Interview with Joe Inendino, Afghanistan-Iraq Wars
Corporal, 3 rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, U.S. Marine Corps
Cook Memorial Public Library District
June 24th, 2006

Interviewer: Ellen Bassett
Transcribed by: Connie J. Pfeifer
Proofread by: Ellen Bassett

ELLEN: This interview is being conducted on June 24 th, 2006 at the Cook Memorial Public Library in Libertyville, Illinois. My name is Ellen Bassett and I am speaking with Joe Inendino, who is a Corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps. Joe enlisted in November of 2001 and served one tour of duty in Afghanistan and two tours of duty in Iraq. Joe was born on July 12 th, 1982 and currently resides in Libertyville, Illinois.

ELLEN: What were you doing at the time, when you enlisted?

JOE: I was going to school at CLC. I graduated in 2000 and actually I didn’t get in until about a year and a half almost. It was November of 2001 is when I actually was in boot camp but I signed up after September 11 th.

ELLEN: So you had graduated from high school already and you were at CLC, College of Lake County, and you decided to enlist?

JOE: Yes.

ELLEN: What made you decide to do that?

JOE: I was a little mad about the whole terrorist attacks on September 11th.

ELLEN: Really?

JOE: That was a major part of it. Then we got this whole like, this rush of you want to do your part and stuff. That’s what it seemed like to me.

ELLEN: You’re right.

JOE: Also, I was 18 years old and I was trying to spread my wings, and I was at home and it was a big thing. It’s not a bad idea, going in the military. They were paying for school, too. So, I weighed all the options and it seemed like it was a good idea.

ELLEN: How did you pick the Marines?

JOE: Well, I was checking out the Army before I joined the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps recruiter came around and goes, “You want to be part of the best of the best?” You’re feeling proud. You know, there’s something about that. They’re always good at talking. They’re like car salesmen, you know, they get you. My uncle was telling me a couple days before this guy even talked to me, “If you’re going to go for something, go for the best.” You know, “The few, the proud.” I was like, “Alright, I’ll go Marines.” So, I went.

ELLEN: And the Marines…they do just about everything.

JOE: Yeah, it’s the hardest branch and the smallest branch. There’s only about 200,000 Marines.

ELLEN: Wow!

JOE: Believe it or not, we’re called the “President’s Men.” Whenever you see the President on TV, you see a Marine opening the door, or opening the door, saluting and going into the helicopter. I guess we do more than less, and that’s why the public likes us. First ones in; last ones out.

ELLEN: That’s true. In the Marines, can anybody join or do you have to pass muster?

JOE: I guess it differs a little bit because I’ve met a lot of guys that told me that they had certain things where they either, you know, maybe they had a little trouble, so it’s either go to the military or service within youth service or jail bond or something like that. Not everyone. This isn’t everybody. A couple of guys told me that. I don’t know how true it is or not. I know they did that a long time ago. That was a big option. If you’re getting into trouble, you go into the military or …nobody obviously wants a bad apple in the military.

ELLEN: Right.

JOE: I mean, there’s waivers for things, like you’ve got some kids that join just because there’s nothing going on. They have nothing going on, like no school. (?). Sometimes, it’s bore into them. Their father was a Marine. Their dad’s dad was a Marine. Their great-grandpa was a Marine. It’s like, “Hey son, this is what’s going on. You’re gonna’ go.” They had to do this. Not me, there’s Marines in my family. So, there’s waivers for things. One guy was (?) waiver too many drugs…I met one guy that (?) a couple times. I didn’t know that then. Definitely in the military, stuff like that is not tolerated. Usually, you get kicked out.

ELLEN: How did your family feel when you decided to enlist?

JOE: Oh they were a little upset. I’ve never seen my mom and dad cry together at the same time like that. It was bad.

ELLEN: Oh, wow!

JOE: Because I told them after...I was telling them, “Yeah, I’m going into the Army and this and that.” My dad was like, “Whatever, it’s not a big deal. I think you should be okay. You know, this Afghanistan thing might happen, but I think they’re going to take care of it. They’ve got enough guys.” As soon as I said, “Marine Corps”, and this guy came knocking on the door…that was it. My mom and dad lost it. They’re like, “You can’t go. What are you, crazy? You want to go get killed?” I was like, “I already signed the papers. I’m going.” I know. She cried. When that guy came to pick me up, that was it.

ELLEN: They came to your home to pick you up?

JOE: Yeah. They came to my home.

ELLEN: Oh my gosh!

JOE: For me, that was the first day, that was the day I was leaving. Then I had to go stay in the city for a day at MEPS and then from there….

ELLEN: What is that?

JOE: They do all this testing to make sure you’re okay…physical (?) before you leave. Then you have one night when you stay in this hotel and you get familiar with some of the people you might be in boot camp with. There was like three guys that were from Chicago that were in my platoon, three or four guys from my recruiting station here. I talked to them for a little bit after I got out of boot camp, but other than that, that was it. That was the first time right before you step on those yellow footsteps out in MCRD, California. It’s hell for three months.

ELLEN: So they pick you up at your house. You went downtown and you stay overnight in this hotel, and then they ship you out to boot camp which was, you said…

JOE: California.

ELLEN: Where in California?

JOE: MCRD, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. They’ve got one in San Diego, and they’ve got one on the East Coast.

ELLEN: Oh, I didn’t know that. What are the yellow footsteps?

JOE: You get on these footsteps, these yellow footsteps are right there, so you’re standing there at attention, and they’re just getting all in front of your face and trying to get you all scared. You don’t sleep for like the first two or three days.

ELLEN: Because you’re so scared?

JOE: Because you’re scared, but also because like, they make you tired so you can sleep. They want you…they get you really tired. You’ll be waiting for your clothes, your issued clothes and you know, they tell you what the rules are, they check all the stuff you brought with you because your personal effects, you’ve got to package them up.

ELLEN: So, your first couple days are pretty rough.

JOE: Yeah.

ELLEN: They don’t let you sleep?

JOE: No. They don’t let you sleep. You’re getting shots. It’s tough.

ELLEN: Oh, okay…being issued your gear and everything like that.

JOE: Yeah.

ELLEN: And when did the real rough stuff start, I mean, training and…

JOE: Yeah, during the training and then like there’s different phases while you’re a recruit. They make you eat fast, you’ve got to eat real quick. That’s why…I come home and my parents are like, “You’re eating too fast.” “What do you want me to do?” “It was never like that before.” But now it’s like can’t change it. I’m not kidding, when the Drill Sergeant was done eating, everyone else was done. Everybody just got up and left.

ELLEN: So, you got like 5 minutes to eat?

JOE: If he wanted 5 minutes, it was 5 minutes. If he wanted 10, it was 10. If it was less than that, you knew it. I remember going down there, putting it down, eating for like a minute and a half and then getting up and leaving. And that was it.

ELLEN: Wow!

JOE: Yeah. And then there’s a diet for new recruits. I was on it for a little bit. They give you half the rations everyone else does, because they want you to get down to a certain weight standard and stuff, because I was a big guy going in. Then they’ll cut that in half. Sometimes you were allowed a glass of milk or one piece of bread and I didn’t get the milk or the bread sometimes so I was eating like salad and all this weird stuff. I was like, “Man, I can’t do this.”

ELLEN: And this is all while you’re in boot camp?

JOE: All while we’re in boot camp, yeah.

ELLEN: Wow!

JOE: Climbing the ropes, shooting, you know, all that other stuff.

ELLEN: So they trained you…sounds like it was an all around…what kind of weapons were you trained with?

JOE: During boot camp, it was just like how to shoot from the 500 hundred yard line, 300 yard line. We shoot 500 yards on our sights. Nobody else in the military does that. The Army shoots at 200 yards or 300 yards. We shoot…the Marine Corps is the best for, like, target shooting. We stand, we do the prone, we do kneeling. You ever see Full Metal Jacket? Well, like, you know this Marine and his rifle? This is big stuff.

ELLEN: How did you feel about your instructors at boot camp?

JOE: Well, they’re kind of rough. This isn’t Boy Scouts, you know. They’re training you, you know, to go to war here and make sure you come back alive and make you Marines. Guys are military. That’s your job. At the end…first you’re like, “I hate these guys. I can’t stand these guys. Can’t they just leave us alone? I want to get out of here.” Later on, at the end when they give you that EGA anchor at the ceremony when you actually become a Marine outside of the parade deck, you’ve got this camaraderie, I guess you’d say.

ELLEN: It’s different then once you become a Marine.

JOE: You get treated like crap, excuse my language, but in the end, it’s all worth it.

ELLEN: So while you were going through that, did you ever think, “Oh Man. Mom and Dad were right.”

JOE: I got there, and I said, “You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m just trying to go to San Diego. I got on the wrong bus.” (laugh) These guys are like, “Whatever.”

ELLEN: But then once you got that anchor, you said it felt right.

JOE: Yeah. I thought, “Wow. All that blood, sweat and tears were… now I’m going to go off to the fleet and be a Fleet Marine Corps.” Who knew that six, seven months later I would be out in Okinawa going to Korea and then Iraq and Afghanistan.

ELLEN: Once you finished basic and, like you say, you got your anchor, were you in the states still for awhile for that next six months?

JOE: Yeah. I was in the states and I went to, after that, it’s called Marine Combat Training, the School of Infantry. You go there. More shooting, shooting certain weapons, getting schooled up on how to take certain weapons apart and put them back together, bayonet techniques…it’s a bunch of stuff like more…it’s like boot camp but not the harsh training and stuff. There are still instructors, so you’re still in that phase, but you’re actual Fleet Marine. No one’s going to hit you or nothing like that. They don’t really hit you in the military.

ELLEN: Where was that training?

JOE: That was in California, too, not too far from the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. It’s about….it was in San Diego (?) next to the airport. It was tough because we trained at Camp Pendleton, too, while we were in our basic training.

ELLEN: So you got more intensive training and that lasted for about what…?

JOE: Oh about a month, maybe. Two weeks to a month.

ELLEN: And then from there?

JOE: And then from there, we went to our schooling…whatever your job is. I was a truck driver…seven-tons, Humvees.

ELLEN: So you knew that ahead of time?

JOE: You already knew what you were going to do after you got out of the...most guys go in and they sign up like, let’s say this guy wants to be an MP, or this guy wants to be a cook. Well, it’s not always guaranteed because it might change later on after you sign this paperwork. You know, like something else could change…that spot might not be open. Me? I’m on open contract, because the things I wanted to do weren’t open. Like I said, lots of guys were joining and stuff. They had sergeants putting in their VD forms. They’ve been out for like three or four years. They are ready and willing. These guys were going back in after September 11 th. I was like, “Well, what am I supposed to do?” They said, “You can sign an open contract.” I said, “What’s that?” You get something, whatever’s open, except for cooking and some other thing.

ELLEN: So, they trained you to be a truck driver.

JOE: Yeah. Right after MOS school, it’s called. That’s the school…no actually, Marine Combat Training, they had everyone in a circle. They say your last name and they say your four social security number and they go, “You are going to be a mechanic. You’re going to be a truck driver.” “What Motor T ?” “You’re going to drive trucks.” “Really? Big trucks, Humvees?” He’s like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Alright! Cool!” This other guy got mechanic and he said Motor T mechanic. I was like, “What’s that mean? You’re gonna’ be with me?” It was a buddy of mine from boot camp. He said, “No, I gotta’ go to the east coast.” I’m like, “Oh, man. That sucks.” I thought we were going to be together, hang out. It didn’t work out that way.

ELLEN: It didn’t work out that way. So was that more training then?

JOE: Yeah. Then after that, after Marine Combat Training where they teach you how to do infantry stuff…shooting, and all these other things with explosives, like how to throw grenades and stuff, how to shoot rocket launchers. Then after that…another big thing, is shooting while running. They make sure you can shoot above people. They put guys out there, and you’ve got rounds, and you shoot past them. You know, in case you’re assaulting something you don’t want to shoot your own guys. They teach you all that stuff. After that, I went to MOS School, it’s called. That’s where I learned how to drive the Humvee’s, the seven-tons.

ELLEN: What was that called again?

JOE: Humvee’s?

ELLEN: No, I mean the thing with the…

JOE: Oh, MOS…Military Occupation Specialty.

ELLEN: Oh, MOS!

JOE: It’s training for the job. It was two months. Was it two months? Six weeks? We learned how to drive at night. It was cold. It was in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. They call it, “ Fort Lost in the Woods”. It’s an Army Base, but they got Marine Corps Attachment. Yeah, Fort Lost in the Woods. This place was so bad. It was cold. They issued us this coat and some other stuff, some gloves but it was still cold. They put us on these little cattle carts, they’re called, to like jog us around the base to get the trucks or whatever and start them up in our classes. It was so cold. It was really cold out there.

ELLEN: For a big guy like you to say that, it must have been cold.

JOE: I was cold out in Illinois, but this place was cold. Anyway, we learned how to drive out at night with goggles on, NVG’s. They’re called night vision goggles…you’ve got to do that and like maneuvers, combat maneuvers, how far to stay away from the truck, the space between each truck. They’ve got these little things called “Cat Eyes” on the back of the trucks. When you flip them off…when you flip them on, if you’ve got your goggles on, you can see them. They like…they’re infrared. You can only see the light if you’ve got these night vision goggles on. So you can see all the trucks in front of you. You can see the little lights. They’re like this far apart…about two inches apart on each side of the trucks on the ends, so you can tell where it is. If you don’t have those goggles on, you can’t see anything. You won’t see the light…black out lights.

ELLEN: That’s fascinating.

JOE: So, you learn how to drive like that and stop. If you see a little white light come on…technically you can’t see the light, but you can if you’ve got these goggles on. The only thing you hear is the engine. So you hear these engines coming from somewhere, but you know, it’s weird. Those Humvee’s climb at a 30-40 degree grade. It’s pretty cool.

ELLEN: It’s amazing. You wouldn’t think that there would be that amount of training.

JOE: There’s a lot. There’s a lot and that’s why there’s a big thing when all these guys like leave the military to get out, because Uncle Sam puts a lot of money into you. A lot of these guys….if it’s not for them and they want to leave, you know, desert or whatever it is, it’s bad, because you signed a contract. You’re supposed to go and do your job. They pay for it. They just put all the time and money into you, and you just want to leave. You can’t do that.

ELLEN: Sounds like you took it seriously, and you were a good soldier.

JOE: After that, later on, I mean it was like, “Oh man, let me go.” I had my fill. I’ll tell you more about that later.

ELLEN: You finished training on the Humvee’s and after that…?

JOE: After that, then I was out with the Fleet Marine Corp in Okinawa, Japan.

ELLEN: Really?

JOE: Yep. That was my first duty station.

ELLEN: Your first tour of duty was on a ship?

JOE: No. It had something to do with a ship, though. There are a lot of ships out there. I went to more countries when I was out in Okinawa, Japan than I have in all my life. I was in Okinawa, let’s see…I was at this motor pool. I was in a Stinger Battery. This unit I was with…it was an infantry battalion, but it was like…they called them “Grunts of the Airwing.” It was funny because these guys shoot missiles. They used to be called “Old Redeye”, but now they’re called “Stinger Missiles.” You might have heard of these. The Afghanis used them against the Russians. That’s how they won the war…these anti-aircraft missiles. I was in this unit…these are guys that do this, they shoot these planes down. The steam goes up for like 4-5 miles in the air, I guess…this missile. It’s a cool unit. I used to drive the trucks and sometimes I wish I had brought pictures of this truck. It’s got two tubes, and there’s four tubes in each turret and it spins around. It’s pretty cool. I got to fire missiles. It wasn’t my job, though, and sometimes see, I did a lot of things in the military that wasn’t my job.

ELLEN: You got to fire this thing?

JOE: There’s a hand-held one. You’ve got to learn to fire that in case one of the guys goes down. You’ve got to shoot anti-aircraft.

ELLEN: You’re in Okinawa. Who are you shooting at?

JOE: Nobody. It was just training.

ELLEN: Oh, it was just training.

JOE: These guys, they go for all this other schooling and stuff. I’m just a truck driver, but I’ve got to learn how to shoot this thing, too. So it’s weird so it’s like, “Okay, we’re going to show you, just in case this guy goes down.” It’s called a Man Pack. That’s the hand-held one. You’ve got to know how to shoot that. Sometimes I drive these Humvee’s with this thing in the back. It’s cool, because it’s got a little joystick inside. You know how to shoot a missile from that. You can pull it out. Man, it’s weird.

ELLEN: Wow.

JOE: I drove around out there in these trucks. I was using Humvee’s. This is a big five-ton truck. They came out with these seven-tons later. They were brand new. You press “D” for drive, “R” for reverse. This thing was an old stick. We used to call it “Old Chesty,” because Chesty Puller was the most decorated Marine, or was, in the military and Marine Corps. This thing was old. It was about 25, 30 years old, this truck. Still kicking.

ELLEN: That you were driving?

JOE: Yeah, it was one of them I was driving.

ELLEN: And its nickname was “Old Chesty?”

JOE: Yep, Old Chesty. Wherever you went, it seemed like there was an “Old Chesty” somewhere. Like even the other guys, they came back to California, “Old Chesty” right there….I’m like, “There’s Old Chesty 2.”

ELLEN: How long were you in Okinawa?

JOE: Probably a year and four months. You’re only supposed to stay there a year, your tour, it’s unaccompanied. But because I’m not married or anything like that…that was during the time, right before the Iraq war started, I was in Afghanistan. They called it “Stop Loss/Stop Move.” So, pretty much, they needed all the manpower they could get to go. So, they put the (?) on the whole military, “Stop Loss/Stop Move.” Pretty much, you can’t go to another duty station. If I had orders to go to California, I couldn’t go because I had to stay there until they either got more people in the military, because you know there’s people getting out, or if they stopped “Stop Loss/Stop Move.” “Stop Loss,” you can’t get out. “Stop Movement” you can’t move to any other base. So pretty much you’re stuck where you’re at until this is over. And I had seen guys that were stuck there for five, six months, just in the unit doing their job everyday but couldn’t get, couldn’t go to another unit, couldn’t get out of the Marine Corps because they Stopped Loss/Stopped Move.

ELLEN: Stop Loss?

JOE: “Stop Loss/Stop Move”. That’s what they called it. That went on while I was there. I wasn’t feeling it, because I just came back from Afghanistan and I was tired and I wanted to go home and see my family, my mom and dad and my brother. They said I could take “On Island Leave.” And I didn’t know this that “On Island Leave” actually meant, because Okinawa is off of Japan, it’s an island off of Japan, well I went on mainland Japan for eight days, just me and a Japanese dictionary and a backpack.

ELLEN: You had a great time?

JOE: I had an awesome time! It was a lot of fun. My buddy was supposed to come, but he got orders and he’s like, “I got to save my money for this.” He had to leave like three weeks after I came back from my vacation.

ELLEN: That’s neat that you got to do that.

JOE: At least I got a little break, yeah. When I was in Okinawa….you said what countries I went into…I was in Okinawa. That was my first duty station. I went to Korea on a ship for about a month. There was a real bad typhoon when we were there. It was a military ship, but it wasn’t. It was actually kind of weird, because they said there was a fire on the ship called the Baldomero Lopez. It was about the same time, I don’t know if you remember watching the news, this is in 2002 going to 2003…no, 2002. They said that we might go to war with Korea, North Korea. I don’t know if you remember. It was real heated.

ELLEN: Yes.

JOE: I think it was a show of force. They just told us that this ship went on fire because they rounded up about 350-400 guys from, I mean I was tapped out from our unit to go, not a lot from our unit went. It was just me and a couple other guys and detachments on this ship. We took a ship out there. It was called a High-Speed Bus. When we got out there, it was like a day, less than a day to get there, to Korea from Japan, from where we were at. This ship was in the water, and it was docked. It was a cargo ship and you look outside, and there’s an American flag flying. Nothing represents military on it whatsoever and you open up the hulls of this thing…the military’s got like five, six of these floating around….just tanks, trucks, Humvee’s, artillery pieces. You name it, it’s in this ship. It’s not a military ship, there’s no military personnel on this ship whatsoever. It’s a merchant marine ship. It’s a big cargo ship floating around just to let loose. If there’s a war anywhere, it can be there in like a moment’s notice.

ELLEN: And that’s where they were in North Korea.

JOE: Yeah, and they were in North Korea….not North Korea, South Korea. In South Korea, they were letting this stuff out like right near New Years Eve.

ELLEN: Oh, right, yeah. So then you were sent there.

JOE: Yeah, I was sent there, yeah…just guide these trucks off the ship, help pull these chains off the ship, get these trucks off, and move stuff around. The typhoon came, and they were going to go check out this place, (?). It was a little scary.

ELLEN: How long were you there?

JOE: About a month.

ELLEN: About a month in Korea and then back to Okinawa?

JOE: Yeah, back to Okinawa. And then…this is the funny thing. The gunny comes out, he goes, “Don’t unpack your bags yet, Devil Dog.” I go, “What do you mean?” Devil Dog, that means…like a Marine saying kind of from World War I, they called us “Teufelshunde” and that means “Devil Dog.” That means Fight. We were really good with the war-zone stuff. You ask any Marine and they know what it is. “Don’t unpack your bags yet, because you might go to another deployment” and I’m thinking, “where am I going to go?” Afghanistan had been going on for a little bit. Iraq? No. I go to Afghanistan. Here I am.

ELLEN: So, next is Afghanistan.

JOE: Yeah.

ELLEN: I’ve got to ask you, were you pretty scared about that?

JOE: I was scared, yes. I had only been in the Marine Corp for a couple of months, and everyone is a little scared at first. Then after (?), “I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that.” It’s kind of weird to say that you might get a chance to kill somebody, but that’s what you’re there for.

ELLEN: Well…

JOE: Sort of. You don’t want to, but yeah, protect your country and you know, it’s a big sense of pride and you’re going to go out there and do your part. I was a little worried at the time, because I had never been there. I didn’t know what to expect. And I was going to miss my family and stuff.

ELLEN: How long had it been since you had seen your family?

JOE: It’s already been about six, seven months.

ELLEN: And you hadn’t seen them in that time?

JOE: And I hadn’t seen my family.

ELLEN: You knew once you were over there, it wouldn’t be….

JOE: Oh for sure I wasn’t going to see anyone and then I even came back and I still couldn’t see them for another, 3-4 months because of this whole “Stop/Loss, Stop/Move” thing.

ELLEN: So you’re sent to Afghanistan. Was there a big base there?

JOE: Yeah. Kandahar Airport. That’s where we were based out of. I drove around, like I said I was with a missile unit, but I wasn’t with this missile unit here. I wasn’t with my regular Stinger Unit. I was fapped out to a Macs-4 Air Control Squadron, four it was called. They had big radars. They controlled radars. They knew what planes were coming in, which ones were leaving and if there’s any enemy planes coming in from anywhere, even though there probably wasn’t any planes but you’re around other bordering countries, there might be.

ELLEN: And at this point, you’re still driving the Humvee’s?

JOE: I’m still driving the Humvee’s, not the seven-ton, the five-ton, this “Old Chesty” truck. It’s got fuel tanks in the back. I drive the diesel around. Now diesel is not really flammable but when a RPG or a rocket or something, a mortar flies into that thing, you’re done. I was a little scared about that. I’m like, I’m driving a big green bomb, so I called it the “Big Green Bomb.” I used to truck it around from spot to spot all around this base. We’d go out in it once in awhile on missions, but it was always in the back of my head that I might blow up or some guy is going to pop out. We were in a desert mountain area. The mountain was right there. These guys would launch rockets and mortars at us all the time and it was scary. And we’d hear about guys in the wire close to the perimeter, and they’d just duck in a hole and be gone. They’d sent helicopters out…they can’t find them.

ELLEN: I didn’t realize it was that scary. Was there actual combat there?

JOE: Yeah!

ELLEN: Were you involved in any of that?

JOE: Not out there. A little bit. These mortars…it was the scariest thing…was these mortars coming down…I’d see guys coming in that were pretty messed up.

ELLEN: Wow.

JOE: They had a pretty big prison…they had a big prison there, Kandahar, where they kept all the prisoners before they go to Guantanamo Bay.

ELLEN: So they had a prison camp right on the…at the airport there?

JOE: It was right next to us, yeah. You’d hear these guys crying and stuff and hear their little prayers, whatever.

ELLEN: Did you ever have anything to do with the Afghani people?

JOE: Oh yeah. We used to see them all the time. It was funny. They didn’t like…they’re scared of the Marines. I don’t know what it was about the Marines…that did to them or something, but when I walked by, like you could tell, when an Army guy walked by them or something like that, they just kept sweeping like they didn’t care you were there. Then this Army guy was guarding them one day, and they were working by our base and I walked by, and these guys just stopped. They just stopped sweeping. There was like six of them. Then all of a sudden you hear, “(Iraqi people talking)” then they just stop and they look at this guy walking by and you can tell we’re Marines, because we have a different hat. It’s like an octagon at the top. The canopies look different and these guys were just like…and when I walked by, it was about another 20, 30 yards and they started talking, sweeping again.

ELLEN: Do you suppose that was…..from the pictures I’ve seen that you brought in, the way you were dressed….were the Army guys dressed the same way?

JOE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Army guys were the same way.

ELLEN: So, it wasn’t the way you were…

JOE: It had to be something with like the way they were treated or like the ferocity of like the way we are. I have no idea.

ELLEN: It sounds like they knew not to mess with you.

JOE: They knew not to mess with them, yeah. Some people might think like, yeah, I’m just harping on the Marine Corps, but I’m serious. I’ve never seen something like this in my life. I told the other guys, too. I remember this, I came back to the tent and I was like, “I just walked by a Hodgi”…that’s a bad word for people of Islamic or Muslim…

ELLEN: Okay, like aderogatory...

JOE: Well, it’s derogatory, but it’s not because out there, the Hodge is called…like that’s their little trip to Mecca. It’s what you’d call them, like “Iraqis” or “Afghanis” or “Hodgi” for short. I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I tell these guys, “These guys move. They’re sweeping, talking and next thing you know, I walk by and they just stop and they looked like I was going to kill them. I didn’t know what that was about. I was just walking to the little store over here.” And they’re like, “Yeah, man. I noticed that, too.” I don’t know what that is but as soon as you walk by, then they start sweeping again but they stand there and watch you and then they start sweeping again. When the Army guys walk by, it’s no big deal.

ELLEN: Did that make you feel empowered?

JOE: Yeah. It made me feel like these guys were scared…they were scared of us but I mean, not scared when they’re firing missiles from us from….

ELLEN: It doesn’t sound like the towns people…they messed with you at all.

JOE: Sometimes yeah, sometimes they did, and sometimes they didn’t. It all depends. Everywhere I went, it’s always been like that.

ELLEN: Did you have any dealings with the kids in Afghanistan?

JOE: No, I didn’t really see a lot of kids out there. This place is a little more different, a lot more covered up. You thought Iraq was bad, but this place was like (?).

ELLEN: How long were you in Afghanistan?

JOE: I was there for about four and a half, five months.

ELLEN: Four and a half, five months?Did you ever lose anybody close to you there?

JOE: Not there.

ELLEN: I know you mentioned that you had.

JOE: That was at a different point.

ELLEN: That was later on.

JOE: Yeah.

ELLEN: Are there any other things that you can remember from Afghanistan?

JOE: Let’s see, I remember seeing a lot of different countries out there. They had Germans out there, Canadians, Romanians. They had Special Forces guys, as well.

ELLEN: Really?

JOE: Yeah, biggest amount of people from foreign countries that I’ve ever seen.

ELLEN: All in occupation?

JOE: All out there fighting with us and stuff.

ELLEN: Oh.

JOE: Out in Afghanistan, supporting the cause.

ELLEN: Oh, fighting with you.

JOE: Yeah, Operation Enduring Freedom. I thought that was pretty cool because when I went to Iraq, the (?) I went on, I didn’t see that many countries. I had seen a couple. I knew that they were there, but I’d seen them, I had seen these guys. You’d be actually sitting outside, and you’d be like, “Alright, that guy’s from New Zealand, and that guy’s Australian. That guy right there is from Romania, and that’s a German dude. And who are these guys? Oh, those are Canadians.”

ELLEN: Were you friendly with any of these guys?

JOE: Yeah, they were pretty cool guys. But don’t make a mistake of calling the guy from New Zealand an Aussie.

ELLEN: Oh.

JOE: He’s like, “I’m from New Zealand.” I said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” And he goes, “That’s like me calling you a Yank.” And I was like, “Alright, man. I’m sorry again. It’s cool.”

ELLEN: But you did get to meet, make some friendships with some of these guys?

JOE: Oh yeah. It’s like that Romanian flag. I have a Romanian flag at home, and I traded money with some of those guys plus the locals.

ELLEN: This picture here, this was taken in Afghanistan?

JOE: No, these pictures were from Iraq.

ELLEN: Oh, these were in Iraq. Okay, then we’ll get to those later. You were in Afghanistan four to five months and then did you immediately go to Iraq after that?

JOE: I came back, and I was in Okinawa. Oh, I forgot to tell you about on the way back. On the way back, we stopped in the countries, because we were in Afghanistan. On our way back, we hit Thailand. And before Thailand it was Diego Garcia. It’s a base with a bunch of planes in the middle of the Indian Ocean. That’s where the B-2 Bombers come from and stuff and those Stealth Fighters. There’s a station out there. We’ve got people stationed all over the place. It was pretty cool. The water was really warm, and we were there for a couple days.

ELLEN: Was it like a little vacation? A little R & R?

JOE: Yes. It was a little weird. I was like, “What are we doing here?” We’re stuck there, supposedly they were fixing a plane. It was really hot. It was a jungle. Okinawa’s a little “jungley” too, but this place was hot and musty. The people on the island…they had British people there, because it’s like a British Island, I guess. It was a pretty cool place. We were there for about a week. From there, we went to Thailand. We were stuck in Thailand for a day and a half, two days. There’s nothing special in Thailand. It’s just some Army base. It was cool that I got to go to Thailand, see something I never seen before. I was already in Korea, so I went to like four or five different countries while I was there.

ELLEN: That was a plus that came out of that, I guess.

JOE: That was just from Okinawa. Then later on, there was another five or six Arabian countries.

ELLEN: So they sent you back to Okinawa.

JOE: They sent me back to Okinawa. “Stop Loss/Stop Move” ended shortly after that, and I got to go home for about two weeks.

ELLEN: Oh, nice.

JOE: Just two weeks. It’s not real long but long enough, I guess, and back to California, 29 Palms, Mojave Desert. “Oh, man! What’s with the desert,” I always ask myself. “Why do they put me back in this desert. Every time we get deployed, I come back to a desert.” A lot of training…the biggest Marine Corps Training Base in the United States.

ELLEN: It is? In the Mojave Desert?

JOE: Yes, like 950 something miles.

ELLEN: Did you know at that point that you were going to be sent to Iraq?

JOE: No. I thought I was done. I thought I was done with my deployments. I though I wasn’t going to have any more deployments. I thought the towel was in and everything.

ELLEN: Wow!

JOE: I thought I already did my part, as far as the war was concerned. I never thought you can get deployed that many times.

ELLEN: Yeah,I didn’t either. So how long were you…more training?

JOE: I was with another Unit. This is when I ended up with, the unit I’m most proud of, the 3 rd Armor Reconnaissance Unit and it’s in 29 Palms. It’s part of First Marine Division. First Marine Division is one of the oldest and most decorated units in the Marine Corps.

ELLEN: Really? Is that where you were trained as a machine gunner?

JOE: That’s right. That’s where I went driving my truck again. That’s where I eventually got trained to be a machine gunner and stuff like that.

ELLEN: Wow!

JOE: I was out with this same Unit, I was in H & S Company, Motor T. We got this same bad truck (?). “If you can’t bring it with you, leave it there.”

ELLEN: I probably would have figured that out but I’m glad you…

JOE: These guys are wild. Everyone I’ve met in the military….there’s cool guys, there’s guys that sit in a room and play video games, and then there’s guys that go out there and paint the town red…bunch of wild guys. They used to work us…they used to overwork us at this place but I guess they did it for a reason.

ELLEN: Yeah.

JOE: We had 72’s and 96’s, that’s like four days off. We would only get two days off. Everyone else would get a four day weekend; we’d get three days off. We’d come in on a Saturday like it’s no big deal. Now it’s no big deal. I could get any job anywhere and it wouldn’t be any harder than what I’ve seen. Just to get screwed with, for like, an extra four or five hours that day. “What are you doing gunny, why do you make us come here and work on our day off?”

ELLEN: Alright, from there, you found out that you were going to…?

JOE: Going to Iraq. Actually, it was Kuwait and then a couple of convoys to Iraq back and forth. What we did was we put on….ships would bring in from the Gulf a bunch of trucks, Humvee’s, equipment, tanks, and we’d convoy this into Iraq. We’d stage at a certain point at the end of Kuwait there, and then we’d go into Iraq and bring it to an another base, full operating base out there and I was there for about two…two months, two and a half months. It was from…

ELLEN: You were in Kuwait for two months?

JOE: Kuwait and then Iraq, Kuwait and Iraq, it was like, we’d convoy back and forth, bringing this equipment…February 2004 to April of 2004, yeah it was two months, two months and a couple days.

ELLEN: You were going back and forth?

JOE: Yeah, it was me and from my unit, from 3 rd I.R., we had about 15 guys with us from our shop, from our unit that’d just drive trucks and we had a couple mechanics that’d work on them if they broke down. But out of the whole First Marine Division, they had all these guys from like 1-7, some guys from AV’s, that’s Amphibious Vehicles…they had all these guys from Camp Pendleton too, not just our base…mostly California, because that’s First Marine Division. They had about 150, 200 guys and they moved, we moved, over those two months 7,500 pieces of gear…trucks, tanks…some of the guys were tank drivers. We moved all that stuff and then they convoyed it out to Iraq…we convoyed it out, back and forth, back and forth. I’m not talking like a day. You drive for like two days at a time, maybe a day and a half just to bring you to the place they stage you before you went into Iraq. You’re tired.

ELLEN: Were you guys ever ambushed at any point?

JOE: We got shot at. Actually, we got shot at in Kuwait.

ELLEN: Oh.

JOE: A couple times, a couple guys got shot at, like pot-shots. Usually, Kuwait is supposed to be a neutral place?

ELLEN: Right.

JOE: No.It’s weird. These guys are all over the place, these little Islamic …..

ELLEN: Were they sniper shots?

JOE: Well something like that, yeah. A couple of guys would drive by and shoot, but they didn’t hit nobody. They’d try to hit us.

ELLEN: How about those roadside bombs? I’ve heard about those roadside bombs.

JOE: That was more along the second time I went, I mean the third time I went to Iraq.

ELLEN: The third time you went to Iraq?

JOE: Yeah.

ELLEN: I thought you’d been there twice.

JOE: No. I was there three times. Well, I’m sorry. I meant third deployment… Afghanistan once and Iraq twice.

ELLEN: Okay, alright. I’m sorry.

JOE: This whole IED thing, like these roadside bombs and stuff….right after the initial invasion in Iraq, that really never happened. That was later on, so we didn’t experience any of that stuff. They had a little bit, but it wasn’t as big as it is now.

ELLEN: How long were you there the first time, between Kuwait and Iraq?

JOE: That was the two months…two months…two and a half months.

ELLEN: Oh, you were just there for two months. Okay, and basically you were just driving between Kuwait and Iraq.

JOE: Both countries, yeah. The convoys bringing all this gear up. They’d have a couple of tanks, a couple IDs, trucks, seven-ton Humvee’s, and we’d just drive these things.

ELLEN: Was that a relatively safe deployment?

JOE: That onewasn’t that bad. A couple other guys, I guess, that were on there at the same time got their combat action. They said they took mortar fire while they were going into this base or something like that when they were bringing these trucks in. I never seen any of that.

ELLEN: So you felt safe at that point.

JOE: You never really feel safe.

ELLEN: Yeah, right, right.

JOE: You feel safer, because you know you’re in Kuwait. Kuwait is still bad.

ELLEN: Two months. I find that interesting that they would send you…did you go back to the States after that?

JOE: I went back to California after that, and I got a couple of days off…leave, to go home. I went home for about a week. You had the option because you were there for that long, for two months, you had the option to go home for a week. So, I went home for a week. (Recorder turned off at request of interviewee)

ELLEN: So you were home for a week and then you went back to California.

JOE: I went back to California after my leave. We started training again, more training, more like urban warfare stuff, like house-to-house training. We got our base and more weapons training and then...

ELLEN: So you figured you were probably going to go back again.

JOE: We knew we were going back.

ELLEN: Oh. You knew?

JOE: Yeah. They told us we’re probably going to go for deployment. They’re telling us. So, here we go again. We got to go home for about…it depends on how many days of leave you got….you can go five days in the hole so a couple guys got to go home for like a week and a half but most guys got 15, 20 days to go home. We went home before we left for Iraq again. I went home for two weeks, and then I was out.

ELLEN: I’ve got to ask you. Did you have any good luck charms? Did your mom, when you were home, did she give you anything to…?

JOE: My mom gave me some prayer books and some rosaries. I had some lucky pennies and stuff. She sent me stuff when I was out there.

ELLEN: Did you keep that stuff with you at all times?

JOE: Yeah. I kept it with me at all times, because I really thought, honestly thought that I wasn’t going to make it back. This third time, on this third deployment, I didn’t think I was going to make it.

ELLEN: Why did you feel that way?

JOE: Because of all the stuff that happened on the last two deployments. The second one wasn’t that bad, but the first one was. Afghanistan was scary. This other place was scary, too but…always in the back of my head…a bomb might go off or maybe someone would shoot me or something will happen, you know. There’s accidents. Guys can get hit with trucks. I didn’t know if I’d make it. Three times is a …..

ELLEN: They say three times is a charm. Maybe that was…

JOE: Yeah, I don’t know.

ELLEN: But the third time, now you were not on a…the third time you were over there you said you were not on a bigger base?

JOE: It was a small base. We moved around a lot, actually.

ELLEN: Were you more of a target?

JOE: We were in the Sunni Triangle. We were in Al Anbar Province. That’s a heated spot. That’s been a hot spot for the last couple years.

ELLEN: A hot spot in terms of combat?

JOE: Combat and everything…IED’s. We went to….our unit was split up. We were with…it was a reserve unit that we were out with from Texas. This base we were at, that’s what I said, mostly these Texas guys. We had anywhere from 350 to 400 or 500 guys at this base at any time. The only thing separating us was a four operating base was a Fob, we called it a Fob Hit. Hit was the town we were in, in this Al Anbar Province and it wasn’t too far from a town called Haditha. If you look on that picture, that’s where all the water is, called Haditha Dam, the big fertile crescent that’s…the Euphrates?

ELLEN: This is a picture of Haditha Dam. You said something had happened there.

JOE: That was in the news that there was…they said that there was supposedly a massacre or something like that, but I guess the charges got dropped against these guys but that happened right before we were leaving Iraq to come back home. END OF SIDE A

ELLEN: BEGINNING OF SIDE B Okay, so we were just taking about Haditha Dam how that had happened just before you left Iraq. The next thing I wanted to ask you was about some of the combat that you saw. Were you involved in any combat?

JOE: Oh yeah, yeah. I was involved in combat like the whole time. The second deployment wasn’t as much. It was just driving these trucks, but this third time was like sustained combat. If you read that thing out there, the commendation?

ELLEN: What was that a commendation for?

JOE: That was becauseI had prior combat experience, and I taught the guys things they should watch out for and things they should pay attention to, what to expect and for volunteering to go on combat missions, more than I was already on.

ELLEN: Can you tell me about some of those combat missions you went on?

JOE: Yeah. I’ll start out by saying I drove trucks, and when I was out there, like I said, sometimes you’ll do a job that’s really not your job, but you’ve got to do it. You’re in the military, and there’s no questions. I drove seven-tons and Humvee’s, and I used to be a machine gunner at the top of the truck. Well, if I wasn’t driving or being a machine gunner, I was auxilarated as a scout. What that was, was pretty much an LAV, it’s like an eight-wheel tank. It looks like a tank but it’s not as armored. It’s got maybe two and half inches of steel. They hold about six guys, and you’d be in the back and you’d open up the door and run out and call “Scout’s Out!” We’d patrol areas and run up on houses. I used to go door-to-door with a couple of these guys. There’s four guys on the team. I was either first man in or second man in, which is really scary.

ELLEN: Now you mentioned that door-to-door was something that you really remember.

JOE: Yeah. It was.

ELLEN: I just can’t imagine…what was the reasoning behind that?

JOE: We’re looking for terrorists, targets. We were looking for Zarqawi for awhile.

ELLEN: How would that go? Would you ahead of time know what houses you were going to go to?

JOE: We had an idea of where the guy was, maybe, or where these people that might be connected to Zarqawi or had anything to do with planting IEDs, or terrorists might be.

ELLEN: So they weren’t random houses you were picking.

JOE: No.Sometimes they were, because you have to put a perimeter around where you’re staying for the night. We’d take over a town. We took out this Haditha place, we took over this place one day. We were there, and it ended up being like a thirteen day operation. They told us it would only be for two days. This was massive. There was a bunch of people. These towns were all on the outskirts of Fallujah, which another part of my team was in Fallujah, too. Like I said, we all spread out. We had guys in this place called Korean Village, and we had guys out in Fallujah, and we were on the outskirts of Fallujah and all this was going on about the same time. It was a big offensive.

ELLEN: Basically, you’re storming a house then. Can you explain how that would…you know, kind of go through that?

JOE: Well, you line up outside the house. There’s like four guys on your team and they call it “Wall Body Weapons,” so your body would be against the wall and your weapon would be there next to you and you’re stacked up and there’s four guys, and each one’s got their hand on your back and then you try to kick the door open, like you check the door. You have to be careful because someone might shoot the damn door, like someone will shoot through the door or maybe someone’s in there waiting with an RPG or something. You don’t know.

ELLEN: And you’re second in line?

JOE: I’m first in line.

ELLEN: You’re number one?

JOE: Or second in line. Sometimes I was first; sometimes I was second. We had some guys that wanted to take the glory. I’m like, “Hey, man. Go ahead. If you want to be the first one in dude, that’s fine with me.” Because I’m a bigger guy, so I used to kick down the door.

ELLEN: Once you kicked down the door, what might you find?

JOE: There’s people in there. Well, sometimes it wasn’t even kicking down the door. Sometimes we blew it up, because we didn’t know who was in there and it’s easier. You try to kick down the door and it’s a big door and it doesn’t want to come down...C-4… boom…and there goes the door and half the house…maybe not half the house but a little bit. They get paid for it afterwards, as long as they’re not terrorists or there’s anything bad in there. Sometimes the info is wrong…sometimes. Not all the time but sometimes, or they weren’t there but we pay them, because we’re not assholes…excuse my language…but we blow someone’s house up or shredded their door or the windows break, then what? We’d pay them. I believe that the going rate was like….they could survive off it for a year without working. So, they got paid pretty good.

ELLEN: So if you did actually find somebody you were looking for once you got in there, what would you do next?

JOE: We’d bring then to…we’d detain them, and they’d bring in a guy who would interrogate or they would bring them to another place and they’d ask them questions about like, “What are you doing out there…did you have anything to do with this Zarqawi guy?”...or if he was planting IED’s or if he knew about the IED that was planted on this road at this time…just trying to find information out.

ELLEN: Once you got into the house, how did you find these guys? I mean, I’m assuming they weren’t just standing there. If they were there, they’d be hiding somewhere.

JOE: Sometimes we got them inside the house. A lot of times, we got them outside like combat. They’d be running, and some guy would be shooting…sometimes these guys would get shot. A lot of times they just threw down their weapons and they were like, “I’m not even going to try.” There were way too many of us.

ELLEN: I imagine you probably busted the door down a few times and found families in there.

JOE: Oh yeah, that was the big thing I always remember. That’s what we were talking about before. There’s a couple of times that happened. You go in looking for these guys, and there’s just a bunch of women and kids and they never got hurt, but you see them sitting there shaking because it’s really loud and it’s like two in the morning, three in the morning, and people are busting down your door. I think that’s got to be about one of the worst feelings in the world. God forbid if that ever happened to me. I had to do that to other people and I was like, “It’s my job, it’s wrong.” I feel so bad, you know, but then again I don’t feel bad because there was one guy in the house and there was about two families living there together and the men were gone, anyone from the younger men, the males that were in the house to the fathers and they were gone. There was firefights going on in the background so you could hear troops taking fire, and our guys were returning fire. It’s like, “Well, I know where the men are. They’re out fighting.” At first I felt bad that I blew the woman’s door down, but then I was like, “These guys are bad guys anyway.” You can’t take it out on the little kids, though. But, you know, you’re just like “Search the house, look for explosives or IED making material that make these roadside bombs.” We found AK-47’s, a couple of them, so we took them…and rounds. You’re allowed to have an AK-47 in the house with one magazine or two magazines. Anything that shows propaganda for terrorism or terrorist material, we just confiscated it. Another example I can give you is, when we were out there we came across a big building and this was a big IED making factory, I mean they had two or three shops. It looks like a little mini-mall that you’d see on the side of the road that was at least, like, fifty, eighty yards long, maybe longer. We blew the whole place up. The whole place was leveled….because they knew. They had bombs already set up. They were ready to go off. All you had to do was plant them. The thing is, if you got anything that has to do with like Coalition Forces, or you’ve got these things you want to stop it, so it’s just like, “Just blow this place up.” So, we went in there. It was funny, because it was weird because we’d go in there…and some little shops besides these auto shops and stuff were like food stores, the grocery mart. They aren’t groceries like we think of groceries, you know like candy or hard stuff, dried out goods, cokes, coffee, cigarettes. We go in there, and we’d pay to get like, if we wanted a coke or a little candy bar, an Iraqi candy bar or Iraqi gum or something like that. You’d pay in American dollars or Iraqi money if we had it. Then we’d put it in a little box, and our guy that was in charge or gunny or whatever it was would take the box and give it to the people that owned that shop. And then we blew the whole building down. They were told to take what they needed from the shop because you knew these were good guys but they knew that what was going on there, and we just blew the whole place.

ELLEN: Were you ever injured at any of these times?

JOE: I fell off a truck the first, like the first three months I was in Iraq.

ELLEN: What happened?

JOE: It was kind of hard to see through the lenses of the NVG’s because of the bullet-proof glass. It’s really thick and that was a weird night.

ELLEN: Were you guys being ambushed or was there an attack?

JOE: No, no. We were getting ready to leave to go on an assault. Everyone was in a hurry. Everyone was moving along, well there’s this wide turn. The guy in front of us stopped. We stopped too, but there was a big ledge, like a grade. The grade came down about 20, 25 feet. I was on the truck. I was on the turret. I was machine gunning. I was like, “Hey, man! You’ve got to pull hard left. Pull hard left.” He said, “Pull hard left?” Then you could feel the truck shifted. All of a sudden, I’m like, “We’re going down! We’re going down!” He tried calling on the radio, but it was too late. The truck just fell over twice. And we were in a big fuel truck, again, the Green Bomb. Sometimes I drove this big…I don’t always drive the fuel truck but most of the time I did out in Iraq now. I had a concussion. I don’t know how I stayed inside the cabin of this truck, because I should have been crushed. I tried helping these guys out because there were sand bags inside. Both of them had sand bags on them, and they were coherent. Well, Doc was knocked out for a little bit. I came to, and it was dark and all the other vehicles were further up and behind us, and they didn’t even know. The guys..

ELLEN: Nobody knew you guys had…?

JOE: Well they knew, but the guys in front didn’t know it but the guys in the back did. They saw and came up. They came running, and I was out there trying to get the two guys I was with in the cabin out. There was gas leaking all over. My arm was really hurt, and it was like this. And I was trying to get this guy out of the truck. Even today, my wrist is still shorter than the other one. Hopefully, it will get fixed one of these days.

ELLEN: I’m pulling for you.

JOE: You can see the little spots in my hair.

ELLEN: Yeah.

JOE: That’s from the truck. Yeah, I had stitches…a couple stitches.

ELLEN: Oh, wow!

JOE: And that’s with a helmet on.

ELLEN: Sounds like that helmet may have saved your life. Was anybody seriously hurt?

JOE: One guy had some blood in his urine. He had something like a kidney pop. Well, not a pop, but it got hit or something or bruised, but he was okay. The other guy had, had his finger like…broken finger. He was okay. He wore a finger brace for a couple of days.

ELLEN: I know that you had also mentioned to me that at one point you had lost a good friend in combat.

JOE: Yes. It was on the assault of Fallujah. We were out doing other assaults around Fallujah and in these surrounding areas and this guy was based about an hour and a half away from us, two hours away. It was my buddy, Justin Reppuhn, he’s from Michigan. At the end of the war, at the end of this deployment, we only lost two guys. When I say “we only lost” it sounds like…one guy’s too many.

ELLEN: I know what you’re saying, though. On one hand it’s too many and on the other hand…

JOE: Compared to other units and stuff, yeah.

ELLEN: Yeah, right.

JOE: I think it had to do with our desert training and like, you know, just the way we trained really hard, but we only lost two guys. He was a really good friend of mine. He was in my…the other guy, it was a Sergeant. He was in our Unit, but he was in a different Company. I really didn’t know him that well, but I knew of him. He had kids, you know. It was a pretty sad thing.

ELLEN: Oh, that is.

JOE: The other guy, Justin, he was a buddy of mine, he was in my Platoon, in my Unit, like in my shop, back in California. So, we all hung out together.

ELLEN: You’d been with him for a long time.

JOE: I’d been with him for awhile and he’d never been out to Iraq before. I’m like, “Oh, man. Don’t worry about it. I’ll show you what to watch out for,”…and this and that and…before we left California. He wasn’t twenty-one and I have this thing. I’m a firm believer, hey if you’re old enough to serve your country and take a bullet, you’re old enough to drink. I don’t care how old you are because there are seventeen year old guys that go into the military. As long as your parents sign, you can deal with it. There are parents that do it. You can go. Justin was twenty years old, and they called me “Dino.” Dino is my nickname, because my last name is Inendino so Dino’s been my nickname since high school and has been through my whole military experience and these guys go, “Hey, Big D!” because I’m a big guy, Big D. And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s me, man.” “We want to go out with you, Big D!” because I bring these guys out drinking, every once in a while…I usually get them in. I’d tell the guy at the door, “Hey, Man. We’re going to Iraq or (?) Marine a drink?” you know, serve your country…doing it for you. Try to put a little guilt trip on them. It works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t. I let these guys out and I pop over the fence one day, and just get in there guys, threw them over the fence, landed on the other side and he never came with us. So Justin, I told Justin, “Hey you know when we come back from Iraq, when’s your birthday? We’re gonna’ have a birthday party, and I’ll get a drink with you.” Well, he never came back. I went out after I came back…I came back in April of 2005, that’s when we came back from our deployment. Justin died in November, actually on the Marine Corps birthday, which was really messed up.

ELLEN: Was that a roadside bomb?

JOE: November 10 th.It was a roadside bomb and a burm. They’d said (?) from what we heard because it was really weird…he was a couple of hours away from me and I didn’t see this but two of my really good friends that were with him… (Recorder turned off at request of interviewee)

ELLEN: I’ve often heard that it was good to establish relationships with the people in Iraq and the kids. Were you encouraged to do that?

JOE: I’m just a happy guy. I might give some kids some candy or something like that. This is a messed up place and all this stuff’s going on. It’s fun to talk to the kids. I think it was fun to interact with them or throw a soccer ball to them or something like that or give out candy.

ELLEN: How did you have an opportunity to talk to them? Did they hang around the base?

JOE: There’s everyday life going on here, even though we’re there. Sometimes it stops, but a lot of times they’ll still be out there playing and stuff. It’s kind of weird to think about that.

ELLEN: Yeah. I can’t imagine that.

JOE: It’s everyday life for them. They’re outside playing soccer or standing around at a house. It’s like, “Hey, want some candy, kid?” Come up here, throw out some candy or have them come up there and start talking. We had little dictionaries that told us what to say and stuff. I talked to them as much as I could. If we were really lucky, we’d have one of our interpreters come by and he’d tell them stuff. The kids would be laughing. It was pretty cool.

ELLEN: Was that kind of a bright spot?

JOE: Yeah, it made you feel a little bit better about what you were doing. We’re there not just for this, we’re there, you know, for these little kids and stuff.

ELLEN: If you saw the kids out there, did you ever join them, like you say, in a soccer game?

JOE: Well, it’s kind of hard to do that because you never know who’s around the corner. Maybe this is a ploy. (?), but we always had someone looking out. If we knew it was a safe area, we’d take a ball around. We’d do something, throw rocks at cans with them or something like that.

ELLEN: How do you think they felt about you?

JOE: I’m sure they were really happy. Sometimes I think maybe they’re like, “Well, we don’t like these guys, but we’ll take candy from them.” They’re just little kids.

ELLEN: Kids are trusting.

JOE: One thing I noticed, the girls get treated really bad. Even with the kids, it’s like looked down upon, like the women get treated really bad. I showed all these kids. They got me a little mad. I was like, “Well, no more Mr. Nice Guy.” So I go, okay… I called two little girls over. And I made these boys stand there, there’s like six of them, I made them stand there, and I threw candy out to these girls. And they kept, they’re like, “Kee, Kee” that means “Stop.” And I was like, “Do I stop right there?” and I was like, “No.” I waved my hand at them and I gave these girls a bag of candy and made them eat it in front of these boys. They were sitting there, they were yelling and stuff and these girls were just smiling…(?) the look on their face because they couldn’t get any candy, because these boys would take it from them. So I was like, “No, you’ve got to eat this candy right here,” and they ate it, right in front of these boys.

ELLEN: So the treatment of women there….

JOE: It’s very bad.

ELLEN: Even when they’re that young?

JOE: Even when they’re young.

ELLEN: Wow!

JOE: Not all the time, but a lot of the time.

ELLEN: So what did you guys…did you ever have any opportunity to have some fun? Did you ever have any spare time?

JOE: We had down time. What happened when we were back at the base or when we were out in the middle of nowhere, you’re always on watch, you always go to keep your guard up and stuff. But if you’re back at the base, and even that’s a scary place because of incoming mortars and rockets and stuff….I can’t tell you how many close calls we’ve had with that. We’d play cards…Texas Hold’em. Texas Hold’em with these guys is a big thing. Everyone wants to be like these guys on TV so Texas Hold’em was a big thing and throwing some dice. Sometimes gambling for money, sometimes not. Not always necessarily had to be for money you know, it’d be for fun. What else? Everyone wanted a drink. It sounds bad. It’s like all these guys are a bunch of alcoholics. But, no. You’re out for like six, seven months and you’re thirsty. It was weird, because we got, logistically, we’re supposed to have two beers and a shot of rum because Marine Corps birthday was in November, and it came late and guess when it came. It came on Christmas. So, the day before…Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas, I came out and was like, “You get are getting two beers and a shot.” Sometimes they didn’t drink so they’d pass it on to another guy. Some guys got loaded. Think about it, you’re out there for like four or five months. This was an eight-month deployment so this was a long haul. You’re out there for five or six months, and there’s no drinks. Then you get two beers and a shot…you’re feeling it.

ELLEN: Pretty quick, I imagine.

JOE: Yeah, pretty quick. So if you can imagine that someone gives you their two beers and a shot, you’re feeling really good. Of course, no one would go out on any convoys or anything like that when you’ve had alcohol. They had other guys that stayed sober for that. They had theirs the next day.

ELLEN: Right. Everybody got their turn. Did you ever get to meet anybody famous?

JOE: I met Robin Williams in Afghanistan.

ELLEN: Was he there to entertain you?

JOE: Yeah, he’s funny. That guy is so funny. Robin Williams was there.

ELLEN: You got to actually meet him?

JOE: Yeah. He signed…I had an autograph from Robin Williams and I can’t find it. I put it in a book and I closed the book and I have it somewhere at my house.

ELLEN: You’ll find it.

JOE: Hopefully I’ll find it. But I got Robin Williams’ signature and he’s hilarious. Other people got pictures with him and stuff. I thought I had a picture somewhere with him. I’ve got to find that. Then I met Dave Letterman and Paul from the Late Show.

ELLEN: He was there to entertain you?

JOE: Yeah, he was there on Christmas of 2002…I think it was 2002 or 2003.

ELLEN: That must have been….

JOE: It was awesome!

ELLEN: Yeah. You have a picture with him.

JOE: Yeah. I have a picture with him. It’s pretty cool.

ELLEN: Wow! That’s great.

JOE: When I was out in Kandahar, Afghanistan but who else came out there? They had some bands come out for like these 400 guys. They had some people come, too. That had these little bands come up. That was pretty cool. It took a little of the edge off. We’re out here, and we’re (?) and we miss our families but they brought some people to like, they brought some Miller Lite girls or Bud Lite girls and they brought these cheerleaders. What cheerleaders was that…Washington Redskins and some other team. I’m telling you, everyone loves to see like the women come out there. It’s so bad.

ELLEN: You mean, the howling and the…?

JOE: Yeah. I mean I felt bad for these women coming out there, because I was like, “Oh man,” everyone’s all excited, you know, like, “Wow!” I mean, there’s girls in the military. I’ve been with all-male units the whole time, the whole four years. So I’ve never had women…I’d see them every once in awhile out and about like in Iraq and stuff, like on our side, like Americans in the Army or Navy or whatever, but I hardly ever see them, like every once in a while because I was on combat missions, so there’s no…women, females are not supposed to be in that. That’s how it’s set up in the military. There’s a lot of things involved with that because I’m not saying that’s not their spot, but for me personally, I think the guys should do that...the fighting and stuff. There are some women that do get involved with that, they get ambushed and women die like that, but it’s a terrible…there’s a whole psychological thing for the reason for that plus hygienically, it’s very bad. Women can’t stay out in the field for like twenty-five days at a time or thirty days. No showers and …..so that’s the reason why. But these women came out. I mean these are really pretty cheerleaders, you know? The guys were just…it was out of control…like hooting and hollering. These girls came out on the stage and these guys were going nuts. Everyone is missing girlfriends and …. I don’t have a girlfriend but I couldn’t do that while I was in the military, it was not going to happen. I don’t want that whole long-distance thing. It never works out. I have seen people get the Dear John Letter, married and not married.

ELLEN: That’s heart-breaking.

JOE: That’s hard. And you’d think, you know like, that’d be about the most awful thing you can do to not stand by your man who’s out there fighting and stuff and it’s really…

ELLEN: Or at least wait until they get back before you...

JOE: Yeah, wait until you get back, you know?

ELLEN: I agree with you. You did mention that…talked about missing your family. Were you able to keep in touch with them pretty easily?

JOE: Every once in a while. They had internet accounts. Not all the bases have these internet things. I had an online account but sometimes, depending on what base you went to, like this Forward Operating Base I was on in Iraq, they had like two computers and a ledger log, and they had like two or three phones. Either the computer broke or it was down or there was big lines. And then the worst thing that would always happen, we were at another place called Al Quaim just before we went to this Hit place...this Forward Operating Base. They had more computers and more phones, but it was a bad area. It was near Husaba and these guys, (?), they wouldn’t let us out to help these guys, because they were in a different sector than us, and you’d see the helicopter come in. And then you’d see the helicopter leave and every time the helicopter came in, it would close down for like two or three days that means someone was injured or someone got killed, military Marine, most likely, or an Army guy or soldier. This was a daily thing, and psychologically just like beat on you. You’d see that helicopter and you’re like, “Man, that’s not something good.” We heard stories of like guys waking up, like they go down and they got both legs but they wake up they got one missing, you know, because they got hit by a bomb or they had to amputate or something like that. They’d close this thing down for like two, three days so you can’t use the phone because they want to notify the family first and I understand that. They want to notify the family first. They don’t want someone else hearing from somebody else so it’s almost (?) to go use the phone you know, if you can’t…if it’s closed all the time and I’ve seen it close down for like a week and a half straight.

ELLEN: Wow. Were you able to get mail in and out?

JOE: We got mail too but then sometimes they’d stop our mail. What takes so long to get mail? They don’t want us telling this happened to so and so.

ELLEN: Were you able to get packages from home?

JOE: Oh yeah, but it took awhile. A package takes about a month, month and a half just to get to us. So if you send a care package, don’t send it priority or anything like that because it’s our postage, and it’s the military postage, and that’s just bad. It will get there eventually but I’ll tell you a sad thing. A lot of guys were upset because they were carrying these packages logistically on the truck, and the truck supposedly caught fire or something so there goes all these guys’ letters, boxes, parcels, whatever they had. People were sending them stuff. Something in the engine, something caught fire or they hit a bomb or something like that, and the mail truck just ignited and there was nothing left. Some people got letters that were like half burnt. They found a name, and other people got care packages that were soaked and smelled bad with water.

ELLEN: You had mentioned that your mom had given you a medal to wear or that you kept for good luck?

JOE: Oh, like my good luck charm. I had a coin with Padre Pio on it and I had two rosaries, a little cross and a…is this a three-leaf clover or a four-leaf clover? Four leaf clover, right?

ELLEN: Yeah. And you always kept those with you?

JOE: Yeah, and I had a penny, a lucky penny, and a piece of wood. It was like a little knot. It was a knot out of a piece of wood. I shot it out of a board before I moved to Iraq. You know how big a knot is, right? It was like this big, though. (shows with hands) It was from like thirty, forty yards away and I shot this knot right out of the board. It came out and it was clean. The knot didn’t break, it just popped out of the wood. It was a hard knot. It was this knot with a little hole on the top of it and I was like, “Okay, that’s got to be something right there.”

ELLEN: Right.

JOE: I looked all over and I only seen one in front of my target so I was like, “Alright.”

ELLEN: Did a lot of the guys have good luck charms?

JOE: Some guys did. Some guys had weird superstitions. We had a guy that before he went to Iraq for the first time, he says it was because he tied his shoes the wrong way. He’s like, “If I tie my boots that way and I didn’t pull that sock up, that’s why I knew gunny was coming with bad news.” I was like, “You’re crazy, dude.”

ELLEN: Yeah, well, in their minds…..

JOE: And everyone in the military’s got nicknames. Everyone’s got nicknames, sometimes more than one.

ELLEN: You were “Dino”.

JOE: I was “Dino”. I was “Big D”. I was “Heavy D”. I was everything, but mostly “Dino”.

ELLEN: And you were there the second time you said six months?

JOE: Six months where?

ELLEN: In your second deployment…I’m sorry, you’re second deployment to Iraq.

JOE: Yeah, the first deployment was four months, four and a half months. It might have been five. I have to check it out. It started in 2002, 10/2002 to 2/2003, so it was four months and then the second time was two months and the third time was eight months.

ELLEN: Eight months!

JOE: So if you add all of this together…I’d say eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen months plus Korea is not on there, but that was another two months, so sixteen months out of four years deployed for most of it combat-related stuff.

ELLEN: Yeah, it sounds like your second deployment to Iraq was a lot of heavy combat out there.

JOE: Yeah. That was bad. That was the last one, and there’s a lot of close calls. Sometimes I think I’m here for a reason, you know?

ELLEN: Yeah. Did you know that you’d be there for eight months?

JOE: Standard tour is anywhere from four to six.

ELLEN: So you were there a little longer.

JOE: Six is usually a standard tour for the Marine Corps, but it was eight months, so it was eight months for us. A lot of our guys are there right now, it’s June right now, and they left …..we came back…this is all spread (?) we keep going to these deployments but we left, we came back in November of 2005…no, April 2005, that’s when we got back.

ELLEN: That’s when you came back.

JOE: That’s when I…that’s when we came back from our deployment in Iraq. I got out in November of 2005 so I’d been home, I’m done with the Marine Corps and these guys left in January, February of 2006.

ELLEN: These are guys you know?

JOE: These are guys I went to Iraq with.

ELLEN: So you know guys over there still?

JOE: Yeah, there still out there and they call me. Once in awhile I get a call. A lot of time, like I got a letter the other day and I’ll probably expect another letter in the next couple days. I send them care packages, and I send them letters.

ELLEN: Excellent.

JOE: You’ve got to do that. It’s like the best thing you can do for anyone in the military. They love letters and care packages.

ELLEN: Do you ever think you’d, you know, when you are hear from these guys, is your feeling like “I’m glad I’m not there” or do you ever think you want to go back?

JOE: I want to go back. I feel like I need to. It’s kind of weird, because I already know I already did my time, and I’ve done more than I was supposed to.

ELLEN: But you feel a need?

JOE: But I feel like I need to go back. When I hear about this stuff like the other day with those soldiers that were lost, I lose my mind. I want to go out there. I feel bad, because these guys were out there, and I’m not there and I can teach...there’s still new guys there that don’t know what’s going on.

ELLEN: You feel like you’ve got more to give.

JOE: Yeah. But I know I’m done, so. But I tell my dad I want to go out there and it’s just really weird feeling. Like I want to go, but I don’t.

ELLEN: But you’re a Reservist now.

JOE: No. Not reserves. It’s a four-year contract. Four years on and four years off. It’s an eight-year contract when you initially sign up. I can get recalled to go back if there’s a big war or something like that or if they need personnel. I can get recalled to go back there.

ELLEN: Oh, I see. Okay.

JOE: But the chances are hopefully, slim to none. I’ve seen people that have gotten recalled. It’s called the Presidential Recall, and they get recalled back and like, they pretty much say you know, you’ve got people knocking on your door, “Hey man, you signed the contract….”

ELLEN: What are you doing now?

JOE: I just work with my dad and I’m going to school.

ELLEN: Going to school? What are you studying in school?

JOE: I’m going for Business. I’d like to own my own business one of these days.

ELLEN: Did your military experience influence any of these career choices?

JOE: Well, I was going to school before I was in the military. It’s free school in Illinois. I mean, it’s one thing it gave me.

ELLEN: Yes.

JOE: Not every state gets this though, not every state gets the whole free school thing. Illinois and Texas are like one of the two best states as far as going to school and getting an education.

ELLEN: I’m glad to hear that.

JOE: Any state school’s free and then on top of that they give you the GI Bill that you can use while you’re in school. So, you don’t even have to get a job. I mean, I do. I had to get a job, because I can’t stand sitting around and not doing anything, you know, like just going to school. Yeah, you know, I was going to school before and I wanted to do business, I want to be my own boss one of these days. It would be nice.

ELLEN: So you kind of picked up where you left off.

JOE: Yeah. If it’s there, I’ve got to use it, you know? The schooling’s there…I’d better use it.

ELLEN: I forgot to ask you about…I know you showed me a whole load of medals and citations that you got. What were they for?

JOE: Most of them were for going on deployments and things that happened while I was out in Iraq…Combat Action Ribbon. Some of them they just give it to you like when you first get in. The call it the Firewatch ribbon but…or Firewatch medal but it’s a national defense medal so it’s a big thing. I joined the military, so I got this medal for being in the military for four years of service. I got the Rifle Badge, you know, that’s for shooting. (?) Badge…I got a Combat Action Ribbon. That’s for (?) in Iraq and we’re taking fire, returning fire…it was more than once. Afghanistan…Campaign Medal. That’s for going to Afghanistan. I got an Iraqi Campaign Medal. That’s for being in Iraq, you know, serving out there. I got Sea-Service Deployment Ribbon with one star. The star means I was there. There was another time I went, so it’s two times. Actually, it should have been three, though, but technically the way that worked out is it...the one year, your initial year in combat…the next year (?) so…Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. That’s for the whole war on terrorism thing, for helping with the whole cause and so I got a medal for that. Global War on Terrorism Exhibitionary Medal, which means I was out in Iraq or Afghanistan. In my case both, fighting out there and a National Defense Service Medal, and a Navy Unit Commendation. Our unit got commended for a job well done.

ELLEN: Wow! That’s pretty impressive, very impressive. What was the highest rank that you achieved?

JOE: I was a Corporal, before.

ELLEN: You were a Corporal. So you had men reporting to you?

JOE: Yeah.

ELLEN: I think I covered just about everything. Are you involved with any Veterans’ Organizations?

JOE: Yes. I’m currently involved with the VFW and probably will be for the rest of my life, the VFW of Libertyville. Libertyville Post 8741, and I might be part of the Marine Corps League and American Legion later on, maybe. We’ll see.

ELLEN: That’s great. Is there anything else that…I know I probably wasn’t able to cover everything. Anything you’d like to add, any other stories or anything else that you can think of? Anything you’d just like to say?

JOE: It’s definitely different, all of these experiences. When I went into the military I knew that there was a possibility of me going to Afghanistan. I never thought I would go that many times. I might have stayed in longer, maybe, if I didn’t get this much action or as much use, I guess you’d say. I might have stayed in a little bit longer. I mean, I think it wasn’t for me because I’m too family-oriented. I missed my family and stuff. I had a little brother and I left my little brother when he was only six. He’s eleven now, but he was six when I left and I felt really bad.

ELLEN: Yeah. I bet that’s tough. Any regrets?

JOE: No. I’d probably do it over again if I had to.

ELLEN: Well, Joe, I want to thank you for sharing your story with me and thank you for your service to our Country. It means a lot. We’re all really proud of you and you’re a hero.

JOE: Thank you.

ELLEN: Thanks

1. 2. 3.

1. Christmas Day, 2002, Kandahar, Afghanistan. Joe is posing with David Letterman, who was there to entertain the troops. 2. Joe guarding prisoners of war in Iraq, 2005. 3. Joe handing out candy to some local Iraqi children. Iraq, 2005.