Fire Watch Episode 4: Afghanistan to Vietnam, The Lasting Mark on Those Who Served

Episode Introduction

A year ago this week, U.S. forces were preparing to depart Afghanistan after 20 years of war. It wasn’t the first time that American troops witnessed the end of decades of conflict, trying to assess what it was all for.

Almost 50 years prior President Richard Nixon promised the next generation peace in the wake of Vietnam. Just as Vietnamese refugees clung to the skids of helicopters departing the Saigon embassy in the waning days of that conflict, Afghans desperate to escape the draconian rule of the Taliban tried to grab hold of American cargo planes, with several falling to their deaths.

Today, on Fire Watch, we have two members of the generations that fought those two wars speaking with us – one, a retired Marine Colonel who served in Vietnam and the other, an active duty Army officer who was in Kabul, Afghanistan in the final days of that conflict.

We asked them to reflect on those two campaigns, how they view them personally and how they assess the cost to service members and its impact on the military community. One has had decades to process what the war meant. The other, only a single year.

We asked the same questions about their experiences on fighting a seemingly never-ending counter-insurgency. We asked them some different questions too – because the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam are not the same, but the endings of each are too strikingly similar to ignore.

The opinions expressed by service members in this episode do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the Department of the Army. They are reflective of the individual’s own experience.

This episode depicts instances of combat.

Main Topics

• Drew F. Lawrence, Afghanistan and Vietnam
• Mark Cancian, Marine and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies
• Lt. Col. Heather Reilly, Army officer
• Congressman Seth Moulton (D-Mass.)
• Hosts Drew F. Lawrence and Rebecca Kheel talk with Managing Editor Zach Fryer-Biggs about other important military stories for August 26.

Additional Resources

• One Year On, Afghans at Risk Await Evacuation, Relocation
• Reports: At Least 13 US Service Members Dead After Two Bombs Are Detonated Next to Kabul Airport
• Was the Fall of Afghanistan Inevitable? We Asked 8 National Security Experts

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Transcript:

SPEAKERS

Zach Fryer-Biggs, Army Presenter, President Richard Nixon, Lt. Col. Heather Reilly, Drew Lawrence, Mark Cancian, Congressman Seth Moulton, Rebecca Kheel

President Richard Nixon

Your steadfastness and supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible. I know that you would not have wanted that peace jeopardized. The important thing was not to talk about peace, but to get peace, and to get the right kind of peace. This we have done.

Drew Lawrence

That was President Richard Nixon in 1973. Addressing the nation about the end of the war in Vietnam, a 20 year conflict that embroiled US forces in a vicious counterinsurgency campaign in the name of American ideals. That description and parts of Nixon's address can be recycled to today, a year after US forces withdrew from Afghanistan. But one thing Nixon said, addressing those at home should give you pause,

President Richard Nixon

would not have died and suffered in vain. And so that were this generation knew war, the next generation would know peace.

Drew Lawrence

The next generation after Vietnam did not know peace. The children and grandchildren of those veterans fought very much the same war, a different country, a different people with different ideals and cultures, not only for Vietnam and Afghanistan, but for the United States to both military campaigns have also been defined, at least for now, by the images of a disastrous evacuation, and ambiguous future for the people left behind in moral injury to those who experienced it all.

Army Presenter

With an airstrip at duck toe under constant attack by 120 millimeter rockets. I've Ivy slugged it out with surrounding sharp pitched fights against a shrewd, well trained entrenched enemy.

Drew Lawrence

Those were the sounds of the two wars. And today you're going to hear from two people who served in each one was promised a future of peace for the next generation, and the other a member of that next generation for whom peace did not last. For Military.com, my name is Drew Lawrence. It is August 26, and this is Fire Watch.

I interviewed Mark Cancian, he's a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But before that, he lived another life as a Marine, a retired Colonel to be specific who served in Iraq, Desert Storm, and Vietnam where as a young officer, he saw fleeing aircraft crash into the vicinity of his ship as the evacuation of Saigon clambered on. And I also spoke to Lieutenant Colonel Heather Reilly. She's a logistics officer. And last year, on this day, she was in Afghanistan with 82nd Airborne Division staring down the end of her own war after preparing her unit for what became an intense end to U.S. conflict in Afghanistan. We asked Mark and Heather the same three questions to start off -- an opportunity to compare their answers shaped by their personal experiences of conflict separated by decades, but ones occupying increasingly similar space and public consciousness. The interviews break off from there. Have a listen. So my first question, and I guess this is kind of a universal one. Describe how you felt when you were going over? And what did you do to prepare?

Mark Cancian

I mean, I went over for the evacuation. And I have to say, I was young. I was whenever it was 24, I think, no, and I was young and excited to be on the front stage of history if, you know, only for a short period of time. So I mean, I did not feel depressed. But of course, you know, I had not, you know, been there during the darkest days, you know, when people, you know, lost a lot of friends and the United States took a lot of casualties. I mean, it was probably March, I think, of 1975. You know, we were, we were actually up on mainland Japan, we had been training up at the Mount Fuji training area. And, I mean, everybody knew what was going to happen. The only question was, when and how. So we were watching this very carefully. And we knew that, you know, we might be mounting out. And then, you know, one day they call came, you know, to, you know, to load up and, you know, classic military, you know, I mean, hurry up and wait, you know, everybody, you know, threw everything on the trucks, you know, went down to the, in our case the port and waited,

Drew Lawrence

And here's Heather's response...

Lt. Col. Heather Reilly

So anyone who's spent time in the 82nd Airborne Division knows that your bags are are always packed. So I I think we knew it was coming. But I just didn't really know when -- having three tours prior to that to Afghanistan, you always know you're kind of gonna leave on January 1 at 12 o'clock, and I'm going to be back on December 31 about noon you you see your family? And so this time it was a -- the alert? Well, I think it was on 12...yeah, 12 August, we got the green Corvette. And what that really meant was marshall and be ready in two hours. So you didn't have time to think you kind of went into a muscle memory this is where I need to be at this hour at this time and then I was told to get on a get on a helicopter and flew to Joint Base Charleston to get on a C 17 and to fly straight into HKIA. So time to think wasn't really there and so a lot of thoughts, you just, it was unknown. As a logistician I had no idea what was on the ground, kind of what we were going into so that was new. So that was a little bit of a concern. And just, you know, how are we going to feed and fuel and take care of our own paratroopers while we do the mission that we were being asked to do.

Drew Lawrence

For you, what was the defining moment of that evacuation?

Mark Cancian

These people were desperate, you know, as they were in the, I mean, every everything you saw in the Kabul airport, we saw in the South China Sea. I mean, it was, you know, heart rending. I mean, just give you one example, there was a...like a Cessna was like a four passenger aircraft, small aircraft, that came out and circled our ship. We were on a amphibious ship. And a circle the couple of times, but you know, it had no way of landing and couldn't land on the carrier either, because it wasn't equipped to do that. So it came in to crash land next to us. So it came in and it came in slow, it hit the water and unfortunately, it flipped. And one person got out, three people went down. So there were a lot of scenes like that people really desperate to get out.

Lt. Col. Heather Reilly

I think it was the day we left. I left on 31 August about 10:30 in the morning. And standing on the flightline I think that's when it really hit me the magnitude of what we just did and what it really meant to the world. As that night the final evacuation would happen just about midnight, where the last US troops would would leave Afghanistan. So I think just looking at the mountain range, standing on the flight line at HKIA. It really sunk in that, that this was it.

Drew Lawrence

When you returned to the States, what did you expect to return to? And I guess, what was the reality that you actually experienced?

Mark Cancian

I mean, a lot of people wanted to put a sort of a political spin on, you know, what was really a humanitarian tragedy again, as it wasn't Kabul, I mean, sure, some of the people, many of the people probably in Kabul, you know, were government employees. And, you know, some of them might even have been rich, you know, but, you know, that's, this wasn't about rich people fleeing Kaboul, it was about, you know, a lot of ordinary people, you know, wanting to get away from, you know, a regime they found abhorrent. It actually, for personal for me, personally, it was a little odd, because, you know, I had come out of a university, and and people just would just sort of, couldn't understand why I did this, you know, I mean, why didn't you go to law school like everybody else, you know, why do you in the Marine Corps, you know of all things, you know, and again, try to put a political spin on it, you know, "Oh, it must be you must support the war, you must be a conservative,' you know, you might and I said, 'Well, no, we I mean, no, no, those are really true.' You know, I mean, I felt they wanted to serve my country. And, you know, frankly, it was tired of writing 20 page papers. So, I mean, just making people understand that was hard, you know, doing something that needs to be done. And, to be perfectly honest, that was 24 years old and looking for a little adventure.

Drew Lawrence

Also, you might hear how there's pet rattling around somewhere in the background.

Lt. Col. Heather Reilly

I would say no, I feel like it was it was returning like kind of every other tour. You know, the pomp and circumstances of the chain of command meeting the planes at the, at Pope airfield or Joint Base Charleston, where we came into this time. There was no, there was no difference in in exactly what happened it was the same thing that happened on every other deployment. I would say the feelings of accomplishment and what we did and the magnitude of what the entire team did, right. So it was a joint effort, the Air Force, the Marines, the Army -- we were all there on the ground together, coalition forces, and really the camaraderie and the friendships that were forged. So it was really no different than really coming home from any other deployment for me, for me.

Drew Lawrence

For Mark, I also wanted to ask him about some things specific to his experience in Vietnam. And given his experience in hindsight, what he might offer to veterans of the war in Afghanistan. You've had some time to think about the withdrawal from Vietnam. And now that you've witnessed the withdrawal from Afghanistan, what do you see as some of the main differences and in similarities between the two conflicts?

Mark Cancian

Oh, well, as I noted, the, there are a lot of similarities, you know, about the length of the war, the weakness of the ally, the indecisiveness of fighting. And then the eventual tiring and abandonment. One huge difference is the attitude towards the warriors. And I think we have learned something since Vietnam. You know, the, it may or may not be quite true that Vietnam veterans were spat on, literally, but it was certainly true metaphorically. You know, that is that. You know, though, it was hard for many people to separate the war from the warriors. And you know, and a staple of, you know, Hollywood movies for literally decades, you know, was was the disturbed Vietnam vet, you know, somebody came back from the war was damaged, you know, by that experience, and we've learned from that experience. And as a result, I think there's much more willing willingness to separate the warriors from the war.

Drew Lawrence

And for Heather, I want to ask her some questions about her experience in Kabul, she had an incredibly important role in preparing her unit to depart to Afghanistan on what is known as a no notice deployment. Can you tell me about that green Corvette notification you got last year -- and for those who don't know what it means -- can you explain a little bit about what it is? But looking back, does it mean anything different to you now have when you got that notification?

Lt. Col. Heather Reilly

So the the green Corvette, for those that don't know is -- the 82nd is the immediate response force for the nation. So you, you hear it called America's 911, when, when the President wants to put someone anywhere, within 18 hours, it's the 82nd that's ready to go. So you get the notification. It's a, it's 2022 so or 2021 so it came out in a text message to all of our phones, N-Hour I don't remember, but it's at N+2 so whatever the time the text came in, you had two hours to kind of assemble and report to your chain of command. And that was the first time I've ever received a green Corvette. And I have numerous years in 82nd, and I think five of my seven deployments have been with the division. So to get that text was was definitely a, this is different moment and we're going somewhere big. So it was it shocking is probably not the right word, but we were ready. So it was...we were ready for for what was about to happen.

Drew Lawrence

And I want to ask, you know, as a leader, you've probably been kept in contact with a lot of your your soldiers, you know, form the 82nd even though you're not there anymore. Were any of them struggling with the end of the war? And if so, you know, what were some of the things that you were able to do to kind of help them through its end?

Lt. Col. Heather Reilly

So I was the Division G4. So from a leadership perspective, I don't I didn't have troops under me like, like you wouldn't a normal, you know, battalion command, company command. But what I did watch and see from friends that I have deployed with previously was, you know, the anger, the was it worth it? Why did we go? People died for nothing. And I would say to all of that, that's just not true. Right? So I personally was in a vehicle suicide bomb in Afghanistan in March of 2010. And the soldier, my gunner in my truck, died that day. And his life was worth it. Right. So you, I would never say that he lost his life for nothing. He was serving his country and doing what the nation asked him to do. And I don't think the families of those that were lost in Afghanistan would ever want you to say that their son or daughter died for nothing. So that part bothered me the most kind of to see the anger and for people not to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of, of we absolutely we made an impact in Afghanistan. And if nothing else, we opened the door to democracy. We showed them what what they could be. And then you still have veterans groups today that are that are reaching back and still helping the Afghan community and helping evacuate.

Drew Lawrence

Now I know you said you're not feeling anger. But what are some of the feelings that you're experiencing with with the end of the war in Afghanistan now, a year out?

Lt. Col. Heather Reilly

It's, there's a lot of reflection, I definitely look back on the years that I spent there. Again, I think it was worth it, I think we did make an impact. The door had to shut at some point. And that the President said it was going to be one September 2021. So I, I believe in what we did, and I believe that it couldn't last forever. And it was a hard decision, I think, as a nation to say, it's time to shut the door, but I think it was time to shut the door.

Drew Lawrence

And you know at Military.com We've obviously talked to veterans and service members of the war in Afghanistan. And a lot of them, you know, have tumultuous feelings about it, and are looking for their resolution to the end of their own war, so to speak. For you. What does your personal resolution look like for the end of the war in Afghanistan? And really, how do you how do you find that peace? If you have it?

Lt. Col. Heather Reilly

I'm at peace, I think I think relationships matter. And it's important to stay in touch with those that you served in those type of situations with. Again, I was injured in Afghanistan in 2010, as a company commander, and the what makes me okay is the 200 men and women that I served with and that company for two years, I still talk to all of them. And so I think it's important to be able to lean on the team that you've served with and to be there for each other, kind of no matter what. So I may no matter what time of day or night, or what's going on, if you need me, please call because I will answer the phone and I will talk to you. So I think it's the everybody handles it differently, right. But I'm a I'm a relationships matter, I my grandmother raised me by herself. So I come from an extremely small family. And to me, the Army has been my family. And those men and women that I served with, I will continue to lean on them and call them and talk through kind of things that we saw or did and how are you feeling?

Drew Lawrence

You know, there are probably veterans and service members who may be listening to this. Is there anything that you'd want them to know, anything that you want them to take away from our interview here?

Lt. Col. Heather Reilly

That's a good one. Let go of the anger. It had to end at some point. And let the legacy of those that died. mean something to you and to those that follow you. Everyone that lost their life, it again, it counted, right? It's It was nothing that we did was a waste. And I think that to say that and to hold on to that anger that we just left is it's too much of a burden to bear. You have to get through that. So I just would say talk to people and let go of the anger and look where you can, you can continue to help.

Drew Lawrence

Next, you're about to hear an interview with Congressman Seth Moulton, a former Marine and Democrat from Massachusetts who last year with Republican Peter Meijer travelled to Kabul two days before the Abbey Gate bombing, a suicide bombing that killed an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 US service members.

But first, I want to acknowledge that the guests we have today represent one or two voices of a community that has many views and feelings about what happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan, as often as they are portrayed to be the veteran and service member community is not uniform in beliefs or feelings or ideals. A current service member who deployed to Afghanistan told me that he thought we shouldn't have left at all, that a small contingent of US forces should have stayed to "preserve important progress in regards to freedom and women's rights." One Afghan veteran who deployed a couple of years before the withdrawal said he saw the unceremonious collapse coming even then. He isn’t angry or bitter about the end he said but sad and tired.

With that my co-host and Military dot coms congressional reporter Rebecca Kheel spoke to Congressman Moulton this week about the withdrawal. Take a listen...

Congressman Seth Moulton

It's good to be here.

Rebecca Kheel

As you know, we're coming up on the one year anniversary of our final withdrawal from Afghanistan. As you reflect on the 20 years, we were in Afghanistan, particularly as we approach the anniversary of withdrawal. How are you feeling about our time there? What do you think legacy of that war is?

Congressman Seth Moulton

Well, I think that it will take probably several decades to determine the full legacy of that war. And there are a lot of people who are rightly asking the question now, was it worth it? There are really two ways, I think, to evaluate that one, has it made the United States safer? Has it improved our national security? And two? Has it left the people of Afghanistan better off? And you try to answer those two questions today, you can definitively say that we've been saved from foreign terrorist attacks for most of the last 20 years. It's hard to say that the Afghan people are any better off though they were certainly better off when we were there. So I think the legacy is yet to be determined.

Rebecca Kheel

We've talked to a lot of veterans who have told us they're living with a moral injury because of how the war ended. As a veteran yourself, can you relate to that? And what would you tell those other veterans?

Congressman Seth Moulton

Oh, absolutely. I mean, these veterans feel that way. Because we care. Because we care about the people we served with, we care about the mission. We care about the people of Afghanistan, and we care about our country. And there are a lot of reasons to be frustrated with the outcome of this war, everything from how it escalated into such a major conflict and the lives that were lost fighting for territory that we would ultimately just give up. Right up until the final days of that withdrawal when we left amazing allies heroes behind in our wake. And we still haven't gotten them all out. I mean, I know so many veterans, who are still working every single day on getting our allies home from Afghanistan, and it continues to be a priority of my team and my office.

Rebecca Kheel

I'm glad you mentioned that, because I did want to ask you about the ongoing efforts to evacuate Afghan allies. How would you assess the administration's efforts there now?

Congressman Seth Moulton

Well, first of all, let me just emphasize, this is a huge priority of our office, we have 1000s of cases that we've been working over the past year and beyond. Even before I came into office, I was working on getting translators out of Iraq and Afghanistan. And that work very much continues in both countries. I recently attended breakfast with other veterans in Congress, and the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, to press the administration on this issue, to encourage them to speed up the process to eliminate the bureaucracy. And they are making forward progress. But it is not fast enough. We need to do more, we need to do more quickly. Because the reality is that these amazing people, these, these people who risked their lives, not just for Afghanistan, but for the United States of America. They're getting hunted down by the Taliban as we speak. And we've got to get more of them out to safety.

Rebecca Kheel

You were critical of the evacuation last year calling it a disaster and at least one statement, having the hindsight of the past year, how would you describe it now?

Congressman Seth Moulton

A disaster. I stand by everything I said then. And I think that history over the past year has proven my assessment. Correct. It was a terrible disaster. It was a tragedy. That didn't need to happen. And we need to have a full accounting of not only what happened under the Biden administration with the botched withdrawal. But what happened over several administrations of presidents. I mean, ultimately, the tragedy of Afghanistan is the work of many leaders and several presidents. And we owe it to the American people and to our troops to have a full accounting of what happened. So we make sure that those mistakes are never repeated again.

Rebecca Kheel

You and Congressman Meyer famously traveled to Kabul during the height of the evacuation. At the time you defended the trip against criticism, including from Pentagon officials that it pulled resources away from the mission. Again, with hindsight, particularly knowing that the Navigate bombing happened a couple days later. Do you still think the trip was the right call or is there anything you would have done differently?

Congressman Seth Moulton

Oh, absolutely not. It was 100% the right call, I wouldn't have done a thing differently. And of course, the Pentagon was completely lying about the idea that we were pulling away resources, we ensure that we were not, we insisted on going out on a flight that was not full. And we came in on a flight that was nearly empty so that we did not take a single seat from an afghan. And we demanded that they not provide us an escort of, of troops who were on duty, because it would pull them away from the critical work that they are assisting Peter, and I can also attest that there are probably hundreds of Afghans that we were able to save directly because of our trip there. But more importantly, we were doing our jobs, as United States members of Congress, we were providing the oversight that successive congresses had failed to provide in this war. So there's absolutely nothing that I would do differently. And we expected the criticism, of course, depending on didn't want people to know, what was really going on.

Rebecca Kheel

We already discussed the administration's ongoing efforts to evacuate Afghan allies. But is there more Congress could be doing right now. In particular, I'm thinking of the Afghan Adjustment Act of which you are a co sponsor. What do you think are the chances that that bill?

Congressman Seth Moulton

Yes, the Afghan Adjustment Act allows certain Afghan evacuees to apply for permanent status after one year of being paroled into the country. That's a lot of immigration terminology. But the bottom line is that it relieves the immediate burden on the SIV process to process the Special Immigrant Visa process and ensures that these heroes that we get to America can actually lead successful lives here and contribute to the American economy, to their American, their new American communities. Unfortunately, Republican anti immigrant politics are getting in the way of getting this passed. And although you have amazing advocates like Republican Peter Meyer, who, of course, is a co sponsor of the bill as well, you also have anti immigrant Republicans who are trying to make a political point in an election year. And as a result, they're putting 1000s of lives at risk.

Rebecca Kheel

So it sounds like you're pessimistic about the bill's chances?

Congressman Seth Moulton

Well, look, I'm just being honest, I'm realistic, that there's there's been a lot of times when, you know, I, ideologues, especially on the far right, have gotten in the way of doing the right thing by our troops. I mean, you saw many of these same Republicans vote against the pact act, just recently, the pact Act, is the piece of legislation to address all of us who have experienced medical issues from the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's something that was a bipartisan bill widely agreed upon, and yet, a lot of Republicans voted against it voting against our troops. So unfortunately, I'm afraid we're gonna still continue to see this kind of politicking. And what we need to do is get a core group of Democrats and Republicans who can rise above this petty partisanship and do the right thing by our troops and our Afghan allies.

Rebecca Kheel

Is there anything else you want our listeners to know as we reflect on the war and the anniversary of the withdrawal?

Congressman Seth Moulton

I want the troops, the veterans of Afghanistan who are listening to know that your sacrifice wasn't in vain. That this war in so many ways, is a tragedy, but the legacy of Afghanistan has yet to be determined. And that's why it's so important that we don't forget our troops. And we also don't forget Afghanistan itself. We still have work to do there, even though the United States has withdrawn. And I think in many ways, the work that we do over the coming years getting our allies to safety, ensuring as much as we can, the safety and success of the Afghan people the future that we help through our diplomacy to chart for that country. All of that work will help determine the ultimate legacy of our time they're.

Drew Lawrence

Coming up next, we have our reporter roundtable so stick around. And if you'd like this podcast you also might like the PCS podcast, which is hosted and produced by our executive editor Amy Bushatz. She gives you the tips and tricks for your next military move. Thanks for listening.

Rebecca Kheel

Hello, everyone. It's Rebecca Kheel again, the Congressional reporter at Military.com. And I am here in person with Drew Lawrence and our editor, Zachary Fryer-Biggs. So great to see you guys.

Drew Lawrence

It's good to be seen.

Zach Fryer-Biggs

I feel weirdly authoritative given that sort of introduction. So just say that I did not demand that we provide such a warm intro.

Drew Lawrence

He did, we weren't recording when he didn't demand it.

Zach Fryer-Biggs

I'm not sure like where this is going. pleasure to join you in the case in for this episode, and you know, to have both of you here at my house.

Rebecca Kheel

Well, thank you so much for having us here. And Drew your report at the beginning of the podcast about the parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam was really striking. It is kind of amazing how many parallels there are in the way those two wars ended at least.

Drew Lawrence

No, I appreciate it. And Heather brought up a really good point. Actually, she she just tweeted about it. But, you know, the the experiences after Afghanistan are not uniform for, for everyone. She had told me that, you know, really, she had some harrowing experiences in her military career. But, you know, she, she felt okay, at least at the surface, coming out of them. Whereas that might not be the case for for a lot of other people. But, you know, I thought it was a great comparison. And I thought your interview with Congressman Moulton was great, too. So I appreciate you doing that.

Rebecca Kheel

Yeah, thank you. And thanks again to Congressman Moulton for sitting down with us to do that. Changing pace just a bit, we got news, past week or so that the Marines are going to be moving away from the tape test that they have long used to measure body composition and they're going to start using X rays and some other more modern technology. This comes after a year long study that determined that technology was a more accurate way to measure their body composition. Seems like that could benefit Marines' careers. Drew, how do you think that'll benefit?

Drew Lawrence

I actually don't think it would. To be honest, I mean, you know, the, a lot of the times when they're the stories that come out about, you know, tape tests and getting rid of them. You know, it's it's more an indicator of inaccurate body fat composition test. But the thing is, is, you know, there's the I know, the Army had done like the bod pod or the body pod. And a lot of the times like, if you had passed the Army's tape tests, you wouldn't pass the the bod pod test. And sometimes vice versa, even though it was more accurate test. You know, that could be the case here with the Marine Corps.

Zach Fryer-Biggs

So what I'm curious to see whether this has an impact is on a little bit of the cultural element that goes into meeting the tape test. I know, you know, Task & Purpose, had a really good story, probably a year ago at this point, but about eating disorders among service members, and just the sorts of just unending pressure. So I am curious, your I mean, Drew you obviously served, did you see that pressure weighing on people to sort of meet the tape test? Was that something that really was on the front of people's minds?

Drew Lawrence

Yeah, I mean, you know, it came around every time, there was a physical fitness test. I mean, that's usually when the tape test coincided. And, you know, there were a lot of soldiers and in from, you know, reporting, this was, you know, across the services, where they would engage in very unhealthy behaviors to meet the tape test, whether it be, you know, taking laxatives or actually, you know, dehydrating themselves to, to lose weight. And the interesting thing is that I don't think a lot of people know, is that, you know, eating disorders is a very underreported diagnosis in in the military overall. But it is it is something that is tracked by Veterans Affairs and something that service members can be compensated for if they've been if they've been affected by some of these policies that may cause them to have an eating disorder while in the service.

Zach Fryer-Biggs

And I think, you know, if we look at the change that the Marine Corps actually put in place, which is this change is not so much that the tape test is no longer going to be administered. It's that they're not going to punish Marines, they're not going to have negative consequences of the careers solely based on the tape test, which definitely speaks to retention recruitment, trying to trying to keep Marines in and given the current climate as reference. That's, that's a big deal. Um, so I also wanted to pivot to talking about another big story that came out of the Marine Corps in the last couple of weeks. It started off with The Air Force decided that they were going to ground their V-22 Osprey, it's, you know, this, this is the sort of futuristic flying helicopter plane thing that has these tilt rotors. And is, it's much more significant to the Marine Corps than it is the Air Force. But the Air Force went ahead and decided they were going to ground them because of an issue with the clutch. I'm not a mechanic, I'm not sure I fully understand what happens. But there's a potential issue where it's going to really do damage to the crankshaft between the two engines. As I understand, the Marine Corps turned around and said, 'No, we've known about this issue for a while we're okay with it, our pilots will be fine.' And I think it's it's sort of a fascinating window into very different attitudes from the services over that particular aircraft. You know, I do think that this aircraft is particularly important to the identity the Marine Corps, right? Marine Corps gave up its tanks recently, it's given up a whole bunch of different equipment. This is the rotary wing aircraft that it fought for, for years, despite that troubled development record, despite efforts to kill it pretty much at every opportunity the Marine Corps fought because this was going to be a critical part of their fight moving forward. And they kept it and now we have the Air Force, I think faced with the safety issue saying, Not worth it, we're gonna put it on the ground, we'll figure it out. And the Marine Corps, who's been through this issue in the past, in terms of safety problems deciding No, we're gonna we're gonna keep it in the air, we're gonna keep flying, and we'll teach our pilots to work around a major mechanical issue.

Rebecca Kheel

I mean, I hate to keep coming, coming back to the recruitment and retention issue. But if you're right, you know, think of joining the military. And you see, the Air Force is talking about this aircraft is dangerous. And the Marine Corps says, you know, no, it's not, we're not going to ground it. What do you think? How does that affect you? You know, do you think, you know, you say it's central to the Marine, the aircraft is central to the Marine Corps, I don't need and that might be a recruitment tool in and of itself. But also, you know, you have to kind of think, does the Marine Corps care about my safety.

Drew Lawrence

So I wanted to talk about another Marine story. And this one's in a completely different direction because it has to do with January 6 and the string of court cases and sentencing and convictions that we've seen, really, in the recent months, I feel like there's been an uptick. But this week, our deputy editor, Travis Tritten, had a really great story about this former Marine combat veteran, his name's Jacob Fracker, who -- he was also in the Virginia National Guard -- but he received a pretty light punishment in part due to a plea deal that he struck with the Department of Justice, that kind of told on someone who was seemed like a, you know, as he has he put it a dad, a father figure, who's also in the Army. His name was Thomas Robertson. And it just, you know, it's another, you know, sentencing and other conviction in this kind of long string of January 6 at court action that we're seeing.

Zach Fryer-Biggs

But I do think this case stands out for a number of reasons. You mentioned the dynamic between the two, there, Fracker and Robertson. Robertson, also, according to prosecutors lied about his service record and exaggerated some of his credentials. Obviously, Stolen Valor is a pretty big deal in the community and it does appear at least according to Fracker said this in his as part of his plea agreement that that background made him differ in some ways to this older vet. And in some ways, it sounds like that trust was abused. And it led the two of them to the capitol and to participating in an effort to stop a peaceful transfer of power. And, you know, it led to a pretty dark place. But I do think it tells us a little something about the veterans community the way those who have served have a special relationship, a special trust.

Drew Lawrence

I do want to switch to something that's happening at Fort Bragg. And Rebecca, last time we talked, we talked about mold, and we also talked a little bit about Fort Bragg. This saga has continued Rebecca can you, like give us a little bit of the scope of this problem.

Rebecca Kheel

Well, I think last time we spoke about it, I kind of left it off on the note of there were still a lot of unanswered questions. And unfortunately, weeks later, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Steve Beynon, our Army reporter and Konstantin Toropin, our Navy reporter wrote a great article this past week kind of laying out just how many basic questions that the army can't answer about this situation. And it's really strong I think it's things like, where are you going to move these 1200? Soldiers? When are you going to move these 1200 soldiers?

Drew Lawrence

And just for those who who didn't tune in last time, can you lay out like what the, the issue was? Yeah. I mean, it's it's the same issue that happens every time. But just what happened...?

Rebecca Kheel

There is kind of a twist, because this time they did something because our reporter witness it. So basically, at Fort Bragg, there are barracks that have mold, as there are many installations. But in this case, the Sergeant Major of the Army, Michael Grinston, when didn't expect inspection, and saw that it was really egregious, and, you know, dress down leadership there, and Steve happened to be there, because he was working on a profile of Grinston at the time, and saw it and reported it. And then I think it was like the next day after we published Fort Bragg announced that they were going to do something about it.

Zach Fryer-Biggs

Yeah, no, I think not to pull back the curtain all the way. But there has been a long running at this point back and forth between our newsroom and the Army. We've been writing about this issue for several weeks and had received basically no answers to to your point. In fact, we ran a story, I think, yesterday ostensibly saying that there have been no answers. And I think it's a hard problem, right? It's 1200 soldiers. They don't know where they're going to put them. As far as I can tell, they legitimately don't know. And they had initially said they were going to try to move everybody within 30 days at this point. Now they're talking about end of September, but it's, there's not an easy solution. At the same time, we haven't heard anything. And we have talked to multiple soldiers who have said they don't know where they're gonna live. They don't know if they're gonna be able to live on base, they don't know if they're going to have to find housing in the local rental market, which is already lacking in inventory, and the allowance that they would be afforded for, it would probably not come close to covering the cost of their housing. So it's, it's a bad situation. It's a consistent situation in that there have been mold issues all around the country at bases, but this is one where there's been almost no transparency, it's been basically again, not to be too in the weeds in terms of the journalism process, but it's been almost impossible to get our questions answered. And that alarms me -- like that part of our job is we we call up, we ask questions, we get answers, we relay those answers to service members, to veterans, their families and when we can't get any answers it's not great. Honestly, the Army doesn't really know what it's going to do yet. And it's a hard problem. But yeah, we're gonna keep asking those questions. That's, that's the job. There's a reason I like doing this. I'm just honored to be able to do it with you two and the rest of our newsroom in terms of the work that you all are doing so yeah, it's not always fun and it's not always easy, but it's, there's a reason we do it.

Rebecca Kheel

Well, that seems like a good note to end on. Thank you for the rousing speech Drew and I will now go off and do some great reporting...

Zach Fryer-Biggs

Yeah, when are you filing?

Rebecca Kheel

Thank you so much to our listeners again for joining us and be sure to tune in next time.

Drew Lawrence

Thank you for tuning into Episode Four of Fire Watch. I want to thank our executive producers Zach Fryer-Biggs and Amy Bushatz, as well as my co-host, Rebecca Kheel and our wonderful guests. See you next time.