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We want to welcome today and it's a special privilege to have Medal of Honor recipient
Clint Romaché on the line with us.
Clint, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Hi, Jim.
Thanks for having me today.
So this is a real honor for us, we try to tell veteran stories and have been fortunate
over the 20 years we've been doing this to talk to a lot of Medal of Honor recipients.
And so we're going to talk with Clint today about himself, a little bit about the battle
where his heroics got recognized, but more about kind of what it means, what's involved
with being a Medal of Honor recipient.
And received his Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Kamdish in 2009 during
the war in Afghanistan at a place called Combat Outpost Keating.
We'll get into a little bit more of that, but Clint, let's start with how did a nice
guy like you end up in the U.S. Army?
So for me, I mean, you could partially say it was kind of a family business with my grandfather,
being an Army guy, combat engineer, World War II.
My dad was a Vietnam infantryman, did a couple of tours in Vietnam.
Both my older brothers had served, so when it kind of came time to graduation, you know,
part of me wants to say I did it because of the family tradition.
And that was part of it, but part of it too was it was, you know, 1999, there wasn't a
lot going on in the world.
And I just wanted to go out and kind of see the world.
I wanted to, you know, kind of get back to the country, do my time.
I think maybe I was thinking I'll do four years, I'll get some college money.
And we'll go from there, which has always kind of impressed me with the great men and
women that served after September 11th, because like I said, when I joined, we were at peace.
And all those kids that, like I said, put that uniform on afterwards, like they knew
what they were getting into.
And they willingly made that volunteer choice to go do that.
Well, you graduated high school in California, and I have a note here that you loved playing
ice hockey.
I mean, you kind of had the regular upbringing of an American kid, it sounds like, right?
Yeah, we grew up, like I said, in a tiny little town in Northern California, where ranchers
and farmers, that's what he did going to school.
Before going to school every day was they had three cows to milk.
And that was just, we raised alfalfa, and that was just kind of the great thing about
being in the military.
My first exposure was meeting guys from like New York City and the big cities of, from
around our country.
And that's what I always kind of talk to the kids about is that the different, there's
so many different walks of life that you get exposed to in the military.
And this is a great and big country.
You kind of, as you're growing up, you think you're on that little island.
And that's the only thing there is out there.
But to get that exposure to us, it's one of those just processes of life that I think
everybody should be kind of privy to.
Well I think at times, Clint, people think those of you who's received the Medal of
Honor for the heroics under such combat situations must have grown up in with a Superman's cape
on.
You were just a superhero waiting for your time to come.
But as I say, you were just sort of a regular guy.
You don't, you certainly never viewed yourself in that light, I suspect.
No, I wasn't like I grew up being the captain of a football team.
Shoot, when I graduated high school, I mean, I was all of five flick five and about 110
pounds.
Like I said, I can get fence line and I can melt cows.
And that's the background I came from.
It wasn't, so anything super spectacular.
So you did 12 years in the Army, came out as a staff sergeant.
Let's talk about a few of your, your deployments before the final deployment, if you will,
in Afghanistan.
Tell us a little bit about Kosovo and Iraq a couple of times and military life.
Because along the way, you get married and all of those other things happen as well.
So set this up for us about where you were experienced and mentally prepared for that
final campaign in Afghanistan.
You know, it's, it goes back to, yeah, if it didn't have, if it wasn't for all the
other things I'd went through prior to the Afghanistan deployment.
I mean, we can always play the who knows or what ifs, but I do think, like I said, my
first deployment was Kosovo back in 99.
I said, when I, when I graduated high school, went to my dad told him I was wanting to join
the Army.
I was 17 at the time and he told me, no, because he's like, no, I'm not going to sign for you.
He wasn't smart enough to say go to the Air Force.
First thing he said was, you're going to join the military, go get a job.
It's not combat arms.
Get something that you can do after you take the uniform off because there's not, not a
lot of opportunities for combat arms guys with direct skilled transfers and stuff.
And once again, you didn't listen to dad.
Did you?
I don't think many of us, many of us kids really understand what our parents are truly
trying to tell us until we strike out on our own and, and kind of, I've always loved the
discipline of failure.
Nothing, nothing more than failing at something to teach you a good lesson.
But like the back then he told me, you know, I'm not going to sign for you because maybe
not tomorrow and maybe not in 20 years, but if you put the uniform on, you might have
to go and do and see things that you shouldn't have to go do and see.
I said, dad never, dad and grandpa never shared their kind of combat experiences when they
were in.
They were, all the stories they shared was always about their buddies and the camaraderie
and the shenanigans that get into, but, you know, they, they always kept very tight-lipped
and never would open up about their times in combat.
So as a young, you know, young kid, especially growing up in the 80s and 90s, you know, you
got this idea of what war is and kind of the exposure of Desert Storm, Desert Shield, you
know, that was in and out, you know, relatively quickly and our technology really kind of triumphed.
So when I first got on my deployment, going to Kosovo, that's where it first kind of sparked
what my dad was talking about, going in, doing and see things that no one should have to
go do and see.
You know, at that time in Kosovo, you know, with the mass genocide going back and forth
between the Serbs and the Albanians and Milosevic and all that kind of chaos going on over there,
it really put in perspective for me, excuse me, like what I took for granted growing up
in this country.
I used to complain growing up in that tiny town in Northern California, like the nearest
McDonald was over an hour away.
Oh my God, how could you live, right?
I know.
How tragic.
So just, man, my life was so rough and tough and all of a sudden I'm 18 years old and I'm
in a foreign country where we literally are escorting either Albanian, Serbian towns or
Serbian, Serbian towns to go get fuel for their tractors so they can farm, so they can provide
enough food just to survive a winter.
Because if they didn't have a military escort, they typically get attacked and killed trying
to go from one town to the next that wasn't either Albanian or Serbian.
And I just put in perspective right away.
It's like, man, what kind of a punk kid have I been complaining about McDonald's is over
an hour away growing up.
And there's literally people living on this earth that if you don't have a military escort,
you can't even go get fuel for your tractor to power your field to keep your family alive
for a winter.
So that's, you know, and a lot of that was peacekeeping operations back then too, so
it wasn't direct combat for us.
But like I said, without kind of that realization of, you know, I think we forget because we
do live pretty comfortable in America.
So it's very easy to forget how much evilness and nastiness and just suffering is going
on around the world.
Well, it had to replay itself when you went to a couple of deployments to Iraq.
Tell us about that.
So the two deployments to Iraq, my first one was that kind of 2004, 2005 timeframe.
So very much still very kinetic over there.
Just after kind of the initial initial shock and on this initial kickoff in 2003, things
had, you know, obviously settled down some by then, but, you know, we weren't fighting,
we weren't direct fighting at that time, you know, so the Anzar army that had been pretty
much disband, but there was still still very much hot and heavy.
And I was one of the lucky souls that I came out a second idea out of Korea that actually
put together a brigade and deployed us from Korea to Iraq on the first deployment that
I went on.
Like I said, that really was, you know, in my mind, it was like I was actually getting
ready to get out of the army at that point.
I had a guaranteed return assignment coming back to Fort Irwin.
And I volunteered to go with the unit and my colonel, because I was a gunner on his
tank at the time, you know, he kind of told me, he's like, Clint, you got a guaranteed
return assignment.
Fort Irwin's trade-off, you can go back there and get out of the army in two years and you
never have to see a day in combat.
But for me, it was like, well, that's what I signed up to do.
You know, I felt like I was kind of not checking all the blocks of military service that we
had a war going on and how could I do, you know, how could I serve and not actually go
when I had buddies that I'd lost at that point from my previous units and guys that I knew
through basic training that were injured and it felt selfish not to volunteer to want to
go.
So that first deployment was still very kinetic, trying to take the fight to the enemy.
But yet it opened my eyes too, you know, like, you think you have an idea of what combat
is.
It's this, have this kind of fantasy that it's always heroic and just glorious and everything's,
you know, just over the top and good will always triumph.
And as long as you're, you know, the best and the best, no one will ever get hurt.
And the reality of war and combat on that first one very quickly sunk in, it's like,
nope, everybody's vulnerable.
You can have the best list that the other, but sometimes it's not your day and the enemy
is kind of, they're going to be thinking and they're going to, they're trying to do bad
things to us.
So we got to be on our toes.
And that's when I got into very quickly kind of got into the mindset that, you know, you,
you want to take, you're going to take your guys over and the reality is you can't bring
them all home.
But, but obviously that's what you're working at the goal on and you did a number of training
programs.
Again, this is all background has sort of set up the activities of that day at the outpost.
But you had training in long range reconnaissance courses, advanced leader course, air assault
training, cavalry scout, all of that building the blocks of the soldier that you were becoming
and we're going to need to be on that day.
Did it feel like you were adding building blocks?
Every, I mean, every step of the way, I said, from the, even from the first I racked to
the second I racked deployment, those were two totally different deployments in the way
you had to have your mindset and the way your tactics worked.
I said, the first one was still very kinetic.
We were really going after the bad guys directly and then come the time of the second one.
Of course, that's the 2006 to eight and that's more of the surge and that's more hearts and
mind and more rebuilding.
So then you got to kind of ship gears that you still got bad guys wanting to want to take
you out.
But it's also about let's get these guys back on their feet so they can take care of their
own country so we don't have to be here for forever in eternity.
And so it gives you kind of the perspective of when you need to kind of come down on the
sledgehammer and then the perspective of sheathing your saber and having some restraint to understand
that you got to build things back up after you kind of tear them down and rip them apart.
And every time in between all the training between those deployments, all just are like
little Lego pieces that you continue to add on to make, you know, something more than just
scattered chaos.
As I say, all of this builds to who you were on that day in October of 2009 at Outpost
Keating in eastern Afghanistan.
To set this up a little bit, combat Outpost Keating may have been the worst location in
the entire Afghan theater for a base or an outpost.
It was down in a valley.
All the high ground looking down on it was just rife with being positioned so that the
Taliban could lob rockets, grenades, shots, what have you in.
And on that particular day, a force of 300 Taliban insurgents attacked the base, which
maybe had 50 guys in it, and quickly they infiltrated.
And surprisingly, this 12-hour battle is filmed, a lot of it's filmed by the Taliban.
So if you're interested in more of sort of what's going on and seeing some of the activity,
it's really replayed in a couple of places for our veteran radio listeners.
And we're talking to Clint Romashaw, who received the Medal of Honor for his activities on that
day at Camp Outpost Keating.
There's a movie, the Outpost, he wrote a book, The Red Pelatune.
There are YouTube really interesting interviews with Clint.
There's a CBS Sunday morning from an interview from about eight years ago.
So you can get a lot more about the actual battle itself.
And actually you'll see the changing beard of Clint Romashaw.
Clint, are you clean-shaven today or you have that great beard going?
I don't have the big beard going, but again, like I said, living up in North Dakota, I
grow those things for survival come wintertime.
They're not really a fashion statement.
But all joking aside, the U.S. Army ultimately closed Outpost Keating, considering it indefensible,
which was of no value to those of you who had to fight that day and got injured that
day.
Why don't you give us just a brief.
This is what I want people to know that happened in that battle on that day.
You know, the big things I always want people to know is it wasn't just me out there.
Like I said, I had 50 other guys, two Latvians, fighting right there to my left and right.
And eight of those great men gave up their life that day.
And if it wasn't for their sacrifice, one for the 50 other guys there, one for us working
together, we wouldn't have came out.
We would not have came out of that valley.
It goes back to that teamwork, that brotherhood, that camaraderie.
And the fight that day wasn't about politics.
It wasn't about whether we should be in Afghanistan or not.
It was literally about the love of your fellow warrior to your left and right, knowing that
they had your back and would do everything to include lay down their life to protect
you and you wanted to do the same for them.
And the enemy that we fought that day was very proficient.
They knew exactly what they were doing.
They were veteran.
They were seasoned.
They wanted to come in and kill us because they just hated everything we stood for.
And we came out on top that day because of the great values that this country is instilled,
I think in every red-blooded American of that loyalty, love, patriotism, duty, honor, respect,
selfless service, courage, sacrifice.
That was because of all of those things that that love and selfless sacrifice encouraged
from the hatred that we faced in the Taliban fighters that day.
I want to highlight one example of those qualities that you've just mentioned.
And that is, as I said earlier, this is a 12-hour battle.
You guys are running out of ammunition, food, water, everything.
And you get to the point where the ammo depots some number of yards away, 100 yards away sort
of thing.
And you have to ask for volunteers to go with you and try to retrieve, get to that building,
get some ammo distributed.
Is there anybody who's going to go with me and the guys stand up?
It's really got to be one of those spine-chilling moments in your life.
You know, I've got a couple of very fond and just proud moments looking back on my life.
And that hands down on one of them to sit there and, you know, essentially during the
course of everything that has gone on, I'm sitting there and I go into the barracks and
I'm asking for a group of volunteers.
And I said I had five guys that stood up.
It was Raz, Delaney, Danly, and Jonesy and Miller.
And then I told them what I was wanting them to volunteer for.
And essentially it was potentially a suicide mission.
We are going to attack the enemy that's got the high ground, that's got us outgunned, outnumbered.
They've got the initiative.
Everything is stacked against us.
And I, like I said, I just said, I just need volunteers and you don't have to come if you
don't want to.
I mean, every one of them just kind of looked at me and said, would follow you anywhere.
You know, and I, on a leader on a personal note that to have another human being tell,
literally tell you, not just tell you, but go out and actually didn't go do it by their
actions that I will follow you anywhere.
You know, it was a moment that is just always going to be forever in my heart.
The other spectacular thing that I got to be part of is that was month three into a 12-month
deployment.
And I got to watch for another nine months, those men from Red Platoon pull up their big
boy pants and continue the mission for nine more months in country.
Not a single one of the guys from Red Platoon said, you know, that day was too tough on
me, too, too much had happened.
They didn't kind of play the woe is me and the pity party.
Each one of those young men continued mission.
And we didn't kind of take a knee and reflect truly on that day until we got back to the
States nine months after that.
And that's another moment that is super proud of the leader that you can get those guys
after going through all of that to have the resiliency, the discipline and the strength
to sit there and say, you know what, we're going to finish this mission out and we're
going to finish it out right.
Now this battle resulted in nine soldiers, no, eight American soldiers who were killed
and nine soldiers were decorated with the Silver Star Medal.
And on another part of the camp in a whole different area that Clint had no idea what
was going on over there.
Our Army Staff Sergeant, Ty Carter was undergoing his own set of heroics, which resulted in
the award of the Medal of Honor.
But in your instance, Clint, who advanced the package for you to receive the Medal of
Honor?
I think the general public kind of doesn't understand how this comes about.
I'm still not 100% clear on that myself because I had, I said I'd gotten back from that deployment.
I used, that was going to be, like I said, my last enlistment in the Army.
I figured at that point I'd been in about 10 years or it was going on 10 years right
before that deployment.
And I thought to myself, well, this will be my last kind of hurrah and do this last one
and I'll get out and figure out what I'm going to grow up to be in life.
So my last year in the Army, I did my transitioning stuff just like every other soldier, you know,
tried to work on my resume, tried my networking.
And I stepped out, I stepped out the door on Terminal Eve in January 2011, going up to
North Dakota to chase oil fields.
And I worked up there for two years.
And in that two years, you know, I'd call and talk to some of my old troopers and stuff
that were still in and we'd have those conversations every so often like, hey, you know, so would
you ever get anything for that day on October 3rd?
And I'm going, I don't know.
I'm like, you know, Stony Porter said something the day after or so about putting me in for
a DSC, but I haven't heard a peep about it.
And, you know, Raz, you got your silver star.
Well, yeah, that's, you got your stuff.
I made sure all the guys were taken care of before I took the uniform off.
And that's what I'd kind of just gravitate back to.
So it wasn't until I said, two years later, I'm sitting there in the oil field and I get
this call on my phone from a number I didn't recognize.
But I went ahead and answered it on the other end of the line.
All of a sudden it's, hey, this is Colonel Davis G1 from the Pentagon.
And immediately the first thought is like, oh crap.
What did I do?
Yeah, statue of limitation should be up for anything, you know, and it's very rare that
you'll ever have a full bird colonel, you know, typically reaching directly out to a, you know,
a staff sergeant, little loan of former staff sergeant that had been out for two years.
And he just very quickly had me kind of identify myself and say, hey, we need you to come out
to DC.
We got something to tell you.
I'm sitting there trying to talk to him on the phone.
It's like, that's the great thing about cell phone, sir, is you can just tell me over the
phone.
I don't have to go anywhere.
I'm working six to seven days a week out in the oil fields here.
And I don't know if I'll get time off.
So just tell me.
And he's like, no, but something we got to do in person.
I was able to talk to my boss and got to find, they got a free weekend and I went out there
and it wasn't until I got to DC, went to the Pentagon for the first time.
They sent me down.
They started giving me the brief.
And I, as I looked down, there's three posters in front of me and ones of saljunta, the first
living recipient since Vietnam to receive the medal.
The next one is a Sergeant Leroy Petrie, Army Ranger, living recipient.
And the third one was a Sergeant Sabo, Vietnam Postamus and it's Medal of Honor, Medal of
Honor, Medal of Honor.
And I just kind of remember looking down at that kind of zoning out, just being bewildered
because like I said, in the back of my mind when I initially got the call, I said, I remembered
Stony Portis told me he was going to put me in for a DSC, but really what I was thinking
when I went out there is they probably downgraded it to maybe a silver star and it would just
be a handshake and maybe take a picture or something and I jumped back on the plane and
fly back to North Dakota after I've done my time there and just get back to where I left
off.
But then all of a sudden I'm staring at Medal of Honor, Medal of Honor, Medal of Honor.
And I just kind of remember looking up and calling a tie knot and asking all the brass
and then it's like, what the heck is this?
Like I got told I got put in for a DSC, why is this Medal of Honor stuff in front of me?
And they go, well, you've been recommended for upgrade.
Sort of the president signing your award, you'll be receiving the Medal of Honor.
Like I said, I had no indication prior to that moment that there was a recommendation
for upgrade that I mean, I didn't even, like I said, no, the status of what happened with
the DSC after I talked to Stony Portis just a couple of days after the battle.
Like I said, that was kind of the farthest thing in my mind.
So it was immediately just, you know, just shocking to hear that what I got credit for
that day, I just thought to myself, well, that was just doing my job and I didn't do
it alone.
I had other guys there to my left and right and I had those eight men that gave up their
life and aren't here.
Like it should have been any one of those guys, why me?
Yeah, I think I've, every Medal of Honor recipient I've spoken to has sort of said the same thing.
I wasn't, I was just doing my job.
There were a lot more guys who were a lot braver than I was on that day.
But that's how you feel.
Obviously, the review boards, the brass all the way on up.
Saw this as something different and it's not just for you, right?
It's really a recognition that the country wants the whole community or all the communities
which you're a part of to be recognized in.
And there are a lot of communities that look at this and say, hey, that's my guy, whether
he was from a little town in Northern California or up in the oil fields of Minot, North Dakota
area.
It's sort of a recognition for a whole lot of people, isn't it?
Yes.
So it's something that, like I said, in that moment, I couldn't even begin to wrap my head
around.
But now it was, you know, time has gone by and I got to meet some of the first Medal
of Honor recipient I ever got to meet was Major General Foley.
And before that, I'd never thought in a million years I'd ever meet a Medal of Honor recipient,
a little on the acknowledge for the award.
And then all of a sudden, I'm meeting a retired three star general that was awarded to his
back in Vietnam.
And that's one of those incredible things.
I still remember the first piece of advice General Foley gave me and he's like, you got
to learn how to say no.
Because after receiving the medal, he's like, you'll be asked to go and do a whole bunch
of things and they're really great.
But he's like, you always got to make sure you're true to yourself and take time for
your family.
Absolutely.
You are going to have to learn how to say no to certain things.
Well, we are certainly glad you didn't say no to Veterans Radio, Clint Romash out today.
Let me ask you to tell us a little bit about what's it like being in the White House on
the day you're to receive the award.
I know they put you in the back room before they all bring you out.
I mean, the real world doesn't get a chance to look inside that or get a feel for that.
Tell us about that day.
That day was just a whirlwind of emotions.
And I mean, I can only imagine it's like a bride at her wedding day, but on steroids,
right?
I remember getting to the White House and they brought me and my family in early.
They gave us like a private tour and kind of gave us kind of the lay of the land on
how the ceremony and stuff should be.
And as we're doing that, the rest of everybody else is kind of going through the security
and they're going into the room the ceremony is going to be in.
And then it came time to go, I said, go into the Oval Office and meet President Obama.
I just remember prior to that, you know, spent about a decade ago.
So like my youngest, he's 13 now, but at that time, I think he was one and a half.
My middle daughter was, I think, three.
So of course, the back of our mind is like, not really a place to bring a three and a
one and a half year old, but you know, the White House and Michelle, first lady and the
president were just like, no, bring the kids.
We want the kids.
So what I remember is being in the Oval Office, sitting there kind of talking to President
Obama and he's talking to my parents and stuff.
And I'm looking over and I got one kid running on the furniture and the other kid grabbing
apples out of their little basket on the coffee table and just taking one bite and not liking
it and showing it back.
I'm just sitting there kind of shaking my head thinking, man, the president and the
first lady think I'm probably one of the worst dads ever that I got these unruly three and
one and a half year old kids just acting a fool here in the Oval Office.
But they, no, they were very warm and welcoming and absolutely loved it that we brought the
kids with and like my oldest daughter, who's now shoot 23, she was only 12 at the time
herself.
But we got done.
President Obama signed my award and then we were walking from the Oval Office to the ceremony
room kind of crossing through the lawn.
And I just remember sitting there just kind of having a quiet conversation with President
Obama like, you know, this is really weird for me.
This is, I appreciate the hospitality and unbeknownst to me at the time, me and the
president, we split to go into the final briefing room and the rest of our family, the rest
of my family went into the ceremony room.
I didn't realize that at the time, one to laugh at the fact that my one and a half year
old son prior to us walking through the door as we'd had that tour earlier, he had known
there was a glass of water set behind the podium where the president was going to give
a speech.
So right before we came in, apparently he broke free.
He was running up on stage.
One of the Marines was trying to chase him down to get him out of the way of the podium,
knowing me and the president were about to walk in.
And there's this great picture of it.
Yes.
There's this picture of this little dude looking at the podium.
He's got his suit coat on.
He's looking sharp, but that's not told in many of the stories.
I've seen the picture.
I didn't get, you know, I wonder how that happened.
So they finally corralled him and got him back in a seat.
Yes.
They corralled him, got him back in the seat.
You know, the chaplain even told my family and stuff, hey, look, if Colin's my youngest,
hey, he's one and a half year old, if he's going to get up and just let him do it.
So we'd kind of had permission from the chief of chaplains.
But like I said, we didn't, me and the president didn't know that.
So when the president's kind of given a speech, he's talking about my son then in the Oval
Office grabbing those apples.
So then everybody kind of had a good chuckle because they got to see firsthand of kind
of.
We know what, we know what, yeah, right.
We know what he's up to.
Did a number of your red platoon guys get to attend the ceremony?
Yes.
I think we ended up having, it was almost 20, what was it, 22 of them that had gotten
out that were there to attend.
And then I think we had another 12 or 15 that were still active.
So they were able to come in on the Army side wearing their uniform.
That's going back to that day.
Like I said, it was just a whirlwind.
There's not a whole lot of things I remember specifically about that day.
I remember my kids acting a little unruly in front of the president and the first lady.
The thing I do really remember vividly though is I just, I remembered being up on stage
and feeling just embarrassed and not, I just felt like I wanted to disappear.
It was just weird to set up there and hear all these things being talked about and all
these heroics and this and that.
And in the back of my mind, like I said, I just wanted to disappear because I was sitting
there and I was thinking of Kirk and Geigos and Mace and Hart and thinking like those
guys aren't here.
Why am I getting all this attention?
And I'm just trying to pick a spot out on the wall that I can focus on.
So I just don't totally lose it.
And it comes to a moment where I remember looking straight out ahead.
And then the first row was my family.
I'm all in my dad, but brothers, my sisters, my kids.
And right behind them was the eight gold star families from the eight and we lost.
Oh boy.
They're there.
And then just to the left was my army family, the guys I served with that day.
And I had this moment where it just kind of came over at me and it was like, damn, Clint,
this really sucks, but I'm not here alone.
I've got all of my family with me.
And that's pretty cool.
One of the things that happens over time, I think every Medal of Honor recipient goes
through this where they, I'm really not worthy, even to the point of saying, I don't want
to accept this award to the army, says you have to accept this award.
You didn't read the fine print.
And the ceremony concludes.
And now a decade has passed.
You've probably learned a lot about yourself, the country, what it means to be a Medal
of Honor recipient.
As you look at this decade of having this beautiful burden of being a Medal of Honor
recipient, where does that lead you?
It's reflecting on that decade of what I could tell, what I thought the Clint of 2013
knew to the Clint of 2024.
Initially, like I said, it was tough to almost overnight be recognized for something like
that.
And that took me a while to, I wouldn't say get used to, but learn how to kind of manage
and refocus that.
Because initially it was embarrassing to sit there and why am I getting recognized when
these guys sacrifice so much more?
And that turned into though, as we, coming up on especially the holidays and just got
through Veterans Day and had Memorial Day coming up here in a few months.
We always say, never forget.
We're never going to forget the service, the sacrifice.
What I realized is in those two years I was working in the oil field, I never talked about
Gallegos and Kirk to anybody.
And it was like, if I'm not talking about them, I'm not letting people have the ability
to never forget.
So as time has gone by and dealing with that, that's what I realized receiving the Medal
gives me the opportunity to tell those guys stories that are no longer here to tell of
themselves.
It's been one of the greater life lessons I've kind of taken after receiving the Medal,
that the Medal might get the attention and I might be the one wearing it, but it gives
me the opportunity to shine that light, that spotlight that I don't want shown on me.
But I can take that and I can redirect it and talk about, hey, man, we lost.
Talk about issues our Veterans are having today with suicide and underacployment and
lack of meaningful employment and issues with their healthcare and coverage to the VA.
It's given me an opportunity to platform that so many others that have worn the uniform
will never get.
Can I have you comment on that because I think it's expanded.
It is, I haven't heard somebody point it out that way, but it creates this opportunity
for you to advocate and spotlight things.
And I know one of the things you've worked on is with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation,
it's hiring of heroes, but I suspect there are a number of those kind of causes that
are close to your heart and you say, hey, I'm going to use my little bit of notoriety
here in this way.
Did that take time to come around to and where have you tried to focus?
It did, going back to learning how to say no, because right away, it's, you know, everybody
wants you to be kind of part of their organization or.
Oh yeah, you didn't listen to your father, but you're listening to the Major General.
Okay, I just want dad to know that on the record.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
So I mean, initially it was, I realized right away I was putting way too many irons in the
fire and I felt like I was trying to do good, but since I had so many irons in the fire,
that I wasn't really being effective.
I said I've been an ambassador now for right around two years with the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and the hiring of heroes.
Because for me, having meaningful employment, you know, as we talk about the suicide issues
and the struggles that veterans kind of face, the thing I've realized it's not just one
or two things that cause that.
It's a whole litany of reasons and it's not just mental health and it's not just access
to care, but it's also relationships, it's financial burdens, it's, you know, so shortages.
It's all these other things and if we can find, you know, how to improve the quality
of life and give veterans hope, the result of that is a decrease in veteran suicide.
And for me, especially being on with hiring our heroes and talk about, you know, meaningful
veteran employment, like I lived that for two years before I even put the metal, I was
recognized with the metal.
I literally transitioned like every other veteran did.
I went chasing oil fields, starting off as a low guy on the totem pole, working the wand
of a hydro excavator truck, got my CDL, started driving trucks, and then I was managing eight
of them in about a year being up in the oil fields because my employer, which I took for
granted because I didn't know how to kind of interpret my time in the military into
kind of civilian talk and what that really related to for employment, but they recognize
right away the military skill sets that I brought that are kind of the intangibles that
you don't really, it's really kind of hard to describe them on a resume, like following
rules and regulations, attention to detail, having initiative in the absence of orders.
Those are the things employers are really looking for.
And that made me successful after taking the uniform off when I pursued a career in the
oil fields.
So for me, this is one of those near and dear to my heart because I feel like I can, I
walk the walk so I can tell other veterans or transitioning soldiers, you know, that
I've got, I hope I've got the credibility because as a leader, that was always the thing
I fell back on.
I never, ever wanted to ask one of my troopers to do something that I hadn't already done
or wasn't willing to do alongside them.
Well, again, I really do appreciate Clint Romachau, the time you have taken.
We've run a little longer than I promised you here for Veterans Radio today to get some
of these insights.
You received the Medal of Honor for your actions during the Battle of Kamdash in 2009, during
the Afghan war at combat post-peceding.
As I said to our listeners, there's a lot of places you can learn more about the battle.
I want our veteran radio listeners, Clint, to learn more about the man.
So I appreciate you being willing to talk about those issues.
As we close out, is there anything that you'd like to make sure that you communicate to
our listeners about your experiences and being a recipient of the Medal of Honor?
You know, it would be, here's one thing that I've taken away in the last 10 years and come
to realize.
And I hope our listeners out there kind of listen to this message to know that in the
book of Clint and in the book of your life, you can't rewrite any chapter that has already
been written.
Your past is your past and it is going to be what it's going to be.
You can always go back and you can reread it.
You can reflect on it.
Hopefully, you can learn from it.
But the only thing you can dictate now is what the next chapter is going to be.
That's the one you can write.
And as long as we show up to continue writing our next chapter in life, life is going to
be pretty damn good.
Great advice.
Clint, thanks for your time today.
Appreciate it.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fossone.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach us at
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