All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
Flo, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thank you for having me on.
This is a good one.
Well, thank you very much.
I understand that you're running into a little traffic out there.
Hopefully you're pulled over right now or in the backseat.
No, I'm good.
It's Washington, D.C. That's the best thing you can actually count on is traffic, no
matter what day of the week today.
That's true.
And pretty much no matter what town it is anymore.
So Flo, tell me about how you got into the Army in the first place.
So like you mentioned earlier on, I came in as a 12-year-old.
My father, I had never met my biological father.
I was lucky enough to be adopted by Larry, who has been the greatest thing in the world
for me.
He's an American from Gary, Indiana.
He got to meet my mother when I was about three years old.
He fell in love and he took me in as a son.
So when I was about 12 years old, he decided that, hey, let's move back to United States.
And he talked to my mom about it.
And my mom was like, well, you've got to ask Flo about this.
Moving back to the U.S. because he's a French kid.
And he tricked me by asking me about whether or not I love McDonald's.
And if I wanted to be my friend, Michael Jordan.
Obviously, there were two answers that were yeses.
And next thing you know, I end up in Palantan, Illinois, of all places, which is very different
in a pair of friends.
I would say.
Yeah.
And so that was a start of my journey into United States.
All right.
So you grew up in Indiana, well, after 12, correct?
So I grew up in France.
And then my dad grew up in Indiana and then I actually grew up in, when we moved to the
United States, I was in Palantan, Illinois.
Okay.
That's what I thought.
All right.
So tell me about your uncle.
That was kind of the interesting story.
Your uncle, Abdu?
Yes.
So this one of the things when I talk about my uncle, I try to describe as this individual
that more where we grew up as kids, we're all evacuated.
We're one individual.
Some of us is my mom or dad, a brother, a sister, an uncle, a cousin.
And to me, it was my uncle, Abdu.
I loved him more than anything else in the world.
I wanted to be just like him.
I remember I was just so stuck to him.
I used to want to hang out everywhere he went, even when he went to the bathroom.
I was like, I want to be next to you.
He's like, no, you can't go into the bathroom with me.
All right, kiddo.
And so I was in hindsight, I was like that really annoying, a sibling.
But he meant everything to me.
And one of those things about him is that he's Algerian.
So he was born in Algeria, which is in North Africa.
And he was really, really deeply involved in the Muslim faith.
And he became an Imam at a young age.
And so when a terrorist organization called the GIA decided to come into Algeria in the
late 1980s, early 1990s, to take over the country and preach its own version of Islam,
which we're now today we're very accustomed to, which is what you're seeing with Iqaeda,
what you're seeing with ISIS.
He decided to step up and fight against it.
So he didn't take the, I always, I used to say he put the book down and put on the military
uniform, but he never actually did that.
What he did is he kept the book with him, but he put on a military uniform and he decided
to go fight against these people.
And in February of 1996, he was a, while serving in the Algerian Army, Special Forces, he was
shot, beheaded and dismembered and put in the box and sent back to my grandfather.
Oh my.
Wow.
I didn't realize that that is what is what had occurred.
Um, that must have been very traumatic for you.
It was.
I was 13 years old and you know, it was my dad, my dad told me about what had happened
and my mom left and I didn't even have an opportunity to talk to my mom about it because
she had, she had left early on after she had heard about what had happened to her, to her
brother, to go back to Algeria, to Baryham because they got a 24 hour burial and, and
it was, it was tough.
It was the one of the toughest moments of my life because I, I didn't know how to react.
Right.
That was probably the biggest piece about it.
And I wanted to be part of the solution, but I didn't know how to react.
I didn't know how to understand that, that my favorite person in the world was that.
Wow.
So after that, you, I'm assuming that you finished.
What did you go to college?
So I joined, so I went to college in 2001 and I remember thinking that I was so young
where my uncle was killed.
So you, you, you fast forward a few years and, and, and time usually allows you to either
cope with things or, or make different decisions.
But I knew in the back, I knew in the back of my head at that point is like, Hey, I'm,
no matter what I do, I'm going to go in the military.
So, but I was a pretty decent runner.
So I had the opportunity to go running college and that was happening.
Now things was happening around the world in terms of fighting those individuals.
So I didn't know where, where, where to make my mark.
And so I thought, okay, I'm going to go out there, go to college, get an education and
run track.
And then after that, I'm going to go in the military.
And so you, so that's what you did.
Did you, did you look around at the, did you look around at the, did you look around at
the different services?
We've got a minute to go before we're going to take a break flow.
We're talking with flow.
Groberg is author of a book entitled Eight Seconds of Courage.
He went from immigrant to a Medal of Honor recipient.
And after we come back after the news, we're going to find out a little bit more about
how that occurred.
But what made you decide to join the army?
So to answer your, actually your previous question, I actually ended up going to the
University of Maryland and Maryland.
Okay.
I went to the University of Maryland, yeah, Maryland.
And one of those things was when I went to University of Maryland, I joined R and T for
a little bit, but we, we're running track.
He actually made it very hard for me.
So I decided, okay, I'm going to focus on track.
And once I graduate, I'm going to go out there and, and listening to that army and go to
officer, and so on.
Okay.
We got to take, we, I got to hold you off.
We got to take a real quick break here.
We'll be back in a couple of minutes.
Don't go away.
You're listening to Veterans Radio right now.
And we're back on Veterans Radio with our own Medal of Honor recipient as our guest today.
His name is Flo Groberg.
He received his Medal of Honor in 2015 for Act, Actions in Afghanistan in 2012.
And we're going to get there eventually to our audience.
So Flo, you mentioned that you were at the University of Maryland.
You graduated from the University of Maryland.
And at that point you did, this was after 9-11, you decided to join up.
So tell us a little bit about how you got into the army.
No.
So I graduated in 2001 out of high school and, you know, I was just naturalized as a
U.S. citizen in February 2001 during my senior high school.
And then my freshman year, 9-11 happened.
And that was one of those moments that really, you know, changed my life.
The same way it changed millions of other lives in this country.
I remember, I will never forget having a conversation with my father that evening after the phone
lines were open again.
And tell him, I wanted to stop by the school and join the army and become an arranger and
go out there and fighting any individual that was involved with this.
And my dad gave me, like he had done my entire life, a life lesson, he said, okay son, you
are reacting with emotion.
But when I gave you my name, when I adopted you and I gave you the name Groberg asked
of you, one responsibility, which was when you start something, you finish it.
At that point, you know, it took me a little while to accept that, but I realized what
he meant and I meant, you know, I need to go out there and get my degree.
And after that, with joining the Army, so at that school, I went in and listening to
the army.
It took a little bit of time because I was a French citizen as well.
And I had to be an American French citizenship, which took about 18 months.
Once I was done, I was listening to the army and to go out there and be a difference maker
in this world where we see evil every single day.
And you know, we live in the greatest country in the world, but the reality is we only live
in this country that we consider the best in the world because we have the best people
in the world.
Right.
I agree with you.
I agree with you entirely on that.
But the army turned out not to be a little bit more difficult than you anticipated because
you went off to Ranger School.
I love you to say that.
So, look, I've never expected the Army to be easy, but my goodness, Army Ranger School
won the difficult task.
It kicked my butt over and over again.
Every time I thought I had a low advantage on the Army School, it came back to me and
told me, you don't got it, boy.
And so I went through it, but you know what?
It's about never giving up.
And thankfully, as you read in eight seconds of courage, I had some really good friends
and some really good mentors during my time that allowed me to keep fighting and never
give up.
And I went through it.
I was lucky enough that I went straight through 62 days of Ranger School.
And so that's something I can be really definitely proud of.
But it also got me ready for the answer.
Well, that is true.
We've had the opportunity to talk to many people who have been Rangers or Special Forces
and so forth or Pilots and so forth.
You just have to keep going and keep going and keep going.
And you do, you run into some great friends who motivate you.
And of course, as you mentioned, the mentors, some of them you don't like at the time, but
you look back on it and you realize how important they were in your life and getting you through
whatever that program was that you went in through.
No, you're absolutely right.
One example is Gallardo.
Silver Star recipient was out there in the Cornwall when Tarjenta received his Medal
of Honor and based on actions that happened in 2007.
And Gallardo was that guy, was literally that guy, like everybody knew who he was because
he understood in all the Ranger instructors understood who he was, what he had gone through.
He got shot in the head during that battle.
And he got back up and continued on with the mission.
I mean, you talk about a standard of being an outstanding military service member.
That's Gallardo for you.
He was in my Ranger class and everybody knew who Gallardo was and he was a pain in the
butt for me.
But when I was struggling, I saw this different side of Gallardo and he challenged me.
He was there with me, he's like, Hey, man, if you're going to quit tomorrow, I'm the
crew, would you?
I was like, you can't quit me.
You're Gallardo.
Like you're the hero guy.
He said, No, and I don't care what anybody says or thinks about me.
I'm here with you.
I'm going to support you.
I'm going to guide you and he changed my entire perspective.
And he is the reason why I went through that school and the reason why I became somewhat
of a, I was just sufficient and decent officers because I had the opportunity to serve next
to such an incredible individual.
Was he going through, I'm trying to remember, was he going through as a sergeant or was
he also in OCS?
No, he was actually going through as a sergeant.
So he was in 173rd at the time and he was enlisted and for him to actually be a first
sergeant in the 173rd, actually, so in first class, 173rd, he needed to get the staff.
And so what's funny about the thing about Gallardo is that he'd been in the regiment
for a while.
And when he was in the 173rd, he served as an NGO and he just never got the opportunity
to go to range school, which is he kept getting deployed.
I was going to say, so he was not the youngest guy in your class, I'm sure.
No, he was not.
So he finally got a break.
So when we all think about a break, we think about vacation.
No, he opted to go to range school.
And I gave him a lot of props.
I've met some people like that.
All right, so we go to range school, you made it through and you're all excited and the
next thing you know, they send you off to Afghanistan.
Right?
I'm in Afghanistan and I'm a second lieutenant with no insurance.
And Colonel Perl all the time was the time commander.
He brings me into his office.
He talks to me about the responsibilities that I have for target for for soon.
He tells me I'm going to take over the target for the unit of Summit Ableton, Huntington
Miracle.
And he tells me about the unit and the folks, what they've been doing for the last couple
months.
And what responsibilities.
And I remember listening, listening, listening in the back of my head.
I'm thinking like, Oh my God, this is real.
Oh my God.
I walked out of his office thinking about it.
I had no experience.
I've never been shot at for my understanding and what we're seeing it.
And here I am about six over this unit with these incredible individuals who have been
in one of the most kinetic places in Afghanistan and more in the world.
But I resumed really to care of them.
So when I got there, the first person I thought out was the first one.
And there's course still, it's our first one.
Of course, still I told him, I'm going to have no experience, but I'm going to need
you to guide me, mentor me and teach me how to be the most effective leader.
And we had a good conversation.
So I'm going to shut up for the next seven days to watch and listen to what was happening
around me.
And after seven days, he would, him and I would get back together and come over the
next plan and say, what?
I was lucky enough to come into your unit with a man like Corey Stiley who really took
the time and effort to teach me how to be an effective leader.
I'll tell you, just from my experience, although I was not a real live officer, the enlisted
people were the ones that got me through, especially the experienced one, because they
knew what they've already, they'd been there.
And as you mentioned, going in as a young second lieutenant and taking over a platoon,
it's got to be frightening, but you have to show your courage.
And so you know what you're doing.
And it's a good thing that you had a sergeant that could show you that you know what you're
doing.
Yeah, but I wasn't scared about a job.
I was actually nervous about as an officer making decisions that would get people killed.
That was my biggest fear.
And I knew, you know, my dad always taught me about trust my training and not be weak.
And yeah, I'm not trying to say that, you know, the word weak is really negative.
I think the word weak in combat really refers to the idea of not making the decision.
Right.
To be scared to make a decision.
You know, combat, it's all about the one split second when you go right or left.
Correct.
And that's it.
That is it.
I mean, and you have to live with it.
And if you go left, it was supposed to be right.
If you go right, it was supposed to be left.
You have to live with the consequences of that decision.
I was nervous about that.
Well, I understand that because you were in the Peck River Valley in Afghanistan, which
happens to be the most dangerous place in the world.
That's in quotes, and you had to come in, you know, to face your own greenness.
And I think, you know, the way I interpreted that was, how am I going to react if somebody
starts shooting at me?
And as you said, you had to make the decisions of, you know, do they go right?
Do they go left?
And evidently, I think you probably did a pretty good job.
It sounds like.
Well, I'll tell you what, I had the best of the best around me.
I did a, okay, job.
My job was the simplest job in the world, which is make decisions and allow your NCOs
and your soldiers to go out there and operate and hexadee.
I knew that I had the best of the best around me.
That was, it was going to go out there and do the best job.
I like to think that we were all surrounded by the best of the best.
And you know, most of the time that was true, I think.
So you spent, how long did you spend in Afghanistan your first time?
Nine months, first tour.
Okay.
And then you came back and where did you go from there?
From there, I, you know, we were back in Garrison and I did, I did the job as an executive
officer.
We're Alpha Company.
I moved from that company.
I went to Alpha Company, G12, and victory at a four brigade, four carcassians.
Okay.
And then that was selected to run a specialized security detail for other time, you know,
Vegas, who's the commander for, for, for ID.
All right.
So you went back, you went back to Afghanistan in 2012, correct?
I did.
Yes.
Okay.
We're talking with, with Flo Groberg, who's a Medal of Honor recipient who's just released
his own, his story of eight seconds of courage, a soldier story, going from immigrant to Medal
of Honor.
And you wrote this along with Tom, I'm going to make sure I give him the credit to Tom
Silio.
And, yeah.
And I really encourage people to get this book.
It's, it's, it's not that long, but it's, everything is packed into it that you could
ever want in a, in a true story of courage for, for a young man especially.
So you go back and as, as part of this security force, correct?
Yeah.
I read a security detail for at the time, Colonel Mingus, who read what 5D Fourth Brigade
operation.
So he was actually in charge of all of Eastern Afghanistan.
Oh, okay.
That's right.
All right.
So, so you were in charge of protecting all of the, you know, the, the colonels and so
forth that were going in and around the area.
Were you, were you attached to one, one man?
Yeah, one man and actually a star major as well for them, which was Commander Salman
Zagrifin.
And so I had team of six include myself where I had a first shot, a brain guide, Sergeant
Mahoney, special, specialist, Bartelama.
I had a specialist, a decor specialist, a charge with me as well.
So what were your duties with him, was it to kind of take him around to, to meet with
the Afghan tribal leaders and so forth?
So he had, well his mission was he, he owned the entire operation for Eastern Afghanistan.
So between meeting with his own unit, which was, you know, 65% of our, of our mission
to meeting over at all the Afghan partners that we had as well as the government officials.
My job was to plan and make sure that his security was set in place, coordinate with
the receiving units everywhere we went, which was outside of Jalalabad or, or, or Copp Fenty
or Fosk Fenty.
And I'm, yes, then.
So we call in and, and, and tell the units, hey, Colonel Mingus is coming at this time,
at this hour and this location to do this.
You have this type of security out there.
So that's that corneology, carry out, and with 45 different outstations across Eastern
Afghanistan.
Wow.
So you, you arranged all the logistics of helicopters or whatever transportation that
he needed.
Yeah.
That was my job.
And it was actually a pretty similar job.
Then a lot of years, I loved it.
I remember thinking about it.
I was like, man, I got the best job in the world because everybody wants to make sure
that the boss has the best receiving reception when he comes out there.
And so when I called, I was like, Hey, the boss coming tomorrow, make sure you got this.
And I'm like, Oh, here we got this.
We got this.
But obviously, as we get forward and August 7 was not the same reception when I was on
a phone in August 8 was a completely different story.
Let's look, let's go into that.
You ready?
Yeah.
So August 7, I called the boss was having a tremendous meeting.
And so most of the senior leaders that were part of our unit were at Jalalabad and Bob
Fenty.
And so, but I called top five.
Cause I'm coming up with five that night.
And I'm not forget this because I called in that and I was talking to some major and
one of those special units based on the hundreds first.
And I was talking to major.
I told them, I was like, Hey, tomorrow we'll come.
I'm coming to your combat office with the Omega, the Walrath, and that in general, and
some more battalion commanders and she commits all measures.
And we're going to go to the Conor provincial security meeting.
I'm going to need you to provide us with 15 people as an escort as we walk out outside
your base.
And I kind of listened to me and told me on the phone, Hey, we're going to walk around
right.
So I can't give you that.
But we're going to secure it.
And so I never forget this because I put them on mute and I had the adjunct, the thing
cast the next to me at the time.
And I was like, and I told him, you can't guess.
I'm like, Hey man, watch, I'm going to repeat my, my request.
We got to, just get on time.
And I did just that and guess what?
He was showing up off and he hung up on it.
And so the night before I thought, I was thinking about it.
And you know, when I went to bed, I was like, Oh, you know what?
He must have been having a bad day.
He's going to realize that his boss is boss.
I'm going to show up tomorrow.
And then it kind of makes sense for him to be there to receive them.
But on August 8th, when we landed in Cal Fires, he wasn't there.
He had left 15 minutes by.
What he did, that kicks him up up to this day is the fact that he actually cleared their
area, but he left.
Right.
And this area was turned out not to be cleared.
No, no, no.
Because we were talking about two suicide bombers.
Can you just, just describe for our audience, if you can.
What happened on the 8th of August?
Once you go, yeah, as we landed in Cal Fires, some of the apple fires, you know, he wasn't
there.
So I had to adjust my team and I put my first class Brian Brink up front and control the
pace of our walk.
And I put the cord behind him.
He was always in charge of a big history.
You know, you should hear some major.
And we had diamond formation and I was always at the rear of the diamond formation, but
in this case, I want to be at the, at the fear of it because for eyes on and, and so
I put old charge private first class.
I put him in my, in my position.
That's all my eight.
Anything that happens tonight or today, this morning, I need you to pick the boss, which
was Colonel Mingus of time and take him to safety.
He's like, yeah, Roger that sir.
And so we decided to walk out and it was 1100 meter movement, 700 meters into the movement
as we're about to cross this bridge.
We stopped two motorcycles coming, you know, full speed towards us.
I wonder those things that Brink and I did that they really probably make, made the biggest
impact was the fact that we decided to take asking National Army and put them up front.
We realized that we didn't have enough security.
We didn't have, we did not have enough empire.
And so we took the Afghan National Army guys that were staying around the base and we put
them up front.
And one of them did an incredible job with a motorbike.
Those were coming towards us.
You raise these right boys are scaring dogs.
We forced the motorcycle, the first motorcycle to drop its bike and then force second one
to drop his bike and then they started running away.
We stopped when I realized we're in deep trouble.
I witnessed that.
And there was a guy, maybe 20, 22 years old that came out of the structure to a left,
walking backwards and 180 degree turn and then 90 degree turn towards us.
And, you know, I come in myself to listen.
And I hate them.
I don't realize he had suicide vest.
And I tried to everything that I had to need to throw him away as quickly as possible
as far as possible and he detonated.
Yeah, he blew up.
He detonated.
Yeah.
He detonated.
And somehow you survived this.
You were badly wounded, but a number of your comrades did not survive.
Some of your good friends.
Yeah, I somehow lived in, you know, this crazy political situation.
You and I were in the middle of the United States and the State Department said, you
have to stop it while it's killed.
You know, I had a view that detonated the vest at my feet and that threw me 20 feet
away, but it didn't kill me.
I had to call my buddies who were nowhere near the black site, they killed me.
And also, of course, the second suicide bomber that was still in the building, trying to come
out and detonate.
So we were lucky enough that we all didn't die because the second one detonated inside
the building.
Wow.
It sounds like the whole thing was obviously well planned with so many distractions, you
know, to divert your attention from the actual real bad guys.
Yeah, well that year that had the Taliban, that idea was slow, the Tehran attack.
So they were waiting for it and you know, I just saw an opportunity, they went for it.
So yes, was it planned or upset?
Did it go as well as it wanted it to?
No.
The majority of us survived.
But the kill of four incoherent Americans, I'm pretty sure what happened after that.
A couple weeks later, I'm going to get detailed due to classifications, but the US Army did
a pretty good job to go find those people.
So you ended up severely injured and ended up in Germany and then you ended up at Walter
Reed, is that correct?
That's correct.
First I was in Montreal, Germany, where I woke up looking at John Davis from the band
Corn and after that, it was like surreal, I was like, oh my God, am I dreaming about
you?
Like, what a heck would I be dreaming about you?
And he was there, he was there with a USO tour, by the way.
A kudos to USO, a kudos to USO for keep sending some stars and athletes and movie folks, as
well as musicians to come out there and support us, because that makes a difference.
It does, it truly does.
It's 50 years ago, we couldn't wait for the USO to show up.
They're very important.
So they moved you to Walter Reed and you had a lot of, well you spent three years there,
didn't you?
So three years, it was a little bit about two years worth of injuries and I'm named
a solvage, so I decided to get my leg cut off and I fought for my leg for quite a while.
But you know, I was lucky to be surrounded by incredible doctors and incredible nurses.
You have to read the book.
I'd love to get into all the details of these things.
We've got about four minutes left.
The book is Eight Seconds of Courage.
It's a soldier's story from Immigrant to Medal of Honor recipient.
Tell me what it was like when you got the call that they were going to award you this
Medal of Honor.
Good best story of the day.
Heads down, I was working for the agency, one agency with three letters and I was in
a spot where I had no cell phone service.
Here I go, walking out at the head lunch and I get a call from myself.
I'm like, oh my goodness, what the hell is this?
The answer is like, hey, this is Colonel Sweeney from the Pentagon.
I was told that you know that you're going to be receiving a call from one senior official
at the Pentagon on 21 September.
He told me the year, the team.
He said, hey, this is a good number for a call.
Sure.
And they hung up on the phone.
And so I told my fiance at the time, I was like, hey, I'm about to get a call from someone.
I have no idea what it is.
But apparently they called me about, like, from the Pentagon.
So I understood that.
I've been put in for the single service class and that thought that we would come from president
or any senior regular official.
So I was like, man, I'm out of there in trouble.
But I do.
So seriously, I was like, I'm in trouble.
And then I got a call and she's next to me because we took a day off and they was president
of the bomb.
Tell me that I was going to receive the medal.
And I was one of those conversations that one never forget was my first of our respective
heck out of this man as a leader.
But the way he talked to me and the way he represented the guys that were killed, I can
never ever in my life thank him enough.
It's a very emotional chapter to read flow.
And again, I encourage people to go ahead and get this book, Eight Seconds of Courage
of Soldiers Story.
We've got about a minute to go.
And I wanted to give you the opportunity to promote what you're doing at Boeing Aircraft.
What is it that you're doing with Boeing?
You know, I'm the luckiest person in the world.
I was given the opportunity to work for the most diverse company in the world and ends
down without a doubt for our military service members.
And I run all veterans programs at Boeing Company and we're out there trying to fight
to make sure that everyone of the service members, veterans and spouses get the opportunity
to go out there and fight the next fashion in their lives and make a difference to continue
through the community while having the right career track that they deserve.
And we're also trying to fight for the folks who are struggling with PTSD and suicidal
ideation just like I did.
And you know, we want to let them know that, you know what, follow us, hit me up, talk
to me.
Look what I'm doing and follow what Boeing is doing because we're out there partnering
up with the best organizations in the country to make sure that we give you the opportunity
to succeed.
If you're struggling, I've been there.
I've struggled.
I need that support system.
And guess what?
It took a lot of effort, but we're going to make it.
I want to get in touch with you to find out more about that flow.
That's our music coming up to the end of the hour.
I want to thank you very much for being on our program and congratulations on your Medal
of Honor.
And it's been a privilege to talk to you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
That was Flo Groberg.
His book is Eight Seconds of Courage.
I'm Flo Groberg.