing day in, day out.
But this is it. I mean, when you've actually
got a servant's heart, watching people suffering
is crushing. It is. It's brutal. And my hat's
off to the Afghan refugees because they are a
very, very tough people. I just, I could not
have imagined. doing what they did had, or I
should say, I couldn't imagine going through
what they had to go through. And, you know, the
communication thing, talking to our people to
help keep, keep them, keep their minds framed
is, you know, try and feel for them in the sense
that you've never lost your country. You've never
had to flee your country and home. You know,
you have a house full of worldly possessions,
and there's a core group of those possessions
that are the world to you. A lot of these people
literally showed up. The lucky ones had a suitcase,
and unfortunately, a lot of them never got their
suitcases back, and that's a whole other story.
But their life is in a little bag. you've never
had to go through that and you've never had a
future that is so uncertain. Okay. I'm at this
base, but what's next? You know, it was, and
not that our people didn't understand that, but
you know how, when you just, when you've taken
on so much and you start letting yourself get
beat down, you sometimes forget that. And it's
just, Oh yeah, you're right. You're right. But
like I said, The people of Value Deed and that
group of people that were brought in from the
other AEWs to help them, they're freaking heroes.
The work they did is so amazing. So talk to me
about where you found yourself as far as the
low after this had concluded. And then what were
the tools that you started using to get yourself
out of that pit? The day I thought I was going
to die, that took me to quite a low. I say a
near riot, a riot forming in front of me that
an amazing human being that was the day shift
commander there broke up. But, you know, I was
standing right in the middle with over a thousand
pissed off people coming towards me. And then
that coupled with a lot of the suffering I saw
in the other places. There was a guy, one of
the Afghans that I talked to, again, I talked
to as many of them as I could just to let them,
communication is everything, to let them know
why we were doing what we were doing, why the
conditions were as they were and what we were
trying to do about it. And, you know, I was talking
to an elder and, you know, I was telling him
the people here are literally, the men and women
are. giving their hearts and souls to your country
mates. And I was like, I, and this, you know,
men aren't supposed to admit this, but what the
hell I already admitted. I held a gun to my head.
Um, I cried more in my time there than I had
in the last 30 years. Um, whether like with the
trash bag lady, I told you read about that, that
sample I sent you, I went out. out on a ramp
and bald like a like a little boy um so many
other events that made me do that and you know
just trying to push through that you just bury
it and bury it and bury it and when i would talk
to my wife for five minutes after i woke up before
i would get going how are things going and i
would try and tell her about it and i'd start
crying And I'm like, I got to go. I got to go.
And again, okay, let me put some more walling
up to hide that crap. And I'd find myself sitting
in a chow hall before I even started the six
hours of going through all the operating locations.
And I'd find myself tearing up in there. Once
I got through all that, of what Al Udeid was.
I wasn't the same person anymore. And it's funny,
that was in the first three months of my one
year. So I still had nine months to go. I think
what made it easy for me to deal with it initially,
in those nine months, I was by myself. I didn't
have to worry about anybody. I knew internally
I wasn't the same person, but... It was easy
there. I just put a mask on. I'm Colonel Coleman,
Deputy Commander. We got to get this done, this
done. And I found myself staying in my room more
by myself, even though the other wing leadership
would be out in our quad talking and smoking
and joking. I would stay in my room more. When
I was out there, I wasn't as chatty as I used
to be. I mean, I was a full on extrovert, but
beforehand, now this time I had more introvert
tendencies because I didn't want to interact.
On my one day off, I found myself getting off
base more because I didn't want to be reminded
of the military stuff. And it's funny, one of
the guys I took with me there, he and I and a
couple other folks, we were off base and we were
checking out a carpet suit. And we were looking
around, looking around, and a smell hit both
of us at the same time. And it was not that there's
anything against Afghans. It was just they were
out there working hard, and we smelled them.
Before we even saw them, that smell in my head,
I was right back in the middle of that bad crap.
And he and I looked at each other. Our freaking
eyes were wide and we got the hell out of there.
But when I got home, I couldn't hide. I couldn't
just go sit in my own room by myself. And I had,
I tried to deal with it. I tried to internalize
it, but I found myself drinking more. I found
myself with, oh my God, normally I'm a mountain
of patients, but. I had like a quarter -inch
fuse. A few days after I got home, we went down
to Daytona Beach, and my parents didn't tell
me this until I think a couple years later. They
were like, yeah, when you came home, you were
a freaking mess. It's like you were agitated.
You were just fidgety. You yelled a lot. You
drank all your dad's beer. But yeah, I tried
to be normal, but I found myself not wanting
to go places that had a lot of people in it.
Let's see, maybe in my head, I was back in an
operating location in my head when I had to go
to the mall with my bride. I literally was skimming
the wall. I had my hand on the wall. And I would
not leave that wall as we were making our way
through it. I had to have people in front of
me. Kids, if kids started screaming, I was a
freaking mountain of goo. And finally, her, it
was almost like a little intervention, her and
a buddy of mine who got a wicked case of PTSD
in Afghanistan doing shit he had to deal with
they were both like uh hey dude you okay yeah
i'm fucking fine why i don't think so uh so it's
funny when we come home from our deployments
we have to do these post deployment mental health
questionnaires and of course everybody's like
nope fine nope nope nope nope nope nope nope
i'm good and they hit you back up on a 90 day
and it's funny they timed it to where it was
just close to that 90 day and i was like fine
fine whatever i'll answer some of the questions
maybe partially truthfully and i did and no kidding
i did it was a email i got from flight medicine
you know because i'm a knuckle dragon pilot and
no kidding that afternoon they were calling me
based on the little bit i answered correctly
and i had to go see them and then well That started
my mental health journey. I hear a lot of people
from the military side, especially the VA, when
they do go and get help, a lot of times it's
pharmaceuticals that are given to them and maybe
not getting to the root cause. What was your
experience as far as the treatment options that
you were given and the efficacy of them? The
mental health clinic out at Andrews, Joint Base
Andrews, was phenomenal. My skull jockey was
incredibly patient. And the beauty of their approach
was no narcotics, no any of that stuff, because
their belief is that is not addressing the issue.
What that stuff does. is it helps hide the issue
to where you don't face it and deal with it and
it was 100 other techniques they used to get
around it you know uh you know sensory type stuff
writing about it and that's where this silly
book i'm trying to get done came from part of
it is i remember him sitting okay so we're gonna
try some writing uh therapy i'm like okay What,
you want me to write, being a smartass, what,
you want me to write a poem? He's like, no, pick
the event or write about the event that caused
the trauma. I'm like, which one? And he just
looked at me and he's like, uh, the worst one.
Okay. So the day I thought I was cashing in my
chips, in over five sessions, we would sit down
and I would just write about it. And it pisses
me off because I've got a very good memory, but
I can't remember it all. There are literally
gaps of time in my head I cannot remember. We
would do that type of shit. Then I wound up expanding
that to, well, I want to have something that
my kids know what happened. And then Carrie,
you know, retired colonel, she goes, nobody knows
about the suck of where you were. That should
be a book. Okay. So that was the one technique.
Oh, geez, the exposure therapy. He wanted me
to try and do stuff for the smells and stuff.
And it's funny, that first year, I could not
even be at my daughter's recital because it was
an enclosed space, screaming kids, people talking
over each other. And in my head, I was back in
that, oh, well, and I, yeah, I was a mess and
had to leave. So, hey, start exposing yourself
to less invasive things like that. So I really
appreciated those techniques because I did not
want to be on meds. And I love that that was
their approach. That hides the problem. We want
you to face the problem. That's amazing. Well,
you touched on the book. Let's talk about that
then. Where are you at? And then for the audience
listening, in case someone maybe can be part
of the solution, talk to me about the type of
publisher that you're looking for for this. I
don't know what I don't know. So I've got a manuscript.
You've seen bits of it. I have a... Very good
friend, Dr. Perry Colvin down in Alabama. He
works with Air University doing oral histories
for them. And somehow he got on to a lot of this
Afghan stuff. And I sent it to him. PhDs do a
lot of writing. And I worked on some of his suggestions.
So now through our mutual friend who connected
me with you, found an editor, and now the next
part is, okay, once the editing is done, how
do I get this thing published? So that's where
I'm at with that. We've made some connections,
so hopefully one of them will come to fruition.
But if anyone's listening and they... they want
to be part of this amazing story that needs to
be told, then please reach out to me and I'll
put your contact information on the webpage as
well. Like I've told you a million times, everybody
knows about what happened in Afghanistan. Everybody
knows about what happened in Kabul, the amazing
feats. And it's good to see Air Mobility Command
handing out distinguished flying crosses for
those C -17 crews that... flew 124 ,000 people
out in such a short time. Tell me what other
country could do that. But nobody knows the human
suffering and near catastrophe that Al -Yudid
was that summer. I think we had 58 ,000 some
odd Afghans go through there in less than a month.
So it's so impressive what so many amazing people
did. Absolutely. Well, if people listening want
to reach out to you, learn more about you, where
are the best places online or social media to
do that? Well, I'm obviously on LinkedIn, Matthew
Coleman. Honestly, I think that's the easiest
or matthew .f .coleman1998 at gmail .com. So
those are probably the two best. Well, Matt,
I want to say thank you so much. It's been such
an incredible conversation. I truly appreciate
your courageous vulnerability. You saying that,
you know, men shouldn't say, admit that they
cry. I say bullshit. You know, like you said,
you cried like a boy. We're all just boys. We're
boys that have been on the earth a little bit
longer. So we absolutely should cry. So I want
to thank you so much for that and for being so
generous with your time and coming on the Behind
the Shield podcast today. I truly appreciate
you having me on. Like I said, I love what you're
doing. I love how you're helping people as they
talk through things and how you expose the other
side that people don't see. And that's the rest
of the story. And I love that you're doing that.